CBS fired radio personality Don Imus on Thursday, in the wake of outrage over his comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team. CBS followed NBC, which Wednesday canceled the MSNBC simulcast of Imus' radio show.

New York ? Don Imus’ racist remarks got him fired by CBS on Thursday, the finale to a stunning fall for one of the nation’s most prominent broadcasters.

Imus initially was suspended for two weeks after he called the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos” on the air last week. But outrage kept growing and advertisers kept bolting from his CBS radio show and its MSNBC simulcast, which was canceled Wednesday.

“There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society,” CBS President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said in announcing the decision. “That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision.”

Imus, 66, had a long history of inflammatory remarks. But something struck a raw nerve when he targeted the Rutgers team members – which includes a class valedictorian, a future lawyer and a musical prodigy – after they lost in the NCAA championship game.

A spokeswoman for the team said it did not have an immediate comment on Imus’ firing. The team met with Imus for about three hours Thursday night at the governor’s mansion in Princeton, N.J. Imus left without commenting to reporters, and the team did not immediately issue a statement.

He was fired in the middle of a two-day radio fundraiser for children’s charities. CBS announced that Imus’ wife, Deirdre, and his longtime newsman, Charles McCord, will host today’s show.

Original shock jock

The cantankerous Imus, once named one of the 25 Most Influential People in America by Time magazine and a member of the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame, was one of radio’s original shock jocks. His career took flight in the 1970s and with a cocaine- and vodka-fueled outrageous humor. After sobering up, he settled into a mix of highbrow talk about politics and culture, with locker room humor sprinkled in.

After his comments about the Rutgers team, he issued repeated apologies as protests intensified. But it wasn’t enough as everyone from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama to Oprah Winfrey joined the criticism.

The Rev. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson met Thursday with Moonves to demand Imus’ removal.

Jackson called the firing “a victory for public decency. No one should use the public airwaves to transmit racial or sexual degradation.”

Said Sharpton: “He says he wants to be forgiven. I hope he continues in that process. But we cannot afford a precedent established that the airways can commercialize and mainstream sexism and racism.”

‘More than Imus’

In a memo to staff members, Moonves said the firing “is about a lot more than Imus.”

“He has flourished in a culture that permits a certain level of objectionable expression that hurts and demeans a wide range of people,” Moonves said. “In taking him off the air, I believe we take an important and necessary step not just in solving a unique problem, but in changing that culture, which extends far beyond the walls of our company.”

It’s also likely to trigger a wider debate about expression and forgiveness. Some of Imus’ fans have pointed to inflammatory statements made by Sharpton and Jackson in the past, or in the lyrics of popular music.

Losing Imus will be a financial hit to CBS Radio, which also suffered when Howard Stern departed for satellite radio. The program earns about $15 million in annual revenue for CBS, which owns Imus’ home radio station WFAN-AM and manages Westwood One, the company that syndicates the show nationally. One potential replacement: the sports show “Mike & the Mad Dog,” which airs afternoons on WFAN.

The radiothon had raised more than $1.3 million Thursday before Imus learned that he had lost his job. The annual event has raised more than $40 million since 1990.

Rutgers’ team, meanwhile, appeared Thursday on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” with its coach, C. Vivian Stringer.