Richard Nixon spent more than two years away from public life after resigning from office in 1974, but he granted David Frost an exclusive series of interviews in 1977. He was publishing his memoirs at the time, but his publicist Irving Paul Lazar believed that he could reach a mass audience by using television. Frost's New York–based talk show had been canceled some years earlier. Frost had agreed to pay Nixon for the interviews but the American television network news operations were not interested, regarding them as checkbook journalism. They refused to distribute the program and Frost was forced to fund the project himself while seeking other investors, who eventually bought air time and syndicated the four programs. The interviews were also broadcast on radio by the Mutual Broadcasting System.