Chris Albrecht, the man who built HBO into a TV powerhouse, has been ousted by its parent company, Time Warner, after being arrested on Sunday on suspicion of assaulting his girlfriend in Las Vegas.

Mr Albrecht, the chairman and chief executive of Home Box Office (HBO) said on Tuesday that he was taking a leave of absence from the group, where he oversaw hits including The Sopranos and Sex in the City, to regain control of his alcoholism. Hours later, however, he made a second announcement, confirming that he had resigned “at the request of Time Warner”.

His resignation coincided with a report in the Los Angeles Times that in 1991 HBO had paid a settlement of at least $400,000 (£201,000) to a subordinate and former lover of Mr Albrecht after she accused him of shoving and choking her.

The upheaval comes at a crucial time for HBO, where Mr Albrecht was in the midst of drawing up a new slate of programming to succeed the broadcaster's mainstay hits, such as Six Feet Under and The Sopranos, which will end its sixth and final season next month in America.

That task will now fall to Bill Nelson, the chief operating officer of HBO, who will run the company until a permanent chairman is selected, Time Warner said.

The first new HBO show to be put to the test will be John From Cincinnati, a new drama based, like The Sopranos, on a dysfunctional family but set in the surfing haven of Imperial Beach, California. It will make its debut in the United States on June 10, immediately after the final scene of The Sopranos.

The success of HBO’s new shows will be key to Time Warner. The parent company’s televsion networks, which include HBO, the pay-TV channel, and Turner Broadcasting, generated revenues of $10.3 billion (£5.2 billion) last year, nearly a quarter of Time Warner’s overall sales.

Mr Albrecht, a former New York City nightclub proprietor and talent agent, became chief of programming at HBO in 1995 and chief executive in 2002.

Richard Parsons, the Time Warner chairman and chief executive, said of his Mr Albrecht's departure: “This is the right decision for the company.”

He added: “We thank Chris for all his contributions to Home Box Office over the years.”

Mr Albrecht was arrested for assault outside the valet car park of the MGM Grand hotel soon after 3am on Sunday, after police officers alleged that they saw him fight with a woman identified as his girlfriend.

He was booked into the Clark County, Nevada, jail early on Sunday on suspicion of domestic battery and was released soon afterwards.

On Tuesday, Mr Albrecht acknowledged that he had an alcohol problem, adding that though he had been sober for 13 years, he had recently slipped back into drinking.

Mr Albrecht said that he had resigned “for the benefit of my Home Box Office colleagues, recognising that I cannot allow my personal circumstances to distract them from the business”.

The LA Times story about the 1991 incident said that Mr Albrecht had been involved with a woman who worked for him at the time at HBO Independent Productions.

The company allegedly paid the settlement after an encounter that took place after the woman told Mr Albrecht that she was dating someone else.

The newspaper said that Jeffrey Bewkes, the Time Warner president, who has been tipped to become chief executive of Time Warner next year when Richard Parsons retires, oversaw the settlement.

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