Olbermann Leaves 'Countdown' on MSNBC
By BILL CARTER
Virginia Sherwood/MSNBC
Keith Olbermann in November.
12:05 a.m. | Updated Keith Olbermann, the highest-rated host on MSNBC,
announced abruptly on the air Friday night that he was leaving his
show, "Countdown," immediately.
The host, who has had a stormy relationship with the management of the
network for some time, especially since he was suspended for two days
last November, came to an agreement with NBC's corporate management
late this week to settle his contract and step down.
In a closing statement on his show, Mr. Olbermann said simply that it
would be the last edition of the program. He offered no explanation
other than on occasion "all that surrounded the show – but never the
show itself – was just too much for me."
Mr. Olbermann thanked his viewers for their enthusiastic support of a
show that had "gradually established its position as
antiestablishment."
In a statement, MSNBC said: "MSNBC and Keith Olbermann have ended
their contract. The last broadcast of 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann'
will be this evening. MSNBC thanks Keith for his integral role in
MSNBC's success and we wish him well in his future endeavors."
NBC executives said the move had nothing to do with the impending
takeover of NBC Universal by Comcast. With viewers and fans of Mr.
Olbermann suggesting that Comcast was responsible for forcing Mr.
Olbermann out, Comcast also released an official statement late Friday
night:
"Comcast has not closed the transaction for NBC Universal and has no
operational control at any of its properties including MSNBC. We
pledged from the day the deal was announced that we would not
interfere with NBC Universal's news operations. We have not and we
will not."
MSNBC announced that "The Last Word" with Lawrence O'Donnell would
replace "Countdown" at 8 p.m., with "The Ed Show" with Ed Schultz
taking Mr. O'Donnell's slot at 10 p.m. Mr. Olbermann did not discuss
any future plans, but NBC executives said one term of his settlement
would keep him from moving to another network for an extended period
of time.
Mr. Olbermann signed a four-year contract extension in 2008 for an
estimated $30 million. He had hosted "Countdown" at 8 p.m. since 2003
and it became the foundation of the channel's surge to its status as
the second-ranked news channel on cable television, after Fox News,
surpassing the one-time leader CNN.
Mr. Olbermann's outspoken, and sometimes controversial, support of
liberal positions and Democratic candidates redefined MSNBC from a
neutral news channel to one that openly offered a voice to viewers on
the left, much as Fox News has done for conservatives.
Mr. Olbermann challenged Fox News publicly on numerous occasions,
especially the top-rated cable host Bill O'Reilly.
Ratings for Mr. Olbermann's show grew, though he never approached Mr.
O'Reilly's level of popularity. But he helped expand the MSNBC brand
by his frequent invitations to Rachel Maddow, who was eventually
offered her own show on MSNBC.
Ms. Maddow became the 9 p.m. host following Mr. Olbermann and has
built such a successful show that some NBC executives felt less
concerned about losing Mr. Olbermann as the signature star of the
network.
According to several senior network executives, NBC's management had
been close to firing Mr. Olbermann on previous occasions, most
recently in November after he revealed that he had made donations to
several Democratic candidates in 2010 — one of them, coincidentally,
was Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who has been the subject of
many of his recent shows after being shot in an assassination attempt.
The top MSNBC executive, Phil Griffin, said the donations had violated
NBC News standards and ordered Mr. Olbermann suspended. His fans
responded with a petition to reinstate him that attracted over 250,000
signatures. Mr. Olbermann returned two days later. In his response he
said the rules on donations had been "inconsistently applied."
More:
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/olbermann-hosts-last-countdown-on-msnbc/?hp
Keith Olbermann out at MSNBC
By Greg Sargent
So Keith Olbermann is out. As best as I can tell, none of the news
accounts about his departure have gotten to the bottom of what
happened here. But Olbermann himself offered enough clues in his final
broadcast for us to reasonably speculate that he abruptly got the ax,
perhaps even as late as last night.
A "knowledgeable official" at MSNBC told Howard Kurtz that the
separation was "mutual." But it's hard to see how that squares with
this, from Olbermann's last words on Countdown last night:
"I think the same fantasy has popped into the head of everybody in my
business who has ever been told what I have been told, that this is
going to be the last edition of your show. You go directly to the
scene from the movie 'Network,' complete with the pajamas, and the
raincoat, and you go off on an existential, otherworldly journey of
profundity and vision...
"When I resigned from ESPN 13 and a half years ago, I was literally
given 30 seconds to say goodbye at the very end of my last edition of
"Sports Center." As God is my witness, in the commercial break just
before the emotional moment, the producer got into my earpiece and he
said, `uh, can you cut it down to 15 seconds, so we can get in this
tennis result from Stuttgart? So I'm grateful that I have a little
more time to sign off here."
Between this and the shell-shocked look Olbermann had last night, it
seems clear that he may have been abruptly informed that he was
history, perhaps even during last night's show. That would also square
with the experience of Josh Marshall, who was actually on Olbermann
last night and had no sense that anything was amiss.
We already know that MSNBC president Phil Griffin had been gunning for
Olbermann for some time now. MSNBC was reportedly close to firing
Olbermann on several occasions. Recall that during the ridiculous flap
over Olbermann's political donations, in which he responded to his
suspension with a show of public defiance, Griffin flatly told
Olbermann's representative: "We are at war."
Soon enough we'll have a clearer sense of why this happened, and we
can deal with it then. But for now, let's thank Olbermann for all his
hard work. He's rich, popular and has a huge following that's likely
to follow him to his next endeavor. He'll be just fine.
What of Olbermann's legacy? There's a great deal of crowing on the
right about Olbermann's apparent ouster. But let's be clear on what he
accomplished: He helped clear a huge space on the airwaves for
"unapologetic liberalism," as Steve Benen puts it, when it remained
anything but certain that such a space could be created with any
measure of success.
The unexpected popularity of Olbermann's show early on cleared the way
for MSNBC to stack its nighttime lineup with pugnacious lefty hosts.
Indeed, it was Olbermann who invited Rachel Maddow on repeatedly as a
guest, raising her profile to the point where she got her own show.
Olbermann, followed by Maddow, proved in the face of enormous
skepticism that there's a huge audience out there for real liberal
talk-show hosts to adopt the sort of take-no-prisoners approach once
monopolized by the right. Only they accomplished this without
descending into the crackpot conspiracy mongering and all-around
ugliness of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.
Indeed, there's already talk that CNN might be interested in picking
up Olbermann. While that seems unlikely, given CNN's more staid air,
the mere fact that it's being discussed at all shows how much he
helped change the landscape.
Olbermann may be gone, but the space he did so much to help create is
here to stay.
More:
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/olbermann-hosts-last-countdown-on-msnbc/?hp
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
No comments:
Post a Comment