The euphemism is that his contract has been terminated. More news as it comes in. I will say this, that Jeffrey Immelt sure knows how to create jobs.
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for Olbermann to write a diary at dkos on what happened. Was he fired or did he ask to get out?
‘Countdown’ over as commentator, cable news channel end contract
NEW YORK — Commentator Keith Olbermann signed off his msnbc cable television show Friday night after nearly eight years.
“Msnbc and Keith Olbermann have ended our contract,” Phil Griffin, president of msnbc, said Friday.
“Msnbc thanks Keith for his integral role in msnbc’s success and we wish him well in his future endeavors,” Griffin said.
Video at the link
One owes respect to the living. To the dead, one owes only the truth.
AP, By David Bauder, January 21
NEW YORK — Keith Olbermann, MSNBC’s most successful and controversial personality for his outspoken liberal prime-time program, gave an abrupt goodbye to viewers and said Friday was his last show.
It was not immediately known if he quit or was fired. Olbermann did not address the question, and MSNBC said only that they and Olbermann had ended their contract. He signed a four-year contract two years ago.
“MSNBC thanks Keith for his integral role in MSNBC’s success and we wish him well in his future endeavors,” the network said in a statement.
A spokesman said Phil Griffin, MSNBC’s president, would not comment on Olbermann’s exit. Spokesman Jeremy Gaines would say only that the acquisition of NBC Universal by Comcast, which received regulatory approval this week, had nothing to do with the decision.
[...]
His exit was so sudden that MSNBC didn’t have time to change its ads; a “Lean Forward” promotion for the network featuring Olbermann aired within a half-hour of his final goodbye.
[...]
MSNBC announced that O’Donnell, who had frequently filled in for Olbermann before starting his own 10 p.m. show, will take over Olbermann’s time slot starting Monday. “The Ed Show,” with Ed Schultz, will move to 10 p.m. Cenk Uygur of the Web show “The Young Turks” will fill Schultz’s vacated 6 p.m. time slot.
TMZ says he was fired, and it had everything to do with the merger…
One owes respect to the living. To the dead, one owes only the truth.
While i don’t think the show was working well lately — and then comcast shutoff the analog signals to it naturally — whatever the hell year it was, 05 or whatever, he broke the sound barrier for awhile. Matthews drove em nuts with the Scooter Libby stuff and for a hot minute it seemed like you could actually run a fun counterprogram against the conservative wurlitzer.
And now my early suspicions about the whole idea of MSNBC (Microsoft, remember?!) come back around. Donahue, comcast, the war machine. Moar time for Patty Pat Buchanan and for the left dialectic, Mika Brzezinski. Too bad…
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Hongpong.com
From Raja’s article above: “he acquisition of NBC Universal by Comcast, which received regulatory approval this week, had nothing to do with the decision.” KO spoke up bravely about Iraq and torture, and other issues that the rest ignored. Hats off to him. I gave up on the talking heads years ago because there was no one griping about The Money Party. It’s all part of the duopoly freak show that pits the crazies against the sleepwalkers as though there’s a meaningful choice.
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The Money Party RSS
ready. Better options.
NY Post, By Michael Shain & Todd Venezia, January 21
Broadcast blowhard Keith Olbermann’s countdown has finally come to an end.
The liberal lip of MSNBC was unceremoniously dumped by the peacock network last night in a major shakeup that set tongues wagging across the broadcast world.
[...]
Sources said talks between MSNBC and Olbermann about his departure had been going on for weeks, but it’s not clear when the final decision to boot him was made.
[...]
Olbermann’s ouster comes just three days after government officials gave clearance for Comcast Corp. to take over NBC Universal. Last May, Comcast Chairman Brian Roberts [Wikipedia: On the board of the Bank of New York] was asked what he would do, once he took over, if Olbermann badmouthed any Republican members of Congress.
“Let’s have that conversation in 12 months, when we’re playing with live ammo,” he said darkly.
One owes respect to the living. To the dead, one owes only the truth.
Wasn’t it just last November when everybody in Netville had to gang up on the corp to give him back his job?
So many to save. So little time….
“”Those are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others.” ~Groucho Marx (1890-1977)
…Trying to remember why I have its domain disabled. Oh yeah, it’s servers seem to consistently provide safe haven for a variety of dastardly spammers, so bye-bye. But I’m just a stranger in a foreign land. For their own clientele they offer truly awesome customer relations. For instance, how can you beat this?
Oh yeah, then there’s the lobbying thing…
If being fired is in your cards, then it sounds like you should feel proud to be fired by this outfit.
“”Those are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others.” ~Groucho Marx (1890-1977)
Don’t know why you linked to the Immelt article here. But I found that more interesting.
Anyway…back to the KO-ing of KO…
I didn’t watch him that much recently, and when I did it was on the laptop, not the TV.
I found him too over the top. I can’t watch any of the screaming VJs/DJs either left or right for very long without getting the feeling that there’s some puppetmasters behind it all saying “we must entertain the proles, you scream at this guy, and then give him his turn to scream back at you. Ready, go!” Like the whole thing is a kind of politics as WWE show.
Which bring me back to this place. I like the Agonist precisely because it is NOT a bunch of screeching idiots. OK, sometimes Sean yells at us, but on the whole there’s a lot less noise-to-signal than on many of the political commentary sites. I miss the days of MSM where pundits carefully structured their arguments and at least tried to appear sane to the audience.
As for the Comcast/corporate takeover of the media – really who is surpised by that?
The only way I see the two articles linked to being similar, is that they both show the trend towards trusting corporations to rule every aspect of society.
Obama embracing Immelt, again is not surprising.
GE ..” has also made its presence known in Washington through lobbying: It spent $39.3 million in 2010, more than any other company, new Senate filings show.”
Obama is obviously courting the corporate sector, to add to his ongoing love affair with Wall-Street, obviously moves to strengthen up his position for 2012 re-elections. If Wall Street and Big Corporate gets behind him, he’ll pretty much be unbeatable, since that means virtually unlimited funding for his campaign.
Gone are the days when Obama is dependent on us sending in our $100 or less through Paypal. His people will still of course panhandle us to death, but it’s clear he’s thinking about much, much deeper pockets for the next round. The kind of deep that Goldman Sachs and General Electric have.
His new campaign slogan should be “Realism you’d better believe in.”
The more things change, the more they stay the same…
I forgot to mention, a week ago i was on a panel at Netroots Minnesota – it was aboot Radical Media work & so forth. Dems were not super interested but it turned out ok. God forbid they learn how to work with audiences of highly motivated people that have their own ways of messaging.
Anyway Sen. Franken gave a bit of a talk and was super depressed over the Comcast merger saying it would lead to Disney/Verizon etc. He musta known the FCC was about to r00l (r0ll?) on it.All the Dems were super depressed, if they don’t buck up it’ll be another stomp in 2012 for heavily psychological reasons. The GOP slips outta these reasons, they just get more ruthless when they’re down. :-/
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Hongpong.com
New York Times, By Bill Carter, January 22
On Thursday, NBC’s news division staged an elaborate presentation for advertisers, seeking to sell commercial time in NBC’s news programs over the next year. All the members of MSNBC’s prime-time lineup spoke at the lunch with one exception: Keith Olbermann, the network’s biggest star.
For the last several weeks, Mr. Olbermann and the network have been in negotiations to end his successful run on MSNBC, according to executives involved in the talks who requested anonymity because the talks were confidential. The deal was completed on Friday, and Mr. Olbermann made the announcement on his final “Countdown†hours later.
One owes respect to the living. To the dead, one owes only the truth.
Keith Olbermann announces debut date for his new show on Current TV [Video]
WaPo Entertainment, By Lisa de Moraes, April 26
Keith Olbermann’s new weeknight commentary show on Current TV will debut June 20, the network announced Tuesday.
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Olbermann’s new show also finally has a name. It bears a striking resemblance to the name of his old show for NBC Universal: “Countdown with Keith Olberman.†He decided to stick with that name…Here, let him explain it:
One owes respect to the living. To the dead, one owes only the truth.