Will Keith Olbermann’s Firing Be His Salvation?

[gateley]

Keith Olbermann will celebrate unemployment by going on David Letterman on Tuesday night. Will it kick off a successful Glenn Beck-style postnetwork TV career, or be his first step toward obscurity? The Daily Beast’s Rebecca Dana examines whether Olbermann’s departure from Current TV will be his ruin or salvation.

It’s hard to know whom to root for in the coming legal showdown between Keith Olbermann and Al Gore, the former a widely reviled liberal polemicist who cannot hold a job in cable TV and the latter a failed presidential candidate who launched a cable network in 2005 seemingly just for the fun of running it into the ground.

The ground got a lot closer on Thursday when Gore canned Olbermann, at once his worst nightmare and his foundering Current TV’s last real shot at success. The former vice president and his partner Joel Hyatt put out a statement “to viewers” in the pre-weekend news hole of Friday afternoon accusing Olbermann of breach of contract, meaning they have no plans to pay out the $50 million they reportedly owe him. A source suggests the figure is actually much lower, and in any event, it includes an equity stake in a television network no one watches.

Well, not no one: Around 177,000 viewers tuned in to watch Olbermann’s 8 p.m. “Countdown” broadcast at Current on the nights he turned up to work to host it. (Gore and Hyatt accuse him of breach for refusing to anchor many nights, including such important ones as the Iowa caucuses.) By contrast, Olbermann was pulling in around a million viewers from his old perch at MSNBC, from which he departed acrimoniously just 14 months ago. According to a statement from Current, Olbermann will be replaced by prostitute-aficionado Eliot Spitzer, who was fired in July from CNN.

The anchor, who divided his time at Current between feuding with his bosses and tweeting pictures of the sunset, responded to the network’s statement via Twitter, accusing Gore and Hyatt of not upholding their end of the bargain and vowing to sue. “In due course, the truth of the ethics of Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt will come out,” he wrote.

It is hardly a shocking denouement to a relationship that seemed doomed virtually from the start. After luring Olbermann with praise and the promise of riches and autonomy early last year, Gore and Hyatt quickly found out that the big star they thought they bought actually owned them. According to network sources, Olbermann bristled at the amount of money being invested in his show. He was frustrated not to have ultimate authority over other network hiring decisions. A committed nondriver, he complained about his car service.

Tensions escalated into a crisis in the fall of 2011, and Gore found himself pleading with Olbermann to stay at the network and make nice. It didn’t work. Olbermann refused to participate in Current’s election night coverage, and when the New York Times broke the story, it threw Current’s internal dysfunction into public view. When I asked network president David Bohrman, a successful and well-liked veteran of CNN, how it was possible to build a network around a person who threw tantrums and refused to take executives’ calls, his reply was “Keith is a unique guy.” That was two months ago.

What will happen now that unique Keith and flailing Current are splitting up? Perhaps the separation will revitalize each side. Or perhaps both will end up on parallel glide paths to obscurity.

Before he took the Current gig, Olbermann gave some indications he was planning to go out on his own, as Glenn Beck has done quite successfully since his parting from Fox News. Olbermann has a fierce and adoring core audience in his “Friends of Keith” and, for someone who has clashed bitterly with a string of bosses, it might be better to be self-employed. /snip

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[rustydog]

1. Olbermann had a decent show. His ego overloaded everything else and he now has lost

two jobs.

Think the problem might be Keith and NOT Al Gore?

[Broderick]

2. 4

[Johonny]

14. more than two

He ran himself out at ESPN, FOX, MSNBC and now current. That's just what I remember. Needless to say he has a reputation as a bit of a news DIVA. It's hard to think where he ends up now as he's burned so many bridges. He might go the online rout and simply control his own show. Heck why not radio. Liberal talk radio lost it's best people to TV lately, it could use someone.

[MADem]

3. This is CURRENT's year to grow their viewership. KO wasn't helping.

If you aren't reliable, you aren't a good bet.

He needed to either lead or follow. He couldn't do that, so best that he get out of the way--or be pushed out of the way. His drama was tiresome.

I really don't care what he does. Clever commentary doesn't mitigate pissy or childish conduct.

[got root]

4. KO reminds me a lot of Steve Jobs

He needs to do his own thing, he is a talent with very high standards that will pay off hugely if given free reign, imho.

[Snake Alchemist]

5. "Keith's job is not coming back" nt

[lonestarnot]

6. LOL. I'm waiting as I could never get the fucking current channel. So

staying out of the flapperoo. Waiting for Keith to appear in a forum on the TV box that I can access. Hope that fucking happens now!

[Logical]

7. Olbermann needs mental help to to solve his ego problem. I love him but he has issues.

[Pisces]

8. This will not be Keith's salvation. He lost at least half of the few followers he had at Current.

Every liberal wanted Current to work out, and every liberal hoped Keith was going to help develop it. Instead he threw tantrums
because he didn't have the right set???? He should have been able to sit in a white room with a microphone and get people
to watch. He was the talent!!! This was a start up operation. What the hell do you expect from a start up. I use to like Keith but
he has lost me forever, and I know that I am not alone.

[Botany]

9. In 2004 KO stepped forward and covered the theft in Ohio in the election and ....

... has done some wonderful cutting edge reporting and commentary but
from everything I have read and heard he was a first class pain in the ass
@ current TV a network that was going to be built around him and a network
that hired many of Keith's co workers from MSNBC. I can no longer defend
him or his actions. KO's biggest problem is w/ KO.

[gateley]

10. Yeah, it became All About Keith. He has done some excellent stuff, and I credit him for getting

more of us to tune and and pay attention, but he has to realize there are bigger problems we face than making sure that his ego is fed.

It doesn't sound as though this will have ''taught him a lesson". I'd love to see him come out, apologize and admit that his ego took him down and got in the way of presenting needed content on CURRENT. I don't see that happening, though.

[jonthebru]

11. This is meant to be positive.

But some people are unemployable. Their characters lead them to be in charge and really should be self-employed.
I wish Keith the best and I wish Current the best.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

13. Well said.

Neither man may be to blame. What may be to blame was the situation. Maybe Keith does need his own hill to be the King of.

[MrScorpio]

12. KO clearly needs to be the king of his own mountain

I hope that he gives that a shot

[Douglas Carpenter]

15. just because a person is a talented entertainer with progressive politics doesn't mean they can't be

an asshole. The world is full of them.