By FRAZIER MOORE By FRAZIER MOORE ADVERTISING Associated Press NEW YORK — Keith Olbermann is looking for a new job after less than a year as a talk show host at Current TV. The left-leaning cable network announced just hours
By FRAZIER MOORE
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Keith Olbermann is looking for a new job after less than a year as a talk show host at Current TV.
The left-leaning cable network announced just hours before airtime on Friday that Olbermann’s show “Countdown” would be replaced with a new program called “Viewpoint” hosted by former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, beginning that night.
The sometimes volatile Olbermann came to Current in June as the centerpiece of its new prime-time initiative after a stormy eight-year stint at MSNBC — his second at that network— followed by his abrupt departure in January 2011.
Shortly after, Current announced his hiring — reportedly with a five-year, $50-million contract — as the start of an effort to transform the network’s prime-time slate into progressive talk. His official title was chief news officer, charged with providing editorial guidance for all of the network’s political news, commentary and current events programming.
In a statement, Current TV founders Al Gore and Joel Hyatt said the network was “founded on the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers. Unfortunately these values are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann and we have ended it.”
They offered no details, but it is known that the temperamental Olbermann repeatedly clashed with his employers. During the primary season he declined to host certain hours of election coverage and has missed a number of regular broadcasts, as well as complaining about technical problems he said undermined his show.
Current considered some of those missed shows to be in “serial, material breach of his contract,” terming them “unauthorized absences,” according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because that person wasn’t authorized to discuss details of Olbermann’s dismissal.
“We are confident that our viewers will be able to count on Gov. Spitzer to deliver critical information on a daily basis,” Gore and Hyatt said in their “open letter” to viewers.
In a statement posted online, Olbermann countered that “the claims against me implied in Current’s statement are untrue and will be proved so in the legal actions I will be filing against them presently.”
He said he had been attempting “for more than a year” to resolve his differences with Gore and Hyatt internally, “while I’ve not been publicizing my complaints.” Instead of “investing in a quality news program,” he said, his bosses “thought it was more economical to try to get out of my contract.”
He called his decision to join Current “a sincere and well-intentioned gesture on my part, but in retrospect a foolish one.”
The rupture between Olbermann and his bosses echoed Olbermann’s past employment history. At NBC there was ongoing friction between the brash host and his bosses, just as there had been at earlier jobs as far back as Olbermann’s star-making, often tumultuous turn as a “SportsCenter” anchor at ESPN in the 1990s.
Just weeks before his exit from MSNBC, Olbermann was nearly fired but instead was suspended for two days without pay for violating an NBC News policy by donating to three political campaigns.
