Was Comcast Behind Keith Olbermann’s Exit from MSNBC?

[Joanne98]

Correlation isn’t causation, as they say in the sciences. But it’s hard to ignore the near simultaneity of Keith Olbermann’s departure from MSNBC, announced on the air tonight, and the approval of NBC Universal’s merger with Comcast by federal regulators, which happened earlier this week. Are the two connected?

For some time now, as I’ve reported, MSNBC president Phil Griffin and others at NBC News have wished themselves rid of the difficult, imperious “Countdown” host, but a simple fact got in the way: Olbermann is by far the network’s single biggest ratings-driver. Thus, Griffin has walked up to the edge — as when he suspended his star in November for making undisclosed political donations that embarrassed the network — but never quite jumped.

But Comcast has its own calculations. An intrinsically conservative corporation, it’s not overly friendly to congenital boat-rockers like Olbermann. In fact, one such individual, a former employee named Barry Nolan, sued Comcast last year, saying the cable operator fired him in order to protect its relationship with News Corp., which owns the Fox News Channel. Nolan had publicly protested an award given to Bill O’Reilly, Fox News’s biggest star. Noting that Olbermann has also frequently feuded with O’Reilly, media critic Dan Kennedy predicted last year, “Keith Olbermann may prove to be Barry Nolan writ large.”

http://blogs.forbes.com/jeffbercovici/2011/01/21/was-comcast-behind-keith-olbermanns-exit-from-msnbc/?boxes=Homepagelighttop

[Skip Intro]

1. Really? Did they just fire him, on day two of ownership?

I just don't believe that. Maybe it was coming. Maybe KO saw that it was coming. But just fired? With no replacement. I just don't buy that. If that is true, Maddow will be gone soon too. So will Ed. So will Lawrence. If that's what's going on, why just KO? Maddow is much more surgical in tearing apart the right. Her ratings are close to that of KO's. It just doesn't make sense that there's some Comcast dude who said, "yes! fire KO!" Fire our ratings leader. If that decision was made, it surely wasn't made on what is best for the network Comcast just bought. There is a lot more to this than that.

[csziggy]

4. It could be that the MSNBC bosses were anticipating the desires of Comcast

Or what they perceived that Comcast would want. Maybe some dictates came down from on high, Olbermann said, "No way." and the poo hit the fan. As KO made clear after the suspension last fall, he considered it to be against the terms of his contract. If the new attitudes at MSNBC were trending against what KO was willing to agree to, maybe he used this as an opportunity to get out of the contract. For one thing, with Comcast being as conservative as they are reputed to be, maybe he did not want to be a money maker for them.

Certainly, there was little planning for Olbermann's departure - the schedule still had Countdown listed for next week as late as 9:30 last night.

[slay]

5. Lawrence easily tows the line enough to stay

maybe the others will too - their jobs are on the line now - don't think they don't know this was a warning to them all.

Lawrence O'Donnel - 8pm - yeah, that sounds more like Comcast.
Rachel 9pm - lets see if she falls in line.
Ed - 10pm - he'll be gone pretty soon.
Cenk - 6pm - permanant? we'll see if he's anti-Obama enough for them without threatening their power structure.


That's what it looks like to me. Has Comcast written all over it IMO.

[xchrom]

2. That is an intriguing notion. Nt

[regnaD kciN]

3. Answer: we don't know...

It may be, as I speculated earlier, that the agreement back in November was that KO would be returning from suspension as a temporary "face-saving" gesture while the two sides worked out the contract settlement.

Or it might not.

However, whether Comcast had anything to do with it or not, I don't think it's a coincidence that this took place just after the FCC approved the merger. I would guess that word came out to Comcast to not do anything to "rock the boat" before the FCC had given its blessing. Even if this was entirely a GE/Phil Griffin decision, or one agreed-to by the parties back in November, could you imagine the fallout if this had happened last Friday? It would have thrown approval of the merger into question, and possibly killed it entirely.

[frazzled]

6. It's difficult to believe it's not related.

I still think allowing Comcast to merge with NBC was one of the worst decisions ever, and will have dire consequences. That said, Olbermann and NBC had had difficulties over the years. It's possible that this was a mutual agreement: Olbermann may not wanted to have worked for Comcast either. Or maybe he's been shaken up by recent public discussion over "civil discussion." Listening to the sign-off, however, it seems rather that he was "told" this would be his last show. It doesn't seem to have been a mutual decision.

He will apparently be paid his salary of $7 million per year for the remaining two years of his contract. And the insinuation that he would not be showing up anywhere else soon is the typical kind of "non-compete" agreement one has to sign if one wants to get this kind of kill fee. He could have forsaken that salary. But I can imagine he didn't see another host position in the offing anytime soon, anyway.

I'll admit that I was not an Olbermann fan for the last several years: I had really tired of his antics in many ways and found the show too chest-beating for my tastes. But I'm sorry to see it go down this way. Though you can't feel too bad for someone getting $14 milion dollars to stay home. It is his fans and the news that will suffer.

[leveymg]

7. Will Comcast put Bill O in Keith O's timeslot to "protect its relationship w/News Corp"?

Worst corporation in the world.

We barely knew ye, Keith.

[Ichingcarpenter]

8. “There are no coincidences”.

“There are no coincidences”. What this generally means is that, whenever something seems serendipitous, or appears to have come about by chance in a particularly orderly way, or contains an unlikely pattern reminiscent of something else, or is in any other way quirkily coincidental, then you can bet that there’s something deeper going on, something we’re not seeing but which has caused things to align themselves in such a pattern, something that deliberately made things this way.

Anytime something seems oddly out of place, or circumstances are just a little too “convenient”, you should be suspicious, and try to find out what’s really going on under the surface. There are no coincidences.

Now think.... why would NBC do this at the last moment during the final deal?
And claim its not related?