http://www.deadline.com/2011/01/nbcu-statement-msnbc-and-keith-olberman-have-ended-their-contract-last-show-tonight/http://www.deadline.com/tv/Officially, the Comcast takeover is next week. But word has been circulating for months now that the new owners have wanted to "tinker" with MSNBC and had many changes in store, including a right turn for the left-wing cable channel so that it represents both political points of view more evenly. It is well known that both Comcast chief Brian Roberts and NBCU chief Steve Burke have donated heavily to the Republican party with Burke more recently donating money to a few Democrats as well as heavily to Republicans. Roberts was a co-chairman of the host committee at the 2000 Republican Convention while Burke raised at least $200,000 for George W Bush’s re-election campaign.
Olbermann hosts the highest-rated program on MSNBC, which isn't saying much since that channel's ratings lag those of Fox News by a big margin. His Countdown averaged 1 million viewers, down a modest 10% from 2009. However, he's known as a very polarizing figure and a loose cannon, and became more and more of a liability for MSNBC. In November, he was briefly suspended for making Democratic campaign contributions -- and then reinstated. Olbermann's exit follows yesterday's departure of NBC primetime president Angela Bromstad in a housecleaning there.
NIkki Finke's perception by others:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki_Finkefounder and editor in chief and general manager of Deadline.com
Praise
In 2006, Finke's LA Weekly columns won First Place in the Alternative Weekly Awards for the category Media Reporting/Criticism, Circulation >50,000.<12> In 2007, Finke won the Los Angeles Press Club's Southern California Journalism Award for "Entertainment Journalist of the Year" with the judges commenting: "Reading Nikki Finke’s salaciously candid coverage of Hollywood and its inhabitants almost feels like a guilty pleasure. She mixes the news with fearless finger-wagging that’s just fun to read no matter the subject. She tackles the industry monoliths without the kiddy gloves and she seems to have command of the beat."<13> In the 2007 AltWeekly Awards, Deadline won Second Place.<14>
A studio executive said of Finke, "She's very, very, very, accurate, extraordinarily so—you have a supposedly private conversation with two other people, and it's on her site within an hour." Charlie Koones, former Variety publisher, called her a "once-in-a-generation talent".<10>
Criticism
Observers have questioned Finke's "harsh tone", "summary executions,"<7> "penchant for innuendo and unnamed sources", and allegedly giving better coverage to "her favorites"<4> and frequent sources, such as Ari Emanuel and Ronald Meyer.<10> In 2008 she was criticized for first posting a Sony press release and then adding her own analysis which contradicted the release without updating the time stamp, and in early 2009 she was accused of retroactively altering<4><7><10> a Deadline Hollywood Daily report about the director of the third Twilight film.<15><[br />