Current TV sacks Keith Olbermann; legal battle looms

NEW YORK — Keith Olbermann was gone, a new host had replaced him, and history seemed to have repeated itself with his dismissal from Current TV after less than a year.

The left-leaning cable network announced just hours before airtime on Friday that “Countdown,” the show Olbermann had anchored on Current since June, would be replaced with a new program hosted by former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, beginning that night.

“Welcome to Current’s new 8 p.m. (Eastern time) show, ‘Viewpoint,’” said Spitzer, who had a short-lived talk show on CNN in that same time slot, where he briefly went up against Olbermann. He did not mention Olbermann on Friday’s premiere of “Viewpoint.”

The sometimes volatile Olbermann came to Current last year 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.

At the heart of his grievance with MSNBC, as he later explained it, was the media consolidation that he felt threatened his independence on the air.

In January 2011, Comcast Corp., the giant cable operator, acquired a controlling stake in Olbermann’s already huge employer, NBCUniversal.

The night of Jan. 21, Olbermann told his viewers he was leaving. He said, a bit cryptically, that “there were many occasions, particularly in the last two and a half years, where all that surrounded the show — but never the show itself — was just too much for me.”

After that, Current, the privately held network co-founded in 2005 by former Vice President Gore and Joel Hyatt, seemed the perfect fit: It is an independent media outlet.

“Nothing is more vital to my concept of a free media than news that is produced independent of corporate interference,” Olbermann said at the announcement of his coming to Current.

Current was then beginning its effort to redefine itself after ditching its original concept as the go-to site for viewer-generated short videos.

Since “Countdown” premiered, Current has fleshed out its prime-time lineup of liberals with “The Young Turks,” hosted by Cenk Uygur, and “The War Room” with former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

This week, it introduced a six-hour morning talk block, with live simulcasts of the radio programs “The Bill Press Show” and “The Stephanie Miller Show.”

Online:

www.current.com

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

Vehicles travel along Mukilteo Speedway on Sunday, April 21, 2024, in Mukilteo, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Mukilteo cameras go live to curb speeding on Speedway

Starting Friday, an automated traffic camera system will cover four blocks of Mukilteo Speedway. A 30-day warning period is in place.

Carli Brockman lets her daughter Carli, 2, help push her ballot into the ballot drop box on the Snohomish County Campus on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Here’s who filed for the primary election in Snohomish County

Positions with three or more candidates will go to voters Aug. 5 to determine final contenders for the Nov. 4 general election.

Students from Explorer Middle School gather Wednesday around a makeshift memorial for Emiliano “Emi” Munoz, who died Monday, May 5, after an electric bicycle accident in south Everett. (Aspen Anderson / The Herald)
Community and classmates mourn death of 13-year-old in bicycle accident

Emiliano “Emi” Munoz died from his injuries three days after colliding with a braided cable.

Danny Burgess, left, and Sandy Weakland, right, carefully pull out benthic organisms from sediment samples on Thursday, May 1, 2025 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
‘Got Mud?’ Researchers monitor the health of the Puget Sound

For the next few weeks, the state’s marine monitoring team will collect sediment and organism samples across Puget Sound

Everett postal workers gather for a portrait to advertise the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive on Wednesday, May 7, 2025 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Snohomish County letter carriers prepare for food drive this Saturday

The largest single-day food drive in the country comes at an uncertain time for federal food bank funding.

Everett
Everett considers ordinance to require more apprentice labor

It would require apprentices to work 15% of the total labor hours for construction or renovation on most city projects over $1 million.

Clothing Optional performs at the Fisherman's Village Music Festival on Thursday, May 15 in Everett, Washington. (Will Geschke / The Herald)
Everett gets its fill of music at Fisherman’s Village

The annual downtown music festival began Thursday and will continue until the early hours of Sunday.

Women hold a banner with pictures of victims of one of the Boeing Max 8 crashes at a hearing where Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III testified at the Rayburn House Building on June 19, 2019, in Washington, D.C. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
DOJ plans to drop Boeing prosecution in 737 crashes

Families of the crash victims were stunned by the news, lawyers say.

First responders extinguish a fire on a Community Transit bus on Friday, May 16, 2025 in Snohomish, Washington (Snohomish County Fire District 4)
Community Transit bus catches fire in Snohomish

Firefighters extinguished the flames that engulfed the front of the diesel bus. Nobody was injured.

Signs hang on the outside of the Early Learning Center on the Everett Community College campus on Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021 in Everett, Wa. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Everett Community College to close Early Learning Center

The center provides early education to more than 70 children. The college had previously planned to close the school in 2021.

Northshore school board selects next superintendent

Justin Irish currently serves as superintendent of Anacortes School District. He’ll begin at Northshore on July 1.

Auston James / Village Theatre
“Jersey Boys” plays at Village Theatre in Everett through May 25.
A&E Calendar for May 15

Send calendar submissions for print and online to features@heraldnet.com. To ensure your… Continue reading

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.