In a format similar to his television shows, former MSNBC and Sportscenter anchor Keith Olbermann launched his new podcast Countdown With Keith Olbermann Monday.
In the final portion of the episode, Olbermann began a segment entitled “Things I Promised Not to Tell”, describing his ultimate demise at MSNBC. He detailed how his first show with the network in 1997 was the first to produce profit, before returning to the network in 2003 to launch Countdown. Profits for the political program ballooned to $100 million, Olbermann claimed.
But after the death of Tim Russert, things changed at MSNBC according to Olbermann. He said NBC News was then in the hands of “cowards and bullies” like Tom Brokaw and Joe Scarborough.
“By August of 2008, the Republicans were threatening Brokaw that if he did get me fired from MSNBC coverage of the Presidential election, John McCain would not show up for the debate Brokaw had inherited from the late Tim Russert,” Olbermann said. “So Brokaw went in and threatened –and that’s a nice euphemism — NBC management on behalf of the GOP just to get to host one more debate. Then he boasted about it in The New York Times.”
Olbermann said one of the contract stipulations offered to him to remain with MSNBC, rather than jump ship to CNN, was a position on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. The role would pair him with his former ESPN cohort Dan Patrick. But a meeting with the network’s Jeff Zucker before the 2010 season removed him from the show, and ultimately was a deciding factor in him leaving the network.
“The following portion is a pure hypothetical, which is really better designed for a college course in contract law,” Olbermann said.
“But, if in a case like this hypothetical, the guy doing, let’s say a hypothetical football show wasn’t actually being paid to do the hypothetical football show. If doing that hypothetical football show were a perk, if it were a non-cash payment or it were an incentive to sign a contract rather than to go to some other hypothetical network like CN-hypothetical-N, well then when that hypothetical announcer is taken off that hypothetical football show, the people who hypothetically took him off that football show have hypothetically breached his hypothetical contract and all the sudden the hypothetical company’s hypothetical lawyers are asking the hypothetical announcer how much money it would hypothetically cost them to hypothetically cure a hypothetical breach.”
Later in 2010, during the race to the mid-term elections, he was on the phone with now Senator Krysten Sinema (D-AZ) and she mentioned a few candidates running for office in Arizona who had appeared on Countdown had received death threats and were spending their campaign finances on security. Olbermann was asked if he could donate to the campaigns, so he did. He was suspended by the network. Former Vice President Al Gore, who owned cable channel Current, offered Olbermann a $50 million contract, plus bonuses and an ownership stake in the network, to move Countdown.
He then said, on the record the first time, he wasn’t fired from MSNBC, the show wasn’t cancelled, but he had been negotiating a settlement with MSNBC for breach of contract, while concurrently negotiating with Current.
Olbermann also made other revelations in his podcast debut. Borrowing a segment from his television shows, Olbermann listed off the Worst Persons In The World, including a nugget about the genesis of the Countdown brand at MSNBC.
“In 2003, MSNBC had decided on a new show called Countdown because the President of NBC News (Neal Shapiro) loved the name, and thought it would be cool to start with the least important story and build up to the most important story,” Olbermann shared. “Like, 57 minutes later — because that way — everybody would watch the whole hour.”
Olbermann then revealed he wasn’t the original host Shapiro had in mind for the Countdown brand.
“He was not going to give up on the idea that the perfect host for Countdown was… (former ABC News reporter/anchor) Sam Donaldson. There was an NBC contract with Donaldson’s name on it in circulation when MSNBC executives found out that ABC News had been trying to get out from under their contract with Sam Donaldson.”
MSNBC — Olbermann says– in a way to subvert the will of Shapiro, brought together a focus group put together by political and television consultant Frank Luntz to show the “other guy”, not Donaldson, was the best choice for the show.
“Now how do I know that? I was the other guy!” Olbermann revealed. “Presto! Frank’s focus group somehow came back with that exact conclusion. The offer to Donaldson was withdrawn. Coincidence, no doubt.”
Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a daily podcast partnership between Olbermann and iHeartMedia.
