Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Media Stocks--Newspaper, TV, Radio, etc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MJ who wrote (404)	3/30/2012 5:29:13 PM
From: joseffy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 826

Current TV Dismisses Keith Olbermann By BRIAN STELTERMarch 30, 2012, 4:48 pm http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/current-tv-dismisses-keith-olbermann/ Current TV said Friday afternoon that it had terminated the contract of its lead anchor Keith Olbermann, scarcely one year after he was hired to reboot the fledgling channel in his progressive political image. Mr. Olbermann did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Current indicated that he had failed to honor the terms of his five-year, $50 million contract, giving the channel the right to terminate it. In a letter to viewers, the channel’s founders Al Gore and Joel Hyatt said Friday, “We created Current to give voice to those Americans who refuse to rely on corporate-controlled media and are seeking an authentic progressive outlet. We are more committed to those goals today than ever before. Current was also 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.” Mr. Olbermann will not be given an opportunity to sign off. Starting Friday night, the former New York governor Eliot Spitzer will take over Mr. Olbermann’s 8 p.m. time slot, according to the letter to viewers. His program will be titled “Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer.” This will be Mr. Spitzer’s second shot at an 8 p.m. talk show; in 2010, two years after he resigned the governorship after admitting to his involvement in a prostitution ring, he led a short-lived show on CNN. It was cancelled in mid-2011. “We are confident that our viewers will be able to count on Governor Spitzer to deliver critical information on a daily basis,” Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt wrote in the letter to viewers. With those words — “on a daily basis” — the founders of Current hinted at one of the reasons for Mr. Olbermann’s termination. It was the culmination, at least in part, of months of infighting between the famously temperamental Mr. Olbermann and his bosses at Current, including Mr. Hyatt, and David Bohrman, the channel’s president. The fighting spilled out into public view in January after Mr. Olbermann declined Current’s requests to host special hours of election coverage, apparently out of frustration about technical difficulties that had plagued his 8 p.m. program, “Countdown.” In January and February, Mr. Olbermann continued to miss many days of work, as he himself acknowledged on his popular Twitter feed. He attributed some of his absences to throat problems. But Current considered some of those absences to be breaches of his contract, labeling them “unauthorized absences,” according to a person familiar with the matter. The decision to dismiss Mr. Olbermann was unanimous among the senior managers of Current, the person said. Fourteen months ago, Mr. Olbermann abruptly left MSNBC, where he had worked for the prior eight years. There, he nearly single-handedly gave the channel an identity as a liberal counterweight to Fox News. Executives at MSNBC had no public reaction on Friday to Mr. Olbermann’s departure from another channel. credit to FUBHO