Countdown begins for end of Keith Olbermann's 'Countdown'?

Remember Keith Olbermann?

He was the one-time must-see anti-Bush ranter who helped rescue MSNBC (yes, it's still on at night) from even worse oblivion years ago.

Well, quietly last month while no one was looking, hardly anyone was watching Keith Olbermann anymore.

The guy, who's even apparently tried to get some Sarah Palin-like eyeglasses, is now forced to leap over-the-top on ex-state senators like Scott Brown and Tuesday's worst person, Fox News' Glenn Beck. Beck is the successful talker with the perfect haircut for radio. Like most Americans, he wasn't watching Keith.

There are a couple of reasons for KO's frustration and anger and volume and core meltdown over the Massachusetts election outcome, among other issues of galactic import. For one, lots more ranters around nowadays on all sides, including that colleague of Keith's with the hugest head in TV. Please, no 3-D for him!

Also, Olbermann's showboat is sinking. Listing in you-know-which direction.

It's as if he thinks talking LOUDER will keep his low cell battery from dying.

Worst, Olbermann's network president, Phil Griffin, is publicly praising him, always an ominous sign in television. While referring to his host almost in the past tense. "Keith has been our tentpole," Griffin says, adding later, "I'm pleased with where we are."

Where they are, as Jeff Bercovici points out over at Daily Finance, is way behind the big boys over at Fox News, Bill O'Reilly and gang. In fact, Keith is so far behind Bill, he can't even make out the state of the license plate, let alone the numbers. Bercovici thinks Americans may be outgrowing Olbermann's schtick.

In the most desirable TV demographic of 25-54, which Keith will soon outgrow himself, "Countdown" lost 44% of its audience from the beginning of President Obama's term until this year. It could have been worse -- say, 45%.

Olbermann averaged 268,000 viewers last month in that sector. That's just several thousand sets of those eyes more than Campbell Brown over on CNN. According to one count, Keith even finished in that time slot behind Nancy Grace. Nancy Grace!

And she's on Headline News, Headline News, the repetitious TV channel the repetitious TV channel inflicted on all U.S. airline travelers within any boarding area around the clock so that when, at least an hour late, each person is finally crammed into plane seats between professional wrestlers, they feel relief.

On the bright side, which everyone knows KO is fond of spotting, his MSNBC audience was only 696,000 viewers 24-54 behind O'Reilly, whose audience has grown 55%, according to Bercovici. Of course, it might be worse this month.

In the immortal words of Edward J. Smith, captain of the Titanic, "What iceberg?"

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Credit: Getty Images (photos shown roughly proportionate to audience size).

Comments

[Otis]

So Olberman's rating stink and then the object of his affection tells the world to stop watching cable news... sweet.

[Jeanne Harris]

It really isn't Keith's fault for flagging ratings & such--- it's the timid Democrats who are acting real stupid and cowardly; even Obama is a disappointment! Chicago politics used to mean something,Richard Daley is doing backflips!!

MAN UP! Or go home.

[Frank Tavos]

Hello Fred F posting@ February 04, 2010 at 03:40 AM:

What color is the sky on your planet?

[Gunter Rauche]

Reichsfuhrer Olbermann? Joseph Goebbels was nothing compared to him. Nein, Herr Olbermann is an uber-liberal! Javol, Herr Olbermann. Schnell! Seig Heil!

[Lynnie]

I worked with Keith in LA local TV and if his downfall occurs, it's his own doing. In the TV business, there are on-air people who, as our expression goes, "can't be produced:" they must dominate the creative process, won't take (or will battle you on) feedback or suggestions and ultimately make the working situation so difficult that we avoid dealing with them. We just sit back and let the person self-destruct. I've got a dusty file that includes a few multi-page single-spaced angry memos from Keith, cc:ed to various management types, criticizing me or arguing with me on true minutiae. And back then, I wasn't even that important. I just backed away from him and made our encounters as infrequent as possible.

I'm not saying MSNBC has brilliant production executives, but they certainly know from audience research what's working on the show and what's not. The fact that Countdown - a tentpole of MSNBC's primetime schedule - continues to lose ratings without showing any real fixes to its format/content points to its host's unwillingness to accept such fixes and/or their inability to make him see the need for improvement. That harkens back to the days in LA. Anyone in TV can see a number of basic problems with the show - including two outright vanity elements: Keith's increased commentaries, both in frequency and length (a segment in news programming in general that has never held up with audiences) and his ramped-up on-air criticism of people with whom he simply has personal grudges - and we know who's in charge.

There's a long list of very talented on-air people who simply blew themselves up and truth be told, Keith is far from the most difficult. Many of these people return to TV gigs because they might fit the need of a particular show and, in this business, Hitler would be given a talk show if he could sustain ratings. But with talent such as Keith, their reputations follow and, as I've seen firsthand, their habits return. Many even attempt to sabotage the operations, use willing media to play out their peculiar agendas or worse. And in most cases, they lose the support of colleagues and are left to swim...or usually sink...on their own.

[Milt]

Keith, who?

[Rebel]

KO. Goodbye and goodriddance. Go pack fudge!

[Sloegin]

Wow, conservative LA Times hack sez Olbermann is going down, and a bunch of trolls pile on. The whole 'Keith bein cancelled real soon now cause of his ratings' thing has been going on several years now. Wake me when it actually happens.

[Mick]

If KO's show was cancelled, would any one notice? You could fill the air time with a cardboard cutout and a loop tape of him crying and it would probably have the same number of people watching, Keith, his mom and their cats.

[Son of Bob]

MSNBC, please keep Keith Olbermann on TV! He is the perfect example to remind the rest of America how hateful and pitiful liberals are...while, of course, claiming to be the tolerant, civilized ones. His hateful, personal attacks on anyone who dares go against the daily democrat party talking points serve to remind everyone why liberalism is such a terrible disease.

[fred]

He is absolutely horrible on Football Night in America I hit the mute button when he does the highlights.

[hughwynn]

I cannot believe that msnbc is still on the air. The station that loves to Hate. They stand for everything that most people are against. They have the most obnoxious hosts and guests on tv. And Olbermann is the worst. My family will not watch the station let alone this loud mouth arrogant goof. I love when he posts his comment,like the 8 people watching really care about what he is going to say. It will be a very happy day when this clown is sent packing. he can take maddow and another arrogant idiot matthews with him. they can go to air america. oh no they were cancelled too. wake up olbermann. you wont even have a guest on that disagrees with you. you are gutless.

[Paul]

I watch KO every night... He explained he is still ahead of CNN and Headline News, making his show the #1 News show at that hour.

Faux airs an entertainment program, not a news program at that hour.

[Robert]

It's about time! He is just a blow hard!!!

[burnedalaskan]

I'm confused. You're clearly all right-wingers here and are all bashing Keith for his screaming tirades but you're more than willing to listen to that big bloviating gasbag bully Bill O'Reilley who also screams, interrupts, talks over and insults anyone who disagrees with him -- while they're on his show, no less, and right to their face.
You people are a bunch of hypocrites and cowards who can't tolerate any opinions that don't fit in with your far-right fringe beliefs. The recent poll that just came out about the Republicans as a party illustrates pretty well just how delusional you guys are. Thinking Obama wasn't born here; thinking Obama hates white people; thinking Obama's a socialist; wanting to secede from the union -- you people are flat-out whack jobs. What are you doing reading a liberal rag like the LA Times or living in la la land? Oh, I forgot. You must live in Santa Clarita or Lancaster.

[Grandpa]

KO's mean streak now rivals that of Rush Limbaugh's. I don't know whether he'd hate hearing that or would be flattered. Anyway, his shrillness has run its course. He shrieks like a little girl who's broken a nail on prom night.

[Jim8]

I got tired of Olberman. Who wants to listen to someone ranting about things you basically agree with, but dragged out to it's extreme?

Oh, ya, Fox News viewers do that all the time.

Those tactics don't work on the left, we don't like lunatics.

[Jim8]

Olberman looks bad when compared to Jon Stewart.

[victor the crab]

While Olbermann can be hard to stomach sometimes, he is an honest man who doesn't play fast and loose with the truth, unlike the human stains at Fox News who have sold Americans with a pack of lies, and whom many wingnuts here have swallowed. America has truly become a sad place if someone like Olberman is trumped for the likes of Beck and Hannity and Nancy Grace.

[Professional Republican Ass Kicker]

Re: "You have left, left, left, left, left for hours from Matthews, Shuster, Maddow, Schultz, Olbermann...I mean it goes on from the second you wake up in the morning with Mika and Danny Deutsch. "

Doug,
Simply put, you have no idea what you're talking about...
Prior to MSNBC swinging hard left to capitalize on anti-Bush sentiment, the network was home to every right wing slimeball including Michael Savage, Tucker Carlson, Monica Crowley, Laura Ingraham, and Alan Keyes.
And even then, you brainwashed clowns, derided the network as part of the "liberal media." So even when the top brass gives you what you want, you kvetch and whine. K
To this day, MSNBC still provides a 3-hour forum to Republican Joe Scarborough.
Tell me Doug, does the Fox News Whorehouse give Alan Colmes one hour, much less three?

[ML]

How ironic that all the people bashing Olberman can't see that the same things they're accusing him of - being a left-wing schill, being strident, opinionated, self-obsessed, whatever - are the same afflictions their own imbecilic heroes O'Reilly, Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Palin, etc. suffer from, only from the extreme right. What a bunch of easily led, easily duped, too-lazy-to-research-the-facts lemmings. It's uneducated yahoos like them that are happily and obliviously flushing the USA down the toilet.

[philly jim]

Mr. Olbermann, YOU SIR, are old news!

I'm glad you are on MSNBC where i can ignore you, rather than annoying me on ESPN like you used to

[Truth Shall set U Free]

Well, didn't take long...first post is some PMSNBC clown.... Fox is in tag with the GOP as much as CNN, NBC, PMSNBC, etc are in cohoots with the Democants Party.

This is quite possibly the best news America has heard since Air America went bankrupt. Ubernutzjob is a joke; PMSNBC is a joke and soon they shall be no more.

Too bad really -- guys like KO who self impose their whole "holier-than-thou" thinking is what is tanking in the Dems. The longer they can stay on TV through Nov 2010 or even 2012...it's a slam dunk that Barry and his Gang of Four, five, 100.... will be out of office.

Unintelligent, unfunny, boring, and banal - that sums him up!

[iheartcdf]

So we're just now realizing this...or we're finally ready to acknowledge it? There's hope for you yet, LA Times.

My favorite way to watch MSNBC is to turn on Contessa Brewer and that other lady (sorry, don't take her seriously enough to learn her name) when they're on in the late morning-early afternoon slot and laugh at how the network puts them there in an attempt to be "relatable" to women like me (at home/self-employed moms). Every time they try to ambush a right-leaning guest with their version of hard-hitting confrontation, I'm reminded of the most annoying girls I knew in high school.

[dekeith]

I totally disagree. I could care less how Fox Not-so-News is doing. Can't help most Americans don't use their brains and tune into Fox for a mind-meld. What happened to supporting a different opinion in this country? I could care less about ratings, I care about choice and content.

[az66]

All the hatred for Olbermann on here, from the writer as well as the commenters, is obviously being spewed because they feel insulted that he had the nerve to hold their own ignorance up to their own faces regarding the right wing's almost blatant embrace of fascism over the last 8-10 years. I'm sure these are the same people that either supported Bush or buried their heads in the sand when he was just about the only voice of dissent on television during Bush's first term. Mr. Malcolm, as usual, is showing his hypocrisy by deriding Olbermann and practically cheering his exit from the media even though he hasn't contributed a single piece of insightful or useful information in his journalistic career, and doesn't reach one-tenth of Olbermann's viewership people with his sad, irrelevant articles. Andrew Malcom is the Wilford Brimley of journalism: boring, irrelevant and incompetent.

[Tim]

Of course he is angry, wouldn't you be angry if the state of Mass. teabagged you on national TV. I am surprised he did not melt down into a crying heap.

[Stephen Burke]

This huge headed idiot must have a real cadre of ultra lib/fascists who give him his support and marching orders, either that or Soros has guaranteed his salary ad infinitem. Olbermann's athletic claim to fame is his membership in the "Baseball card trading" hall of fame. His faux ivy league presentation and his overblown ego are ridiculous. And please, MSNBC, do whatever you can to get his gigantic head in perspective on your screen shots. We do get a kick at his frothing at the mouth and love the way he is treated by the real NFL Coaches and ex-players on the NBC NFL pregame.

["gunner"]

@Ken Jackson,
coming from the conservative side, like you i don't have time for the hate. my opinions are firm and i have no use for the radical leftists still blaming george w. bush for all the evil, past, present and future, in the world. i do intend, come 2012, to use my vote to help make obama a one term president. meanwhile while i may disagree sharply with liberals like yourself i try to treat you with courtesy as fellow americans regardless of what the more radical fringe may do. with regards.

[Henry]

Sad to hear about Keith and his show. Can't say I'm gonna miss him though... :)

[David]

I have tried to watch Olbermann. The problem is that he is so stupid that you wonder how he is able to manage breathing. His imperious manner truly make one feel like taking him apart with a pair of brass knucles.

For those referring to Bush, he was not a conservative and a true jerk. The only problem is that no one ran against him.

[Alex]

I'm a liberal and even I cannot stand to watch Keith Olbermann. Enough is enough. Get him off the air, he's making a bad name for us. Have Rachel follow him out the door please.

[libhomo]

Note: This posting was written by a former press secretary for Laura Bush.

[bluecollarbytes]

Keith's main problem is having nothing to offer any better than your average online Leftist rant. It's amateur hour with enthusiasm.

[Jay Kanter]

Olbermann is mentally and emotionally disturbed.Msnbc are attack dogs for the democratic party.To Msnbc Obama never did a thing wrong.Shuster,Maddow,Matthews,and Shultz are also hatefilled and disgraceful.Dont waste your time watching this station.

[Don]

How can I say this with tact---- Olbie is a unabashed idiot savant. His viewers are little better than he. MSNBC is a joke and would be bankrupt were it required to be purchased as a standalone channel instead of as part of cable packages.

[James H.]

We don't permit MSNBC to be watched in our home as we have children. This is not a political stance, but rather one that hopefully shields our children from watching pure hate and intolerance on television. Watching Mr. Olbermann is like observing a snake hiss. We refuse to allow our children to observe such hatred.

[Ronnie]

Jane Bond wrote:
"I grew tired of the incessant Bush-bashing. After working all day, I'm not going to spend 60 minutes each evening being irritated . I haven't watched the show in over 3 years."

That in a nutshell is why no one watches MSNBC and why Air America failed. They can't compete in the arena of ideas so they just spew hate....I as a conservative tried to watch and listen to both of these..I was screaming at the radio and TV in 30 seconds and turning the dial. How many times can you try to get the American people that "W" and Dick Cheney actually had the twin towers blown up or Bush didn't have the best intrest of the country at heart......

[eor]

Remember Keith Olbermann? I seriously try not to. that men is sceeery.

[jk moore]

Who's Keith olbermann?

[MrBurlesk]

I catch Olbermann via podcast daily. Do the stats take that into consideration? Feh. I doubt it. What doesn't surprise me, but does disillusion me, is that people out there watch and even trust FauxNews. But the public rarely knows what is really good for it. Meanwhile, KO and co. had another one of their free clinics, not giving up on the Middle Class or the poor, even though many of these people may have thrown in the towel themselves on "Countdown" -- one of the only shows on TV that dares to put into correct perspective the lies, gaffes, and obstructions of our flawed and failing political system.

[W.P. Wily]

Forget his lousy cable show, it's easily ignored. I just wish they would dump him from Sunday Night Football, so I can watch again. He really makes it unwatchable with his boy-do-I-crack-me-up "funny" comments.

[Travis]

Buh bye Ms.Olbermann, I am sure Ms. Maddow can take up the slack once you are gone.

[kevin]

Good lord... the reaction of all these columnists/media critics regarding Olbermann's possible demise due to low ratings (as if they have never been low before?) is downright comical. The very fact that these people just start obsessing over this kind of stuff really makes you think how much they would LOVE to have Olbermann off the air... how much of a delight it would be to not have this thorn in your side attacking you with FACTS every night, right? God for bid we lose that... although, we can make up for it by watching Fox News and their fawning tea party coverage along with watching to see if Sarah Palin reads Glenn Beck's diary and sits on Chris Wallace's lap. Please, keep the comedy coming. This is entertainment at its very best. By the way, the reaction of all these people when Olbermann does not go anywhere and his ratings eventually go up again will be classic... should be a sight to see these people put their foot in their mouth's, again.

[Daniel Kramer]

Keith's still on? Huh. How about that.

Some local station in San Fran'll probably pick him up to do sports. Perhaps Seattle? That's what he should be doing. He never had the skill or temperament for legitimate political analysis or commentary.

[Straight Talk Hawk]

BYE, BYE RED DIAPER DOPER BABY!!!

Wow, if even the neo-comm network wants this guy out, he must be bad! The European socialists FDR imported to form his socialist heaven spawned, and this guy is the result. I say this pantywaist needs to stop trying to destroy our democracy and move on to an existing socialist heaven like Red China, Communist Cuba, or the Peoples' Choice of North Korea!

Hey, neo-comms at msnbc, how about taking an honest look at the neo-comm who tinkles up his leg, that idiot Matthews? You have to make it on your own with ratings some day (unless Obama bails you out), and these morons aren't going to get them for you.

[smpj]

The man WILL have a meltdown moment on TV. Not sure if msnbc will allow it to be broadcast. But if he lasts past this next November 2nd, it will be so delicious to watch him on the 3rd try to explain away the Democrat's historic losses.

[Mike M]

Yeah but it goes to show that even a degree from an agricultural college cannot stop a person determined to make an idiot out of himself in front of a camera.

[donkey]

I'm a democrat and I can't stand to listen to ko. Go get a job at a juice bar.

[iheartcdf]

Mr. Burlesk, Quote 1: "What doesn't surprise me, but does disillusion me, is that people out there watch and even trust FauxNews."

Every time I see "Faux News" in one of these comment forums, I'm pretty sure that the person who wrote it is convinced that Fox viewers have never heard the term used before. Same with the whole "It's an arm of the RNC" line. We're familiar with your taglines and they got stale at least 3 years ago. That's why we rolled our eyes when Gibbs, Anita Dunn, and the POTUS himself took it upon themselves to Fox-bash as a cover up for their own failures. You lib apologists are hardly original. What makes you any less of a sheep for listening to Olber-girl?

Quote 2: "But the public rarely knows what is really good for it." The Lib mindset in a nutshell. Wow.