Keith Olbermann out at MSNBC

In a move I guess we should have seen coming MSNBC terminated the contract of Keith Olbermann today. In his final segment tonight he announced that this was the last edition of Countdown. I have been a big fan of Olbermann's work with MSNBC over the years. He was the one man on cable news trying to keep the previous administration honest while everyone else was willing to just stand there and look the other way. His segments about "Terror Alerts" were fantastic and showed a pattern of politically motivated fear tactics.

MSNBC did release a statement.

"MSNBC and Keith Olbermann have ended their contract. The last broadcast of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" will be this evening. MSNBC thanks Keith for his integral role in MSNBC's success and we wish him well in his future endeavors."

Watch the video below courtesy of Media Matters.



He thanked a bunch of people at the end but MSNBC President Phil Griffin was a notable absence in that list. Of course there will be plenty of speculation that this is directly related to the Comcast NBC merger. For what its worth Comcast last year had said that they were committed to letting "Keith Olbermann be Keith Olbermann."

NBC announced its new schedule via a press release.

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo was a guest on the show tonight and was shocked about the termination.

The Olbermann exit comes exactly one year since Air America shut down.

Where does Olbermann go next? Will he end up at CNN and replace Parker/Spitzer? I don't have any loyalty towards Ed Schultz or Lawrence O'Donnell at this time. CNN would be stupid not to try and land him at this point right?

I will follow Olbermann wherever it is that he ends up but for now I will continue to follow him on twitter. I'll post some more thoughts on this in the coming days as more news become public.

The only appropriate end to this post is "good night and good luck."
As always you can leave a comment here, reach me by e-mail or