After months of rumors, Current announced abruptly Friday afternoon
that it had replaced Keith Olbermann with Eliot Spitzer in the 8 p.m.
weeknight time slot. Read their statement here. A source told Politico
that Current was claiming that the former MSNBC host had “sabotaged”
the network, and was absent from the show far too often, and so was in
breach of contract. More from The New York Times here.
UPDATE at 9 p.m. Friday: David Letterman’s Twitter feed for his “Late Show” reveals that Olbermann “will join Dave on the @Late_Show
on Tuesday, April 3rd to talk about his departure from Current TV.”
Also, Olberamann on Twitter tonight is tweeting baseball….SATURDAY: Opinion piece at The Hollywood Reporter
by a Keith buddy. And Olbermann says he’s now busy–with two fantasy
baseball league drafts….David Carr at NYT weighs in, under headline
calling Olbermann “machine gun for hire.”
Olbermann, who left MSNBC just 14 months ago, on Friday responded with a note to viewers,
promising a lawsuit, blasting his bosses (including Al Gore),
apologizing to viewers and admitting he had made a “foolish” mistake in
taking on this challenge with the little-seen network to start with. He
had an equity stake in the network but long complained about technical
problems on the set, including lights going out on several occasions.
Last fall he provided some of the strongest, and most frequent, coverage
of the early weeks of Occupy Wall Street.
