Where in the World is Keith Olbermann?

[fearthem]

On the Imus Show this morning, Imus eluded to the fact that Brian Unger might be a good replacement for Keith! Keith has been absent from the show off and on of late and with the change in management at MSNBC, I wonder? Could Imus be testing the waters with that suggestion (by design)? Sending an email to MSNBC to bring back Keith!

[Ian David]

1. Why do you actually pay attention to Leatherface? n/t

[durrrty libby]

2. I thought he was on vacation. What happened? n/t

[fearthem]

7. Perhaps he's arranged to spread out his vacation throughout the summer?...

He's been absent frequently lately, always replaced with Unger and Imus made a snide remark this a.m. that he liked Unger's low-key style, went on about how great he was, etc., and ended with a remark that some hosts overplay their role (obviously comparing Olbermann's style to Unger's).

On another note re "Imus," LMAO, this morning Imus said he couldn't stand some guy, calling him a phony; then, in the next segment he stated (as he so often does) that he and his wife started off a charity by giving $250k, comparing that to a $10k donation made -- what a blind jerk.

[gkhouston]

27. doesn't he usually tend to spread out his vacation through baseball

season? Hmm, you'd almost think there was a reason for that... :freak:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. keith had health problems, some serious in the past.don't know about now

[sabbat hunter]

4. what health problems

what problems has he had in the past?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

12. he talked about it in his show a month ago or so.

he had fallen and hit his head - HARD, and developed a blood clot. Although they caught it in time, and saved his life, his vision and memory suffered. He still cannot drive a car and may never drive again.

He also had a couple of other problems, after which he quit smoking, started eating right, and began taking care of himself.

This is not rumor-mongering, just a history given by KO.

[durrrty libby]

20. "he had fallen and hit his head "

As I recall, he did not fall. He was running to catch a subway car to Shea Stadium,( of course baseball related) jumped to get on and whacked his head on the door frame. That was back in 1980 and it damaged his depth perception, and is the reason he doesn't drive.

I've been a fan of his since his Sports Center days. Like Keith, I'm a big baseball fan.

[Berry Cool]

32. He never developed a blood clot. And his memory never suffered.

He can't drive and there's no "may never drive again" about it--he won't.

He has quit smoking, after having a benign tumor removed from his mouth, but I've never seen it reported anywhere that he had any other recent problems or that he "started eating right."

I think it's just a vacation myself.

[durrrty libby]

5. Stop the rumor mill. I found this in the DU KO group

He is hanging out with Al Gore.

"When the former vice president asks for your presence at the Museum of Natural History to celebrate his book's release, you go — if only to excuse yourself from hanging out with a bunch of Internerds. So last night we hit up Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth book party, where publisher Rodale had gathered a who's who list of industry powerhouses. None of which we recognized or cared to talk to, but we're certain they were among us.
Without a single bottle of bubbly available, we settled on white wine as we listened to Gore, standing beneath the precariously positioned giant blue whale, wax environmental for 10 minutes. No mention of inventing the Internet, which automatically bumped his speech up to a B- at least. Though his closing comments – "It's a spiritual crisis <...> I'm an optimist because I believe that we are capable of rising to solve this crisis and making a better world" – almost let us forgive the beads of sweat rolling off his face when we shook hands and chatted with him afterward."

http://www.jossip.com/gossip/al-gore/on-the-scene-al-gores-inconvenient-sweat-glands-20060613.php

[fearthem]

9. THANK YOU!

[Grateful for Hope]

10. The article says

that he will be on vacation until next Monday, and Al Gore will be his guest then.

Should be a great show!

[fearthem]

13. MANY THANKS ; )

[Rosco T.]

26. Guess Al is getting his new Press Sec ready for when he's re-elected!

[987654321]

Olbermann is too popular to get rid of now.

Remember, their #1 goal is to make money, and Olbermann's show does that for them. He carries an audience that the other schmucks, like Scarborough Carlson, do not. The only thing that the new management seems to have done so far to Olbermann is to force him to include more celebrity items on his show, much to his obvious disdain.

[malaise]

14. KO is MSNBC

by some distance

[napi21]

6. I think he's on vacation. This is June, and you'll notice many of

the different show hosts are taking time off.

[fearthem]

8. Hope so, but it's been spread over months, off and on.

[durrrty libby]

11. You know Keith also does a sports radio show with Dan Patrick

He is a baseball fanatic and last week he played hooky on Countdown, to go to a Red Sox vs Yankee game.

In case you didn’t know there is a Keith Olbermann group here at DU.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=315

[Berry Cool]

33. He's not on the radio show this week either.

Which leads all the more to my conclusion that he's just on vacation.

[drbtg1]

17. We'll notice? ...um, I don't think we'd really notice

If Scarborough or Carlson falls in the woods and the prime demo doesn't see it, do the alledged vacationers really make a sound? ;)

[Sugarcoated]

15. Just a little bit of nothing

But I noticed when Keith hands it over to Scarborouogh it's cut and dried, no small talk. But with any other host Joe Scarborough makes funny little chit-chat. He did with Unger last night. I have a feeling Keith and Joe don't like each other.

[Pab Sungenis]

16. The fact that they work for the same network

is the only thing, IMHO, keeping KO civil towards DeadIntern.

[drbtg1]

18. Thanks for pointing that out

IMO, the lack of conversation between KO and Dead intern Joe, from a business viewpoint, is really dumb. One would think MSNBC would want some continuity to keep the audience. As it is, the prime demo ratings usually drops like a rock after Mr. Olbermann signs off.

[a kennedy]

19. I want Keith back too.......the replacement just doesn't get it.

[Armstead]

21. That's always been the case

There've been bumerous points over time when it's been a cse of "Where's Keith?"

[DainBramaged]

22. has anyone just thought about calling MSNBC to find out the truth?

[Democrat 4 Ever]

23. I read somewhere that the guest host is probably going to be

given the time slot vacated by Dan Abrams now that Abrams is GM for MSNBC. I won't miss Ambulance Chasing Abrams and the idea of having another host that is "good enough" to host for Keith is good enough for me. He isn't Keith (who is?) but to have another articulate, funny person to offset the "MSNBC team of hot snots" (Tweety, Fucker, Dead Intern, Gravel Gertie) is aces to me.

Note - wish I could remember his name right now

[durrrty libby]

24. "wish I could remember his name right now"

You mean the guy that subs for Keith?
That is Brian Unger. He was part of the original Daily Show
and a commentator on NPR.

[Sugarcoated]

25. I like Brian Unger alot. I think he does "get it" and he's a

waaaay better sub than Alison Stewart. I heard from others here he used to be a correspondent for the Daily Show. He's just the right amount of funny/irreverant and serious. And he's easy on the eyes, like Keith.

[calimary]

29. I do, too - I regard him as a sort of Keith-Lite.

He has similar sensibilities and, who knows, if he had his own show and were allowed to be himself, as the ratings went up, he might let 'er rip as Olbermann has been doing. But yes, he does "get it," unlike Alison Stewart who always seemed forced, like she was TRYING REALLY HARD to sound hip, but not quite getting there. But she's got her own vehicle now, so that doesn't seem to be an issue anymore. Brian Unger's okay. Last night, I liked the little asides he threw in while presenting the kkkarl rove story, little sneaky, snarky references to "other prosecutors" who went after everything whether they had a case or not..., and more. There were a few of those.

I saw a story about Rick Kaplan exiting the network and it pointed out that in the target demo of 28 plus (40-something, I think), his audience increased by SEVENTY percent. They're all still getting beaten by Pox "news" and CNN, but Keith has made the strongest showing, and continues on an upward trend. Seems as though as far as ratings, he's the leader, or maybe it's neck-n-neck with idiot Tweety. They're said to be the two strongest shows. And since Olbermann is making noticeable strides in that precious lusted-after youth demographic, they'd be fools to fuck with their ONE show that does this for them. (Of course, we've NEVER seen any TV programmers do THAT, have we?) BTW - that same story also pointed out that dear darling little tucker got moved OUT of prime time recently. Notice how late in the lineup he appears - AFTER all the grownups (yes, inexplicably, including rita clear-your-throat)? Let's just say if you're getting ratings, they don't move you - especially a move OUT of prime time. Poor li'l tucker - they can retool him and revamp him all they like. It's just not there.

Frankly, were I in a programming position, I WOULD seriously consider moving Olbermann - into Brian Williams' job as anchor of the Nightly News. It'd really shake things up, and give the old, stale evening news staple a MUCH-needed shot of youth serum. It would make the Nightly News stand out from the pack, and it would draw that much-desired younger demo. And once it had aired at 6:30 pm, I'd have it rerun mid-evening (like maybe 9pm eastern, to hit the 6-oclock crowd on the west coast) and then again at midnight. It would be a BRILLIANT counterprogramming move against the stale old fawning brainless Larry King.

One other thing - you'll note in the intro and some of the bumpers, the graphic for "Countdown" - which STILL includes "with Keith Olbermann." That's still there, along with an image of him beside it, even while Brian Unger fills in. I'd say watch THAT for signals. As long as the "with Keith Olbermann" remains, so does Keith.

[Skidmore]

30. Aww, now don't be so hard on Allison. I like her. She's

young, peppy, and really smart. She asks good questions and seems to know her stuff. From his previous list of subs, she came the closest to keeping with the spirit of KOness when KO was absent.

[kentuck]

28. C-SPAN mentioned some type of conflict between Keith and Rita Cosby

this morning? I don't know what that might be about??

[RamboLiberal]

31. Here's story from NY Daily News

Now that Dan Abrams has given up his MSNBC show to run the third-place cable news outlet, he might want to focus on the rising tensions between two of his prime-time personalities: Keith Olbermann and Rita Cosby.

Olbermann, whose "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" airs weeknights at 8, apparently has precious little respect for Cosby, whose "Rita Cosby: Live & Direct" airs at 10 p.m.

"Rita's nice," Olbermann wrote to a fan from his MSNBC E-mail account, "but dumber than a suitcase of rocks." Yesterday Cosby retorted: "Keith got it wrong. I'm not that nice."

<snip>

In his E-mail, Olbermann was also dismissive of then-MSNBC President Rick Kaplan, who left the network last week with six months to go on his three-year contract.

"And Kaplan?" Olbermann wrote to his fan. "He was the producer of that special last night — now known as the Kanye West Show." It was a reference to an embarrassing incident during NBC's Hurricane Katrina telethon on which the popular rapper departed from his script to claim President Bush "doesn't care about black people."

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/426477p-359629c.html

BTW, according to media bistro Kaplan lost the fight with Zucker who wants more crime stories on MSNBC.

Jeff Zucker Wants "More Emphasis On Crime & Lots Of Repeats" On MSNBC
Another interesting part of Gail Shister's column today: "NBC News president Steve Capus delivered the verdict to Kaplan, but industry insiders say Capus' boss, NBC Universal TV honcho Jeff Zucker, made the call.

Sources say the two Alpha males clashed on their visions for the network -- Zucker wanted more emphasis on crime and lots of repeats; Kaplan wanted more fresh news. Big Rick is about a foot taller than Zucker, but Zucker outranks him.

'I fully didn't expect Rick to go as quickly as he did,' says Capus. Still, 'I thought it was inevitable, at some point.'"

> Update: 11:18am: Kaplan "wasn't part of the fraternity of Zucker," an insider e-mails. "He was never going to kiss his ring -- ever. (Neither was Shapiro -- another goner.) Notice who is running news now... Wald, Capus, Griffin... all fully fledged members of the frat house. They know their roles to the King."

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/

[Berry Cool]

34. And I think this "e-mail" is a heap o'bullshit

come up with by a gossip columnist who hates KO and is more than willing to help his enemies over at Faux News bring him down, if they think forging a few e-mails in which he supposedly badmouths his fellow staffers will do it.

Good luck. Imus has talked shit about other people at MSNBC forever and a day, and he's still around.