It's less than two weeks until the debut of his new show on CurrentTV and frankly I can't wait for it, especially now that The Hollywood Reporter has released a ton of new details about his rocky departure from MSNBC and more details about his future.
First off, Keith is gong to be making some bank
In addition to hosting Countdown, which debuts June 20, Olbermann is also the network's chief news officer -- making him No. 4 on the corporate ladder behind founders Al Gore and Joel Hyatt and CEO Mark Rosenthal -- and has an equity stake in the company. When all is said and done, Olbermann could make as much as $100 million over the course of his five-year deal.
Secondly, he's bringing along some old friends:
The show, which will cost Current about $15 million a year to produce, with the network spending another $5 million upfront on marketing, will be paying its contributors including Michael Moore, Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas in untraditional ways. Moore will be paid through a charitable donation. Moulitsas is being paid a "token amount."
Shuster was let go for doing a pilot with CNN, giving Michael Moore a regular platform will be a very welcome thing, getting Markos back on the air since MSNBC banned him following an impolite tweet he posted about Joe Scarborough and a certain Dead Intern (Which should put the current Weinergasm where NOBODY DIED or even exchanged bodily fluids in some needed perspective).
By this line up we're going to be seeing MSNBC being hit hard from the Left.
Should be interesting.
Of the time slot rivalry with MSNBC, he says, “I don’t think my former employers thought this was going to turn out quite this way. I just don’t think they thought they’d be in competition with me, so fast or at all,” Olbermann says of MSNBC, "and my understanding is this has left a certain tension over there."
Mmm, ya think?
As it happen, Keith has actually already started putting together pieces such as this one on Palin-guistics. (Though, I do wish they'd turn off autoplay!!)
I happen to watch Current occasionally and have written about it before. It's documentary Series Vanguard is Outstanding.
Their weekly Media/Comedy/Commentary show - infoMania is often near genius, while Viral Video Film School is teh Awesome.
You can see here that Keith will fight right in.
I do miss Rotten Tomatoes and Supernews, but it should be interesting seeing how the network develops with Keith in charge of it's News.
There's more in the article about how Keith and Rachel haven't spoken, but it's for reasons you might think.
He has not spoken to longtime mentee Rachel Maddow since leaving. "There were lots of people who were forced to choose sides. And particularly in Rachel's case, I didn't want to add to the pressure on her already. The last thing I need to do is be calling her up and saying, 'How's that Michael Steele working out for you?' [He signed to NBC as a political analyst on May 23.] Which is exactly what I would do if I were in the office
That's a bit sad, but I can understand it.