The departure or firing of Keith Olbermann was predicted back in August when Comcast was striving to take over Universal-NBC.
When confronted by Bill O'Reilly about a journalist on Comcast's payroll, Comcast gave Barry Nolan the axe. Barry Nolan is now suing Comcast.
http://www.cjr.org/...
After working in television for nearly thirty years, Nolan had lost his $207,000 Comcast salary and, one month shy of his sixty-first birthday, was out of a job. Six months later, he filed a $1.2 million lawsuit against Comcast for wrongful termination, charging that his First Amendment rights "to speak freely" had been violated. In court documents, Comcast countered that Nolan had engaged in "insubordinate actions" and was in "material breach" of his contract for such transgressions as publicly protesting O’Reilly’s receipt of the Governors’ Award and for "repeatedly" failing to follow "clear directives" from Comcast. The suit is pending.
Comcast has an interest in keeping its clients happy. It does not want to lose money or see its profits erodesif it gets into a contractual dispute with FNC. How hard would it be for Roger Ailes to call Comcast's CEO and say "Hey, we got a problem with this Olberman guy, can you help us out?" I dont know- maybe pay him off, promise him a sports job, I dont know, but it looks very fishy after what happened to Barry Nolan.
We all know that O"Reilly has a big hatred for Keith. This story ends with this foreboding warning:
"In the end, I think they were trying to suck up to Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch and Bill O’Reilly in a way that’s spineless and appalling for a company [Comcast] that aspires to run a major network news operation [NBC]. What happens when Keith Olbermann goes after O’Reilly? I think that’s scary."