Olbermann and MSNBC: a failing relationship

(01-23) 01:10 PST NEW YORK, (AP) --

Keith Olbermann's exit from MSNBC appeared abrupt to viewers of his show, but the talk-show host and his network were involved "in a relationship that's been failing for a long time," an NBC Universal executive said Saturday.

Olbermann's announcement at the end of Friday's "Countdown" that it would be his last show quiets, at least for the moment, the most dominant liberal voice in a cable-television world where opinionated talk has been the most bankable trend over the past several years.

As Olbermann read from a James Thurber short story during a three-minute exit statement Friday night, MSNBC simultaneously e-mailed a statement to reporters that the network and host "have ended their contract." Neither indicated a reason nor addressed whether Olbermann quit or was fired.

But the NBC Universal executive characterized it as a mutual parting of the ways, with Olbermann taking the first step. The executive spoke on condition of anonymity because settlement talks were kept confidential.

Olbermann was nearly fired in November but instead was suspended for two days without pay for violating an NBC News policy by donating to three political campaigns, including the congressional campaign of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. He returned and apologized to his fans, but not the network.

Last fall, Olbermann saw his role on NBC's `Sunday Night Football" eliminated. Olbermann, a former sports anchor, had willingly worked six days a week to be involved with the highly rated football telecast. NBC said he was removed so he could concentrate on his MSNBC job.

MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines insisted Olbermann's exit had nothing to do with the acquisition of parent company NBC Universal by Comcast, which received regulatory approval Tuesday. That deal marks the exit of NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker, who saw Olbermann's value in turning around a once-unprofitable network, despite headaches the mercurial personality sometimes caused his bosses.

Olbermann and his manager did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday.

One clue Olbermann offered in his goodbye statement was that he'd "been told" that Friday was his last show. But Olbermann also said that "there were many occasions, particularly in the last 2 1/2 years, where all that surrounded the show — but never the show itself — was just too much for me. But your support and loyalty and, if I may use the word, insistence, ultimately required that I keep going. My gratitude to you is boundless."

"He did more than anybody to establish the credibility of progressive views through market-driven success," said David Brock, founder and CEO of the left-wing media watchdog Media Matters for America.

Olbermann's show was also an incubator for left-wing talent on the air, he said. Two-thirds of MSNBC's prime-time lineup, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell, got their own shows after successfully subbing for Olbermann. His show also gave platforms to bloggers like Josh Marshall and Markos Moulitsas, as well as his own organization and the Center for American Progress, Brock said.

"Countdown" took off at a time when there was a large imbalance toward conservatives in radio and television political talk, Brock said.

"Keith led the way in correcting that," he said. "Now we're back to some degree of the balance going the other way."

After Giffords was shot in the head on Jan. 8, Olbermann came into the studio and took to the air on his day off with an emotional editorial saying politicians and talk-show personalities — including himself — need to swear off any kind of violent imagery so as not to incite anybody into acts like the Giffords shooting. He said on Jan. 10 that he was ending his "Worst Person in the World" feature because some viewers took literally a feature that was "born in humor."