NYT: Barricaded Inside His Show

[babylonsister]

KO being difficult? Say it isn't so!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/business/media/at-current-tv-keith-olbermann-is-trapped-inside-his-show.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper


Barricaded Inside His Show
Current TV


Keith Olbermann in a recent “Worst Persons in the World” segment on Current TV.
By DAVID CARR
Published: January 8, 2012

snip//

Mr. Olbermann’s contractual rights at Current TV are significant — he has control over the content of his show and his lawyers have argued that the channel has no right to pre-empt it for special election coverage — and management has very little leverage over him. So the channel is left to check his Twitter updates for indications of his mood, which is usually not very good.

Executives at Current TV told me they contacted Mr. Olbermann two months before the Iowa caucuses about being the anchor and executive producer of their coverage, and he declined. Mr. Olbermann thought it was silly to attempt to expand coverage when the channel’s marquee show lacked reliable production. But that didn’t stop him from calling in his staff for a news meeting on the day of the Iowa caucuses as if his show were going to appear, when he clearly knew that no such thing was going to happen, a pretty callous stunt by any measure. It fell to Mr. Bohrman to send a memo to the staff saying there would be no installment of “Countdown” that night. Ugly business, that.

But if Mr. Olbermann is disappointed in the widespread technical failures at Current TV, it should be pointed out that he helped choose the studio, an old building on the far west side of Manhattan that has turned out to be a lemon. He is a part of the management team, and you generally don’t get to rail against the Man if the Man is you.

Executives at the channel say the embarrassing public fight has more to do with his unwillingness to play, let alone play well, with others. Which is kind of a running meme in Mr. Olbermann’s career, but this time was supposed to be different.

snip//

“We think of Keith as our partner and as our friend,” he said then. “We don’t think of him as our employee, we don’t think of him as we’re a conglomerate and management, he’s the talent or worse, the employee.”

He was right about the last part. If Mr. Olbermann were simply an employee, they could tell him to show up at 7 p.m. Tuesday to anchor coverage of the New Hampshire primary. They can’t, and he won’t.

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

1. I read (or heard) somewhere that Olbermann and Chris Mathews have both been at odds with executives

at NBC/MSNBC. However, unlike Mathews, who is supposedly a genuinely nice guy, Olbermann insulted and alienated nearly everyone he worked with.

[MADem]

2. NBC used to have some great space in Secaucus NJ that they gave up.

They were saving money and consolidating their MSNBC arm into their 30 Rock location--the Secaucus studio was state of the art and was used for MSNBC stuff--Imus was over there before he crashed and burned. Wonder if CURRENT could get a good price on that space or something similar? Could they get out of their lease in their crappy location?

This is not going to end well. Non-disclosure/non-disparagement agreements aside, everyone can see what is happening. It's not Gore who is looking like the jerk, either. KO may have a five year contract, but he'd better save his money. If his attitude doesn't improve, he won't be asked to stay on. Who needs a prima donna when all you're trying to do is get a progressive station off the ground?