Keith Olbermann Leaves Current TV And Threatens Legal Action Against The Network!

Just 14 months since his big departure from MSNBC, Keith Olbermann has announced he will no longer host “Countdown” on Current TV or work for the network at all. Instead, former New York governor will take over his time slot. This afternoon, Olbermann released a statement expressing his frustrations with Current. Read his full statement and the network’s reaction below…

Wendy L.

Keith Olbermann’s statement via Twitter:

I’d like to apologize to my viewers and my staff for the failure of Current TV.

Editorially, Countdown had never been better. But for more than a year I have been imploring Al Gore and Joel Hyatt to resolve our issues internally, while I’ve been not publicizing my complaints, and keeping the show alive for the sake of its loyal viewers and even more loyal staff. Nevertheless, Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt, instead of abiding by their promises and obligations and investing in a quality news program, finally thought it was more economical to try to get out of my contract.

It goes almost without saying that the claims against me implied in Current’s statement are untrue and will be proved so in the legal actions I will be filing against them presently. To understand Mr. Hyatt’s “values of respect, openness, collegiality and loyalty,” I encourage you to read of a previous occasion Mr. Hyatt found himself in court for having unjustly fired an employee. That employee’s name was Clarence B. Cain. http://nyti.ms/HueZsa

In due course, the truth of the ethics of Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt will come out. For now, it is important only to again acknowledge that joining them was a sincere and well-intentioned gesture on my part, but in retrospect a foolish one. That lack of judgment is mine and mine alone, and I apologize again for it.

Current TV’s response:

Current TV said Friday afternoon that it had terminated the contract of its lead anchor, Keith Olbermann, scarcely a year after he was hired to reboot the fledgling channel in his progressive political image.

Current indicated that he had failed to honor the terms of his five-year, $50 million contract, giving the channel the right to terminate it.

In a stream of Twitter messages, Mr. Olbermann responded to Current’s announcement by stating that “the claims against me in Current’s statement are untrue and will be proved so in the legal actions I will be filing against them presently.”

Starting Friday night, the former New York governor Eliot Spitzer will take over Mr. Olbermann’s 8 p.m. time slot, according to a letter to viewers. His program will be titled “Viewpoint With Eliot Spitzer.”

In the letter, the channel’s founders, Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, wrote: “We created Current to give voice to those Americans who refuse to rely on corporate-controlled media and are seeking an authentic progressive outlet. We are more committed to those goals today than ever before. Current was also founded on the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers. Unfortunately these values are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann and we have ended it.”

Mr. Olbermann will not be given an opportunity to sign off, since Mr. Spitzer will start his new show on Friday night. This will be Mr. Spitzer’s second shot at an 8 p.m. talk show; in 2010, two years after he resigned the governorship after admitting to his involvement in a prostitution ring, he led a short-lived show on CNN. It was cancelled in mid-2011.

“We are confident that our viewers will be able to count on Governor Spitzer to deliver critical information on a daily basis,” Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt wrote.

With those words — “on a daily basis” — the founders of Current hinted at one of the reasons for Mr. Olbermann’s termination. It was the culmination, at least in part, of months of infighting between the famously temperamental Mr. Olbermann and his bosses at Current, including Mr. Hyatt, and David Bohrman, the channel’s president.

The fighting spilled out into public view in January after Mr. Olbermann declined Current’s requests to host special hours of election coverage, apparently out of frustration about technical difficulties that had plagued his 8 p.m. program, “Countdown.”

In January and February, Mr. Olbermann continued to miss many days of work, as he himself acknowledged on his popular Twitter feed. He attributed some of his absences to throat problems.

But Current considered some of those absences to be breaches of his contract, labeling them “unauthorized absences,” according to a person familiar with the matter, who insisted on anonymity because the executives involved had agreed not to comment on the record.

For instance, he took a vacation day on March 5, on the eve of the Super Tuesday primaries, despite a warning from Current that it would constitute a breach of contract, according to the person.

On that same day, Mr. Hyatt stood by Mr. Olbermann in an interview with The New York Times, calling him unquestionably “the big gun in our line-up.” Referring to Current, Mr. Hyatt said, “it’s all on top of his shoulders.”

But behind the scenes, tensions were mounting and Current was adding new programs, in part as a hedge against the possibility of Mr. Olbermann’s departure. The interview with Mr. Hyatt came on the day that Current announced two simulcasts of morning radio shows, effectively tripling its hours of live political talk each weekday.

It is unclear when the decision to dismiss Mr. Olbermann was made, but it was unanimous among the senior managers of Current, the person familiar with the matter said. A termination letter was sent to him on Thursday morning, and he did not appear on Current on Thursday night.

Mr. Hyatt and Mr. Bohrman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Fourteen months ago, Mr. Olbermann abruptly left MSNBC, where he had worked for the prior eight years. There, he nearly single handedly gave the channel an identity as a liberal counterweight to Fox News, but he also alienated staff members and crossed NBC executives by donating to Democratic politicians.

Executives at MSNBC had no public reaction on Friday to Mr. Olbermann’s departure from another channel.