KO on NBC: Let's play softball

In a phoner with reporters last week, Keith Olbermann promised that his special network version of "Countdown," which aired last night, would not be any different that any "Countdown" he does for MSNBC. But that wasn't true. My guess is that someone at NBC convinced Olbermann that for his first appearance as a newsman on the network it would be a good idea to take his hard-edged, hard-headed approach to "Countdown" and, well, soften it up a bit.

KO is a smart guy, but that was not a smart move.

I understand that audiences might be unfamiliar with Olbermann's program, and could find the full-spectrum, serious-to-silly coverage that is "Countdown's" specialty a tad disconcerting. But I felt it was unwise and, ultimately, condescending to bring on both Mo Rocca and the guy who hosts "The Soup" for separate segments. This on a night when KO was already altering his program to include a cold open (explaining to network viewers expecting to see Chris Hansen shaking down Internet sex fiends what they were about to see instead) and a football segment at the end, leading into NBC's "Football Night in America," on which Olbermann now also toils.

Rocca seemed a particularly inappropriate choice for mid-show, a time when "Countdown" is usually bearing down on some vital but overlooked story of national import. Referring to recently posted photographs of Russian president Vladimir Putin out in the wild, shirtless, Rocca joked that there was another picture of Putin in "assless chaps." Much as he did with "Smoking Gun TV" (remember that car wreck?), Rocca brought "Countdown" way down. Combine that with an extended "Oddball" segment of wacky videos, an E! promo AND a segment on football ... well, let's just say last night's "Countdown" was more like broth than soup.

During the last segment, featuring two of KO's new colleagues on "Football Night," Bob Costas was a pro as usual. But Cris Collinsworth, who has apparently never seen Olbermann's show before, felt the need to preface one of his responses with a retort to the previous segment: "Is Rush Limbaugh really the worst person in the world? Really?" KO, trying not to look irritated, shot back that he merely nominates worst people. Hey Cris, save the towel snapping for your own show, OK? They call you a "guest" for a reason -- act like one.  And buy a DVR while you're at it.

As for the host, he seemed unflappable as usual. But I wouldn't be surprised if KO didn't do some Monday morning quarterbacking of his special network "Countdown."  I hope he watches the tape of his main competition last night, "60 Minutes," on CBS. "60" had three repeat stories with new intros. In the first, Morley Safer interviewed the nurse charged with killing four seriously ill patients two years ago in a hospital in the middle of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. Next, Scott Pelley interviewed Iraqis who are being hunted down and killed because they assisted U.S. troops during the ouster of Saddam Hussein -- and are getting no protection now from the U.S. government. And then there was a happy ending to a story about MIT's Nicholas Negroponte's crusade to give every poor child in the world a laptop computer -- as we learned after the segment, Negroponte and his erstwhile rivals at Intel Corp. are getting together to produce the low-cost PCs. There was even time for some levity at the end, as tape of two ancient Mike Wallace interviews were played: one with Brooke Astor, the other with Leona Helmsley, both of whom died last week. Andy Rooney rummaging through all the kitchen tools he no longer uses ("Harry Truman was president the last time I sliced a sponge cake") was funnier than anything Mo Rocca said.

In this rerun-weary tail end of summer, "60 Minutes" has been dominant, and Sunday's broadcast will likely finish No. 1 in the Nielsen ratings again. Hey, whaddya know, serious can sell on network TV.  It's too bad Keith Olbermann's bosses at NBC don't believe that, or they might have actually let him do his show.

Comments

To be fair, I wouldn't put Air America and Keith Olbermann in the same group as...Charlie Gibson and Brian Williams...

But I wouldn't say Brian Williams and Charlie Gibson are conservative lackeys, either.

[Aaron]

Let's not have the Mac-PC debate here, OK, please? I'll clear the room if I have to ...

I've always believed that Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and those types spoke to an underlying distrust of establishment media that's existed approximately forever. I grew up around it and, obviously, given my undergraduate journalism choices, I shared those views somewhat. But now that the alternative is in the mainstream, they don't always know how to behave. So you hear things about liberals running everything, which isn't true, and you hear liberals trotting out Fox News as a sign that conservatives have the whole media by the short hairs, also not true.

And as we all know, we are all extremely effective on the interwebs in persuading others to see things our way.

[tom heald]

lets see... Keith on NBC ... 4 million viewers ... BillO on FNC average 2 million viewers. I'm no math genius ....

[tom heald]

I would say the Bush administration with the help of FNC has done all it can to ensure people don't trust any media, from Jeff Gannon in the White House press room, and columnists Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher being paid to pimp the govt's schemes. FNC's balance is a clever scam of claiming to give the other side a voice, albeit via weak spokespeople and/or filtering the left's voice by reframining it.

K.O. is Great!! Long may his show reign.

[Mike]

TO: ebi:

PLEASE give me ONE, just ONE, guests that Olbernmahn has ever had on that disagrees with him! Juts ONE, ebi!!

The 4 million dollar man may be NBC's biggest waste of money in years. His MSNBC show usually finishes in FOURTH place. Sunday's "show" also finished in...yep, FOURTH PLACE...as usual.

My advice to Olby is: 1) Stop the bashing of Bill O and Limbaugh. All this does is give these guys MORE PUBLICITY especially O Reilly whose 4 AM RERUNS (ye, I'll say it again...RERUNS!) always trounce the HOUR OF SPIN!! And, even more disturbing I'm sure to comedian KO, even Nancy Grace's (yes, I'm talking about THE Nancy Grace!) 10 PM RERUN usually beats Olby in his coveted demos!

When will NBC wise up and dump him and replace him with equally obnoxious Rosie?????

Tom Heald's bizarre comment about "Olbermann got 4 million viewers, O'Reilly has 2 million viewers!" is actually made me laugh out loud. Considering that NBC is available in at least 2.5 times more homes than FNC, and that you could put 2 crickets getting it on for an hour and get 4 million viewers on a network...I don't think I would trumpet Olbermann's Sunday ratings. It doesn't make you look very smart.

I thought this site had moderately intelligent readers....I guess I was wrong.

I always thought the "Worst person in the world" segment was utilizing hyperbole to make a point or be funny. Collinsworth, as much as I like him, doesn't seem like a guy who has much appreciation for satire, irony or hyperbole. Olberman would have served himself well by being on the air the week earlier so he didn't overthink the show and just followed his groove.
I don't read the Kos people are talking about but I suspect Olberman will still have a show under a democratic administration and will still have opinions.
I did think what little I saw of the Sunday show that it was putting on too much of the America's Funniest Videos stuff.

[Kyle Bird]

Tom Heald made the comment about O'Reilly vs. Olbermann because he's so desperate to see Olbermann beat O'Reilly somehow, even if the comparison is ridiculously dishonest. Of course, Heald is another bitter, dishonest, hateful left winger. Then again, so is Aaron, who is so threatened by Cris Collinsworth questioning Olbermann's bile. That's the left wing for you - out to silence or ridicule anyone who disagrees with them. And, BTW, I have worked at three separate media enterprises in my career, and my collegues were overwhelmingly Democrats in each of those jobs. There is a left-wing bias in newspapers and TV, just the same way there is a right-wing bias in talk radio. Anyone who thinks otherwise is either dishonest, or just has his head in the sand.

[Mark Jeffries]

Kyle:

Why is Tom "another bitter, dishonest, hateful left winger?" Why are "left wingers" bitter, dishonest and hateful? And please use your own words instead of copying-and-pasting from newsmax.com or Rush Vicodin's web site.

Oh--Tom's gay (and that's no big secret to anyone at tvbarn2). I bet you hate him even more now.

[Aaron]

Anyway.

Whoever said NBC has two and a half times the distribution of Fox is not only wrong, but wildly, fantastically, in-your-dreams wrong.

Fox is available in virtually all TV households with cable or satellite, meaning 85 percent of them. NBC is in 99 percent of homes.

For late summer Olbermann got a very respectable number on the network. Nothing huge, nothing terrible. He didn't make O'Reilly's mistake when Fox put him in prime time of overpromising and underdelivering. Smart move.

The big story is cable, where he is the NO. 1 personality on MSNBC (Imus who?), No. 2 in his time period and continuing to gain on O'Reilly in demographics. KO could conceivably overtake Bill-O in demos someday, and if he does, trust me, we'll hear about it.