MSNBC Almost Brought Back Olbermann to Replace Maddow

Picture Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Day by day Beast/Getty

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To fill its upcoming Rachel Maddow void, MSNBC virtually took a time machine again to the great outdated days of 2011.

Keith Olbermann, who formed the community’s liberal voice earlier than being canned greater than a decade in the past, was in prolonged discussions with NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell and information boss Cesar Conde to return to MSNBC and take over the important thing 9 p.m. time slot, the previous Countdown host informed Supply Materials.

However any dream of an Olbermann reunion was squashed when Maddow—who just lately signed a huge $30 million deal to work much less and transition out of her nightly broadcast—stepped in to personally veto him as her successor.

“I provided to have her manufacturing firm ‘produce’ the present. Would give her some proxy management and a fuckton of cash however she and [former MSNBC chief-turned-consultant to Maddow’s production company] Phil Griffin refused,” Olbermann informed Supply Materials, claiming that the community additionally provided him a present in 2016.

“I don't count on to proceed negotiations with the successors to this administration workforce,” he added. “Administration is worse than asleep on the change.” MSNBC declined to remark in response.

Maddow’s rejection of Olbermann as her alternative is particularly noteworthy contemplating the position he performed in turning her from an Air America radio host into his protégé as an MSNBC common and eventual star voice of the channel. Whereas the pair had been pleasant throughout Olbermann’s glory days with the community, their relationship has soured in recent times.

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Olbermann might have gotten amusing at MSNBC, nevertheless, when this weekend the community turned the web’s “foremost character” for a day after The Rachel Maddow Present was compelled to delete a tweet and situation a groveling apology boosting a declare from Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, that Adolf Hitler didn’t kill “ethnic Germans.”

The offending publish drew widespread criticism, together with from the Auschwitz Memorial and media stars like Olbermann, who personally emailed the tweet to NBCU’s chief government.

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Final summer time, Maddow signed a brand new take care of MSNBC after The Day by day Beast first reported that she was contemplating leaving the community to spend extra time along with her household and begin her personal enterprise.

The brand new contract promised Maddow a jaw-dropping eight-figure annual wage to maintain her within the NBC household via the 2024 election, as The Day by day Beast reported. Her long-running 9 p.m. nightly broadcast is ready to finish this spring as a part of her new association, and Maddow is predicted to transition into serving to NBCU develop podcasts, documentaries, and different multimedia tasks.

Maddow will undoubtedly re-emerge for particular broadcasts, nevertheless, as she has finished in current weeks interrupting her “hiatus” to cowl the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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