Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann says he was in talks with network executives to replace outgoing host Rachel Maddow, who started on the network replacing Olbermann in 2008 until she dropped the idea.
The outspoken liberal journalist, 63, says he was in talks with NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Schell and news chairman Cesar Conde to return to the network and take Maddow’s place at 9 p.m. when her show ends this spring.
“I suggested that her production company ‘produce’ the show. Would give her some proxy control and a lot of money, but she and [consultant] Phil Griffin refused,” Olbermann told the Daily Beast.
“Management is worse than sleeping on a switch,” he added.
Olbermann hosted the daily evening show “Countdown” with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC from 2003 until 2011 when he abruptly announced his departure on the air.
Maddow, 48, was on the show before starting to fill in for Olbermann during his absence in 2008, which led to the debut of her own show in September of that year.
Maddow landed a new $30 million a year contract last year, up from her previous salary of $7 million a year. Under the new deal, she will remain online until the 2024 election, when she will transition from her late-night show to developing podcasts, documentaries and other projects for the news network.
Maddow began her career at MSNBC replacing Olbermann in 2008. Above, the couple covers the November 2010 midterm elections online.
Keith Olbermann, 63, says he was in talks to take over Rachel Maddow’s 9pm work hours on MSNBC until she stepped in to veto his appointment.
Maddow, taller in 2017, struck a new $30 million-a-year deal with MSNBC last year after tense negotiations. She will wrap up her late night show this spring and move on to creating podcasts, documentaries and other content.
Olbermann previously hosted The Resistance with Keith Olbermann, a political web series for GQ magazine that ran from 2016 to 2017 and focused on standing up to President Donald Trump.
Maddow, a former Air America anchor, began her career under Olbermann and previously credited him with her meteoric rise to become one of cable news’ biggest stars.
“I wouldn’t have this show if Keith hadn’t directly pushed the network to give me a try,” she once said on air after Olbermann left the network.
Olbermann is a former sports reporter who hosted ESPN’s SportsCenter from 1992 to 1997. He abruptly left MSNBC in 2011 in the midst of a four-year, $30 million contract.
His reasons for leaving were unclear, but the short-tempered presenter told Rolling Stone at the time that things started to change after Tim Russert’s death.
“One of the reasons I went this far was because Tim was there to intervene for me. He never gave much thought to the fact that he was probably my biggest supporter online. He came to them and said: “Leave him alone, we will deal with the retaliatory strike, I will take care of it,” he said.
Olbermann and Maddow’s relationship has soured in recent years, with Olbermann accusing Maddow and others of distancing themselves from his legacy.
Olbermann was leading a countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC from 2003 to 2011 when he abruptly announced his resignation on live television. The short-tempered journalist later said that everything changed after the death of colleague and host Tim Russert.
Olbermann and Maddow’s relationship has soured in recent years, with Olbermann accusing Maddow and others of distancing themselves from his legacy.
“The bottom line for me is that I contributed to their success and I was right in my assessment,” Olbermann said of Maddow and presenter Steve Kornacki in an interview with BBC presenter Ros Atkins in 2019.
“If I have any grudge against it, it’s that many of them erased me from their past to give the impression that I had no influence in bringing them to where they are now,” Olbermann said, according to The Daily Beast.
He continued: “If you recognize the extent to which you owe others, you are somehow considered weak. Rachel Maddow’s story was that after I left, she got mad at me for leaving because it meant she couldn’t beat me on MSNBC and be better than her mentor.”
Maddow’s audience at the time, around 3 million per night, was far more than Olbermann ever had.
MSNBC’s ratings in the critical 25 to 54 demographic fell a whopping 30 percent after Maddow began her hiatus last month.
Maddow, who hosted the network’s main prime-time news program, was temporarily replaced by Ali Velshi from February 7 to 11 and Alex Wagner from February 14 to 17.
Maddow’s replacements Ali Weshley (left) and Alex Wagner (right) proved much less popular in her old time slot, leading MSNBC to consider replacing them from their hosting gigs.
The February 14 broadcast was watched by a total of 201,000 viewers in this age group, down about 60,000 from the previous week. In total, Maddow’s show is watched by about a million people.
She started her vacation earlier in February with a two-month hiatus as she works on several other projects, including a film, but has suddenly returned to
She returned on February 24 to cover the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“So Russia has started another war,” Maddow told viewers, according to Forbes, as part of a two-hour broadcast about the invasion.
“This time we have a big, conventional ground war. The first in Europe after World War II.