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Olbermann Says Current To Offer More News Content

L

Laurence Glavin

Guest
Keith Olbermann was a guest on Stephen Colbert's show Wednesday night and said that Current TV will soon be offering more news and information content. He's a scheduled guest on the Jimmy Fallon show tonight (Thursday, 06/16) which is interesting because he'll be appearing on an entity controlled by NBC. I wonder if he'll comment on his most recent employer!
 
It was funny having Colby trying to get Olby to admit that he routinely "lost to Bill O'Reilly" (and that will most likely continue, unfortunately).
 
I've always been a big supporter of Current TV, especially when they aired Viewer Created Content. It would be refreshing to transform Current into a younger skewing 24/7 news network, definitely the opposite of what Fox News attracts.
Olbermann keeps talking about how much he wants Rachel Maddow to join Current when her MSNBC contract expires. Is Current going to be MSNBC 2.0?
Per an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Olbermann will make a hefty $10 Million a year with Current.
 
CNN is barely getting by as the "liberal" cable news competitor to MSNBC, so how can Current compete?
 
Current is a failure. Olbermann will bring a few more viewers, but there's no way they will be able to afford to pay him 10 mill a year for long.
 
There is a wild rumor floating around out there today that Anthony Weiner is going to be offered
a show on Current.

Will anybody watch? And will it be on seven second delay?
 
That rumor started floating because Jimmy Fallon suggested it to Olbermann on Thursday, but there's very little word if it is a legitimate offer.

John King would be a great addition to Current if they want to be a real player in news programming.
 
I watched Late night with Jimmy Fallon on Hulu, just to see the Olberman interview. Oh my what
a train wreck of a show. I thought by now it would have gotten better, but the show is still
forced comedy. I don't get the band he has, the Roots. he always calls them the best band on TV.
I would highly disagree and get the square.
 
1069_KIFR said:
I watched Late night with Jimmy Fallon on Hulu, just to see the Olberman interview. Oh my what
a train wreck of a show. I thought by now it would have gotten better, but the show is still
forced comedy. I don't get the band he has, the Roots. he always calls them the best band on TV.
I would highly disagree and get the square.
Click to expand...

I would have to disagree with you! Late Night has improved tremendously! The comedy bits are fresh and fun and The Roots are amazing musicians! Jimmy's interviewing skills are definitely a step ahead of Leno, and it sure looks like Jimmy's been getting his good share of guests.
 
His 'thank you' notes bits are definitely must-see TV. A parody of that skit was done at a young people's event at a local christian college recently, to great response. No "top-ten" lists or "headlines" bits were attempted. It's getting harder and harder for me to watch Leno.
 
radiojomo said:
1069_KIFR said:
I watched Late night with Jimmy Fallon on Hulu, just to see the Olberman interview. Oh my what
a train wreck of a show. I thought by now it would have gotten better, but the show is still
forced comedy. I don't get the band he has, the Roots. he always calls them the best band on TV.
I would highly disagree and get the square.
Click to expand...

I would have to disagree with you! Late Night has improved tremendously! The comedy bits are fresh and fun and The Roots are amazing musicians! Jimmy's interviewing skills are definitely a step ahead of Leno, and it sure looks like Jimmy's been getting his good share of guests.
Click to expand...

I respect your opinion. As I just sampled a couple of short segments via Hulu.com. I do not watched enough to see it from your point of view.

Yes, I have yet to check out his 'Thank You notes' now in paperback!
 
Haven't watched Fallon in a while. Didn't much care for him. The humor seemed forced, with lots of lame jokes about Twitter, et. al. that pandered to the college crowd. Letterman and Conan at least did it in a more unique and less contrived way. The Roots are a very good band, however.

Ferguson is a riot in small doses, and he does get points for originality. Kimmel has hilarious monologues but way too much crass product placement for my tastes. Late night hasn't been the same since Conan moved up, then over to TBS (and he's a hell of a lot better than the stale Letterman and Leno). And yeah, I do miss the late, great Tom Snyder. Now THAT was classic late night TV! Look up some of his stuff on YouTube, particularly his interview with Johnny Rotten.
 
None of these people compare to Johnny Carson. He was in the right place at the right time before the proliferation of cable when the 3 nets mattered. He excuded what one pundit said (to paraphrase) "Awshuckness and Clubby inness"------------He could make or break stars and politicians. Of course there will never be anybody as big as Cronkite and Ed Sullivan. Times change and we have to accept that nobody gets it all except Jon Stewart :eek:
 
You need money to run a news operation, and so far as I can tell, Current ain't got it.
 
FreddyE1977 said:
You need money to run a news operation, and so far as I can tell, Current ain't got it.
Click to expand...

The funny thing is that when you go on Newsworld International's Wikipedia page, it says this:
"In 2004, the channel was purchased by former Vice President of the United States Al Gore and Joel Hyatt. The programming continued to be provided by the CBC until July 31, 2005. They relaunched the channel at midnight on August 1 as Current TV (formerly INdTV, like indie TV), specializing in a youth perspective on national issues. Gore and Hyatt went down this route after deciding that a liberal news network would be rejected by national advertisers"

Current would obviously run as a liberal news network, something that they wanted to avoid, but would this operation do better than what they have right now? If Current really wanted to make their news operations legitimate, how about grabbing some personalities from the dark side like Glenn Beck to make it a truly "independent" voice, grabbing voices from the left and right.

If anyone watched the show tonight, feel free to report back. Current is not available on my TV package.
 
FreddyE1977 said:
You need money to run a news operation, and so far as I can tell, Current ain't got it.
Click to expand...

I watched a bit of his rant fest tonight and the latest version of "Countdown" just confirmed my belief that sequels to your past work are rarely impressive. If you're going to do a show elsewhere, you need to rework it, make it different. One of his interviews plotting ways with a guest to remove Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reminded me a little of Mike Myers as "Dr. Evil" from Austin Powers. It was laughable.

Ultimately, despite all of his hubris, Bill O'Reilly eventually did sink Keith Olbermann, and his having to do his schtick on a little carried insignificant cable network just shows to what lengths Olbermann will go to put himself in front of a camera.
 
I watched it and I think:

1) The set was a bit too generic after the big 30 Rock vistas
2) He has nobody to hand off to.
3) He did get Michael Moore as a guest (no surprise) and John Dean and Marcus Malitsos were his resident experts. Still waiting for Jonathan Turley and Michae Musto.

The show was really not that different from the origional, but I still like him. I know nobody else posting here seems to have respect for KO. I think that he has a sense of humor compared to Lawrence O'Donnell's attack dog persona and Ed Schultz's tough guy schtick. Chris Matthews is a bit middle of the road. I believe that Keith was the best along with Rachel Maddow (who never gets crude) and Stewart/Colbert.

Sorry. I do agree that without more pundits, this venture probably will fail
 
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