January 22nd Update:

According to Mediaite, Comcast released a statement hours after Olbermann's firing stating they had no input on the decision to terminate his employment with MSNBC.

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Original post from January 21, 2011

In the dead news cycle of a Friday night reserved for scandals and firings; Comcast, the new owners of MSNBC, NBC News & NBCU, sacked Keith Olbermann was sacked with little fanfare and a three sentence statement.

The entertainment news site, Deadline.com, has the statement in its entirety.

STATEMENT REGARDING KEITH OLBERMANN: MSNBC and Keith Olbermann have ended their contract. The last broadcast of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" will be this evening. MSNBC thanks Keith for his integral role in MSNBC's success and we wish him well in his future endeavors.

Now, you might be asking yourself, "Robert, why does news with Keith Olbermann (Overbite) matter for KFYO?"

Well, first, Mark Levin loves to rag on Olbermann (Keith Overbite; 'Countdown to No Ratings').  Listening to Levin's rants about Olbermann over the years has been always enjoyable.

Secondly, I always thought Olbermann was always out of his element as the "standard bearer" of the lefty movement.  Maybe Keith will swallow his pride and go back to sports.  He was always excellent on ESPN and I bet he's still better than half of the anchors on SportsCenter today.

Finally, I think this move by MSNBC shows that the era of the "over the top" television political host may be waning.  FOX News' Glenn Beck is still scoring high viewership compared to the rest of the cable news shows, but is down from his 2009 high of 2.9 million viewers.

Here's Thursday's (Jan. 20) Cable News Viewership from the Drudge Report:

NEWS RACE
THURS. JAN. 20, 2011

FOXNEWS O'REILLY 2,918,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,079,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 1,940,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 1,786,000
FOXNEWS BECK 1,780,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 1,460,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,106,000
CNN PIERS 1,025,000
MSNBC MADDOW 976,000
MSNBC O'DONNELL 855,000
MSNBC SCHULTZ 760,000
CNN COOPER 740,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 700,000

Obviously, MSNBC wants their main primetime show to beat either Beck or Greta Van Sustern, but I think that will be a long time coming because of the types of viewers they attract.  Note, we haven't even discussed CNN or CNN-HLN, as they've both become irrelevant (well, other than acting as economic stimulus for the Atlanta & New York areas).

Do the primetime cable news shows even matter?  Can they hold your interest?  Let me know in the comments below.

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