This e-mail from Jean Sage at TV Talent was sent to Inside Cable News earlier today:

I can no longer ignore the recent blog postings and blind gossip items that claim or imply that my client, Keith Olbermann, is having any “woes and complaints” or is doing less than a spectacular and thoroughly professional job anchoring MSNBC’s “Countdown.” Rick Kaplan and Phil Griffin have been immensely supportive of Keith and “Countdown” and they were thrilled with his Pope coverage.

The gist of these totally unfounded postings and rumors is that a conversation was overheard on a train from Washington DC to New York, involving either myself or an “associate close to me.” I live and work in Northern California and haven’t been in New York since October of last year,
nor in Washington since August of last year or on such a train in at least five years. Just as importantly, there are no “associates close to me” and no one besides myself who ever, in any way, deals with Keith as a broadcasting agent, or anything close to it.

Perhaps I am not objective when it comes to my client but Keith Olbermann has never been more fulfilled by a job in the 22 years that I have represented him, than he has been in these last two years of “Countdown.” He rarely takes sick days (and, when he does, he voluntarily counts them against his vacation time). In fact, his superior coverage of the late Pope’s illness, passing, and funeral, occurred after he voluntarily gave up a vacation long-scheduled to begin April 1st. To the anonymous source who seems hell-bent on destroying my client’s reputation from dark cornors [sic], shame on you. If you are an on-air person, I understand how difficult it must be to see someone so immensely talented in all facets of television and radio, succeeding so well that you can only feel better by trying to discredit him.

Jean Sage

In a related note — Countdown with the aforementioned Keith Olbermann will air a 2-hour edition this evening. If that doesn’t disprove the speculation, I don’t know what does.

Is an MSNBC schedule shift in the offing?

TVN seems to think it is possible.

I wanted to see a visual of how this would all shake down:

In the previous two installments of this series (here and here), I examined the NBC/MSNBC relationship and illustrated how this relationship can have a detrimental affect on MSNBC’s programming and how it presents it to the viewer. To summarize, NBC has established a framework where NBC News gets the priority in resources, access, and coverage; not only during traditional NBC News programming hours but also during non-programming hours when NBC News programs would not be in direct competition with MSNBC programs.

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Following up on this, TVNewser’s and our user comments suggest that it’s Olbermann, though another Newser tipster suggests it’s O’Reilly.

Newser asks if Page Six would out a FOX anchor given that it’s a Murdoch publication. My memory is fuzzy but didn’t Page Six mention the Sheppard Smith J-Lo gaffe? I’m having a hard time believing it’s Olbermann because if it is him he’s hiding it perfectly when he’s on the air. On the other hand if it isn’t Olbermann, one would think he would have shot back to Newser by now as he has been rather quick to take down shots tossed his way by his enemies. The silence as they say is deafening…

UPDATE by blog that: K-Lo is J-Lo, and Olbermann has two n’s. We know that. Just some typos.

UPDATE by Spud: !#@!$%@#$…I guess I’ve been spending too much time on The Corner.

ANOTHER UPDATE (and now this thread is starting to look too much like Instapundit. ): TVNewser has yanked his piece on this story and says it’s about to be replaced with a piece on the future of MSNBC’s prime time! Well don’t hold us in suspense too long please….