Why Does The Huffington Post Dislike Keith Olbermann So Much?

The Cable Gamer is now determined to unravel the mystery as to why The Huffington Post is so hostile to Keith Olbermann. Did Keith say something unkind to Arianna Huffington? Did KO hit on some HuffPo staffer? Or is HP just appalled by the nightly truckbomb of bombast on "Countdown"? Or is it just that HP is looking for the maximum sensationalism, with every posting, even if such sensationalism is aimed at a fellow lefty! Inquiring Cable Gamers want to know!

Surely somebody has to explain headlines such as this doozy: "Olbermann 'More Like His Fox Counterpart Than He Would Care To Admit': Variety." (See screen grab above.)

Now the words that Huffpo pulled out from Brian Lowry's story in Variety are perfectly accurate, but those words, cited above, do not appear in the Variety headline. Instead, Variety chose softer words: "Olbermann-O'Reilly feud spreads/Parent companies embroiled in grudge match."

So again, let's compare Huffpo's header:

"Olbermann 'More Like His Fox Counterpart Than He Would Care To Admit': Variety."

To the original, which appeared in Variety:

"Olbermann-O'Reilly feud spreads/Parent companies embroiled in grudge match."

Obviously The Huffington Post's header is much harsher. Somebody at HP sat around and torqued up the Variety story.

Now let's think about that, fellow Cable Gamers: Why would Huffpo take a perfectly good headline Variety headline and heat it up like that? HP must realize that such headline-heating will infuriate the notoriously thin-skinned Olbermann. Surely it won't be long now before KO singles out AH for one of his many "worst person in the world" awards.

So why? Why?

Someone please explain it to me!

Nice Going, Jeff Zucker! You're Getting Rid Of The Star Who Clobbers David Letterman!

And you wonder why GE will be forced to unload NBC-U!? It's cuzza boneheaded decisions like this: Four years ago, Jeff Zucker humiliated Jay Leno by offering "The Tonight Show" job to Conan O'Brien. It was a hamfistedly mean move, done to a guy who everyone likes, who had been a team player for NBC for decades.

And yet Leno, trouper that he is, responded by making his show better, to the point now where Leno solidly defeats Letterman in the ratings.

James Hibberd and Paul J. Gough recall that great bone-brained Zuckerian moment in programming history in The Hollywood Reporter:

Little did the Peacock know back in 2004 when then-NBC Universal TV president Jeff Zucker guaranteed Conan O'Brien that he would take Leno's job five years later that the succession would turn late-night on its ear.

Nice going, Jeff. You and Jeff Immelt will have a lot to talk about.

"CNN and MSNBC have somehow managed to photocopy several pages from the playbook of Roger Ailes"...

...And that's why CNN and MSNBC have come up a little bit.

Who can argue with this assessment, quoted above,from Jacques Steinberg, who covers the TV beat for The New York Times?

Fox #1! The Huffington Post Reports, You Decide

But it's hard to argue with the data, showing Fox as #1, way ahead of CNN and MSNBC. Still, The Cable Gamer gives The Huffington Post a lotta credit for playing the story big (see screen grab above.

And Matea Gold and The Los Angeles Times, too, which first ran the news on its site.

Although, of course, Huffpo being what it is, the reader comments underneath the story are amusing--boy, are they mad that the left isn't winning!

How the heathen rage...

Keith, We Hardly Knew Ye: More Evidence That the Left is Turning on Olbermann

The Cable Gamer argued, earlier today, that liberals were turning against Keith Olbermann--perhaps because they find him excessive in his lefty partisanship, perhaps because he is simply not cool, in the way that, say, Barack Obama is cool. After all, back in 1960, John F. Kennedy and his Rat Packing New Frontiersmen didn't have any time for such un-cool liberals as Adlai Stevenson or Eleanor Roosevelt. Sorry, Keith, you served your purpose, but now we are moving on.

So these days, Olbermann is being pushed aside--more precisely, laughed out of town.

This morning I noted that GQ was slamming Olbermann, and now I see that The Huffington Post is trumpeting an anti-Olbermann item that appeared in The New York Post's "Page Six." Now it's no surprise, of course, that the NYP doesn't like Olbermann, because the Post is mostly conservative, and also because the paper is a sister property alongside Fox News.

But why would Huffpo pick up this nasty item in a rival publication and play it big? (See screen grab, above--the Olbermann headline is right in the middle.)

What motivates Arianna & Co to diss Keith? Now that's an interesting question. As noted, TCG thinks that the left has come to regard Olbermann as too cartoonish to be tolerated as the leading lefty on TV. So the left is marginalizing him, to make room for a more normal liberal discourse under an Obama presidency.

Here, btw, is the item as it appeared in HP, under the headline "Page Six: Olbermann Went Nuts Over First Class DC Train Ticket, Ketchup Packets At Kennedy Center; Olbermann Denies." TCG wasn't there, of course, but it seems to me that if Huffpo really believed Olbermann's denials, it would have spiked the story, instead of giving it this big play:

The ongoing feud between Keith Olbermann and the New York Post's Page Six continues. The gossip column ran an item in Wednesday's paper reporting that Olbermann threw a tantrum because there were no first-class train tickets available to bring him from New York to Washington, where he would anchor MSNBC's coverage of Tim Russert's memorial. Later, when he arrived, he "went apoplectic because there were no ketchup packets at the Kennedy Center." From Page Six:

The source said Olbermann was screaming into the phone on Tuesday because there were no first-class train tickets available for that day, and he wanted to make sure he would ride first-class on Wednesday. According to the source, Olbermann berated a staffer who was coordinating Wednesday's Kennedy Center memorial by yelling, "You better hope to God there is a first-class train ticket tomorrow."

Our insider elaborated, "MSNBC was dealing with who could come to the private ceremony Tuesday and who couldn't, among the hundreds of people who worked with or for Russert - and Keith was ranting about not getting a first-class ticket."

We're told Olbermann didn't get to Tuesday's ceremony, and went to Washington by car to broadcast from outside the Kennedy Center the next day. An aghast witness there said, "As guests were making their way into the memorial, Keith went apoplectic because there were no ketchup packets at the Kennedy Center."

Olbermann was heard saying outside the service, "this place is going to hell," because his Washington staff couldn't find ketchup packets for lunch at the Center. An NBC insider claimed, however, "Keith did not have lunch at the Kennedy Center and was not eating on the set because he was anchoring a broadcast."

Continuing his new tradition of preemptively disputing Page Six items about him the night before they air, Olbermann used Tuesday's "Countdown" to name Page Six's Corynne Steindler one of his "Worst Persons in the World" (she got the bronze, while her News Corp cousin Bill O'Reilly nabbed the top two spots). Olbermann called the story "fictional" and insisted that he took a car both ways to and from DC and only drank a Starbucks at the Kennedy Center (which meant he needed no ketchup).

"You guys, you're kind of embarrassing yourself now," Olbermann said to Page Six, echoing his rep's statement: "Since whatever you're going to print is an outright lie, you can go ahead and write whatever you want. That's on the record and applies to all future items you might make up."

Once again, if HP thought the story was bogus, it wouldn't have printed it--or have retracted it by now.

So here's a question: How long will it take before Arianna Huffington is "the worst person in the world."

It might take awhile. Although by then, Arianna won't care: She'll be appointed Ambassador to Greece by a grateful President Obama, while KO will be ranting on the radio somewhere, alongside Randi Rhodes and defeated US Senate candidate Al Franken.

"His eyes two Fabergé eggs of radiant self-love as his enraged schnoz spears the camera" -- And this is from a Keith Olbermann friend!

The Cable Gamer gets the distinct feeling that the sophisticated liberal-left is starting to see Keith Olbermann as a liability, or at least as an embarrassment.

What other conclusion can one draw from Tom Carson's stinging profile of KO in the latest GQ? Carson dwells on, for example, Olbermann's narcissism; the quote in the headline is pulled from Carson's piece.

And as for other aspects of the piece, I mean, let's start right with the headline: "Fairly Unbalanced." That's a clever enough play on Fox News' slogan--and Carson goes out of his way to assure his urbane-liberal audience that he is no fan of FNC, and that he agrees with Olbermann's politics--but nonetheless, the unmistakable essence of Carson's piece is distancing.

And as part of that distancing act, Carson mines into the vein of nuttiness running through Olbermann, and his niche-lib audience of bloggers who don't have their own blogs.

Carson nails the hothouse nature of "Countdown," the sense in which Olbermann and his never-changing cast of Charlie McCarthys are nothing but a carnival of left-liberalism, a portside funhouse so weird that even Hillary Clinton was made to look like some sort of dangerous conservative.

But of course, the star--by design, the only star--of the show is Olbermann himself. Here's Carson, trying to put some distance between conventional liberalism and cult-like Olbermannism:

Righteous wrath and smugness are not an ideal combo, and Olbermann’s delight in being Keith Olbermann has long since transformed anything genuine in his indignation into performance art.

Performance art. As in, crackpot artists. As in, pro wrestling, or the Harlem Globetrotters. Performance art, as distinct from actual news. No wonder liberals are embarrassed.

Tim Russert, RIP. The Passing of Of A Man, But Also, The Passing Of An Era

The Cable Gamer has resisted saying anything about the death of Tim Russert over these past nine days. It was a shame, for sure, to see him--or anyone--cut down at the age of 58, which (gulp) doesn't seem that old anymore. As John Donne reminded us, "Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for thee."

But I resisted commenting in this blogspace, because I didn't want to fall into the Scylla and Charybdis of a) seeming dismissive, or b) seeming overly publicly traumatized by his demise.

It would appear as though most commentators fell deep into b), defined as overmuch public rending of garments. NBC and its various vassal networks, including MSNBC, treated Russert's death as if a Pope or a head of state had been lost. And Sally Quinn, who is famous and prominent for no good reason that I know of, went even further over the top, all the way into the deep end, declaring, "I feel almost like we did when somebody—when Jack Kennedy or even Katharine Graham died."

But on the always must-watch "Fox News Watch" last night, Jim Pinkerton put his finger on something that The Cable Gamer has been thinking, too.

And that is, paraphrasing here: Anytime that some public event is this excessive, this far out of the norm, this overwrought, well, then it has to be a clue to some larger puzzle, the key to a larger lock. What caused the excess? The bubble of emotion? The frenzy of exaltation for a man who was cool, but no giant? I mean, quick--what will Russert be remembered for, other than being a prominent TV journalist in his time? Did he leave behind a school of thought? A new way of looking at the world, like, say, Edward R. Murrow, or even Hunter S. Thompson?

Pinkerton was telling us, if we can figure out the riddle, open up the gateway to meaning, then some pattern will become apparent, some vast storeroom of meaning revealed. Because, of course, any funeral is not so much for the living, as for the dead. What we, the living, did over the last week speaks volumes about us, not about Russert.

As Jim said, the commemoration of Russert's life was ritualistic, a kind of secular liturgy. OK, that's clear enough. But for whom did this bell toll? And Jim's answer was a zinger: It was a wake for the Mainstream Media itself. And so the hours and hours of histrionics were a kind of narcissism. Heck, they weren't a kind of narcissism--they were narcissism, plain and whole.

That is, there probably won't ever again be a figure in the broadcast media as powerful as Russert. And the media know it. MSM RIP? That's worth a good sobby wet wake, isn't it? I mean, stop all the clocks!

Interestingly, Rolling Stone's Eric Bates, a guest panelist on "FNW"--and a good one, in TCG's view--agreed with Pinkerton. Bates said that Russert was more powerful than say, the late Peter Jennings, whose passing, three years ago, was much less noted than Russert's. Bates' point was that Russert was an agenda setter for politics, more than any of the nightly broadcast news anchors, even though, of course, the anchors get a bigger audience. But in terms of clout, it's quality, not quantity, and Russert got the cream of the political crop. If it's Sunday, it's "Meet the Press." I mean, where else could you possibly be. Yup, Russert was the Big Lebowsky.

But now Tim is gone, after two decades at the top, a span of time that began in the peak of Roone Arledge-style super-duper news production and is now fallen to the downsized depths of layoffs and TiVo. Indeed, now there is no top to the media, because the great cathedral of the media has come crashing down, crumbled into bare ruined choirs.

Which was Pinkerton's point: Given the fractionalization of the media, nobody in broadcast news will ever wield the kind of muscle that Russert wielded. And that's a sad thing for newsies to realize. Not only is Tim gone, but there won't be another Tim. So they'll have to have a good cry before they pick themselves up to trudge on into this stiller world.

As A.E.Housman, most definitely not a Cable Gamer, put it a century ago, something that's done is done: "Duty, friendship, bravery o'er/Sleep away, lad; wake no more."

It's over guys. It was a great run, but all things must pass.

The Cable Game Converges, Locally

The Cable Gamer, and everyone else, thinks that Convergence-- the ultimate fusion of the telephone, the TV, the computer, and the mobile device--is coming, and coming soon. So to try and keep up with things, I have started reading TechCrunch, the high tech blog, which snarkily covers Silicon Valley, Silicon Alley, etc. It's nice to know that attitude is always a vital part of the mix--any mix.

And here's an example of what's brewing in the Convergence world:

Topix, the local news community that allows readers to submit and edit stories, has secured deals with six content providers as it moves to establish itself as a one-stop-shop for local information.

Topix will now use Eventful as an events database, and will offer current TV and movie listings through Zap2It. InfoUSA will supply business directories, and the site will begin using LiveDeal for pet classifieds. Topix will be using Apartments.com to flesh out their apartment listings, and will use Informa Research Services to provide mortgage rate information.

Indeed, Topix is quite an interesting idea. As TechCrunch further observes:

Topix is clearly moving towards becoming a central hub for localized information rather than simply a news site. While the new features are logical extensions to what they’ve offered in the past, Topix may be trying to differentiate itself from Google News, which introduced local news earlier this year and has a much higher readership.

Others, too, are getting into the mix, such as The Huffington Post, which is expanding into a Chicago edition.

In other words, the blogosphere is sort of doing to news what CraigsList has done to classified ads.

And there's a lot of news out there--news is where you find it. For example, this just in from Justin.TV, a man was caught robbing an apartment, on camera. Very Truman Show.

Yes, somebody still has to cover the big things--wars, rumors of wars, and Brangelina. And somebody always will. But the local environment is changing. Or, to be more precise, it is Converging.

What Did Chris Matthews Know, and When Did He Know It?

Chris Matthews might love Barack Obama as a political leader, but he is also high on Michelle Obama, if you get my drift, and I think you do.

OK, by now you have seen or heard about the remarkably inappropriate ad that MSNBC ran about Mrs. Obama.

At first, The Cable Gamer was amazed that MSNBC, the most politically correct of news networks, would run such a sexist ad. I mean, this isn't just any woman here, this is the woman who could well be the next First Lady of the United States.

And then I realized--of course!--Chris Matthews. MSNBC's Matthews, of course, who has a "creepy crush" on CNBC's Erin Burnett, and who groped Ellen DeGeneres (!) on national TV. Which is to say, a pattern has emerged here, and this latest spot is a part of that pattern.

So I have no doubt that Matthews enthusiastically endorsed this "Bond Girl" take on Mrs. Obama.

But of course, now that the roof has caved in, Matthews will surely deny any knowledge, but it was a spot for his show. Of course he knew--heck, the jazzy sexy spot might well have been his idea. Maybe it's how can get his jollies as a married man, surrounded by snoopers and dime-droppers.

It will be interesting to see if any reporter or blogger examines Matthews' exact role in the creation of this spot. Someone might wish to ask the famous Watergate-era question, "What did he know, and when did he know it?"

Here, fyi, is The Huffington Post's take on the incident:

MSNBC ran an ad for "Hardball" Thursday morning teasing a segment on Michelle Obama's image makeover. The ad featured background artwork of female silhouetted dancers while the phrase, "HER NEW OUTLOOK?" was displayed on the screen. When contacted, an MSNBC representative said the ad was pulled after only running "once or twice" because it was deemed "inappropriate." The full statement:

The artwork should not have been used, it was inappropriate. We pulled the spot this morning and it was re-done without those images.

h/t -- The Huffington Post

"GE stock stumbles to lowest point since 2003"

"GE stock stumbles to lowest point since 2003."

That's the headline from the Associated Press this afternoon. As The Cable Gamer has been pointing out for a year now, General Electric's attempt to make itself into a hip green media company is not going to work. But don't take my word for it--take the word of Wall Street. Which is to say, the millions of shareholders who form the planetary decisionmaking pool that determines the price of a widely held stock such as GE.

Jeff Immelt tells friends that he is bored as head of GE, and no doubt GE shareholders are restless, too, for a change in leadership.

The Achilles Heel of GE is NBC-Universal. GE has always been an industrial company, and then Jack Welch, begged on by his Hollywood-headed henchman, Bob Wright, diversified into other areas, including TV and then movies.

Along the way, GE lost its way. Building machines is not the same as making a TV show, or a movie--or putting on TV news. Welch could make it all work, but not Immelt.

So now Immelt and his new media underling, Jeff Zucker, don't seem to understand that MSNBC, for example, while surging slightly in the ratings, is nonetheless making more enemies than friends for the overall company.

The market is sending a signal, that it wants a NBCU spinoff, so that GE can get back to what it does best. And if Immelt doesn't get it, he will be replaced by a CEO who does get it. But while Immelt might not be all that competent as a corporate manager, he is plenty savvy as a media player. So he lets his hair grow longer (see above), to let liberals know that he is not just a "suit." (Bob Wright did the same thing in his Hollywood period, letting what little hair he had grow long.) So watch for Immmelt to leave before being pushed, perhaps to some gig in the Barack Obama presidential administration.

An Immelt exit will leave GE without a CEO, but it will give the company a desperately needed chance to restructure and downsize, under better leadership.

The Cable Gamer is no stock picker, or market-timer. But she figures that GE stock will probably start to rise, as the market starts to price in the good news of Immelt's departure, and GE's breakup.

The New Yorker asks, "Is Keith Olbermann changing TV news?" Yes, But He's Not The Only One

"One Angry Man: Is Keith Olbermann changing TV news?" That’s the important question asked by Peter Boyer, writing in The New Yorker. And the answer is, "yes." But Olbermann won't be the last one to change TV news.

Most immediately, TV news has surely never seen the sort of open alliance between an on-air talent and the left-wing blogosphere. In a scene-setting opener to his smoothly written--and not particularly favorable--piece, Boyer recalls the night of May 13-14th, when a restless-legged Olbermann stayed up till 3 am working on his most perfervid tirade against George W. Bush, accusing Bush of having an "addled brain," who was, in turn, manipulated by "the American snake-oil salesman Dick Cheney," and various "tragically know-it-all minions," "sycophants," and "mental dwarves." As Boyer summed up, "The denunciation on hit the high notes of the most fevered antiwar rhetoric, on America and the world. Intelligence was faked, W.M.D.s were imagined, Iraq was laid waste, and American freedoms were trashed." And then, of course, Olbermann closed with, "This advice, Mr. Bush: Shut the hell up!"

"Shut the hell up." Nice, Keith. Wasn't it just a little while ago that liberal tut-tutters were denouncing conservative talk-radio-ers for their "angry" rhetoric? I guess anger is only bad if conservatives are the angry ones.

As Boyer further observes, "The jeremiad against Bush was a signature Olbermann effort, the sort of stylized, mocking tirade that has lately made him a cable-news sensation, the Edward R. Murrow of the Angry Left." OK, fine. There's nothing new about Bush-bashing in the media.

But here’s where Boyer adds some interesting detail about Olbermann's polemical all-nighter:

Olbermann was pleased with the script, and the next day, before going on the air with it, he posted excerpts on the liberal blog Daily Kos, which is a fairly good representation of the Olbermann fan base. The Kossacks wholly approved. (“You excoriated the bloodyhanded, warmongering imbecile.” “This country cannot survive without you.” “Dude, you’ve got a pair of steel ones!” “I’m gonna print it out, hang it up and memorize it.”)

Once again, it’s worth dwelling on this alliance between the lefty "netroots" and a TV anchorman. And as TCG has wondered aloud in the past, what does GE's Jeff Immelt think about all this Republican-bashing? And all of GE's shareholders and stakeholders?

But of course, that wasn't a concern for MSNBC, which has a much narrower focus--trying to lure the eyeballs of the leftermost 1 or 2 percent of the population. Here's more from Boyer:

His bosses loved it. “I think we’re onto something,” the president of NBC News, Steve Capus, told me. “That’s what we keep hearing from the audience, more and more, is that they appreciate that we have people who are actually speaking truth to power, or being transparent in their own personal viewpoints.” That’s another way of saying that liberals, after many failed attempts, seem finally to have found their own Bill O’Reilly.

Boyer takes up the issue of who Olbermann can be compared to:

Capus and Griffin insist that Olbermann’s broadcast is like an opinion section in a newspaper, suitable to what they call MSNBC’s “cable sensibility.” Olbermann differs. He begins each “Countdown” with the Beethoven theme from NBC’s “Huntley-Brinkley Report,” and concludes with Murrow’s signature sign-off, “Good night, and good luck.” He maintains that “Countdown” is very much part of that continuum. “It is a newscast with commentary and analysis, the way most really good newscasts used to be,” he says. “Dosages of the various components vary in a greater degree than we’re used to, or maybe were even done in the heyday of this kind of thing. But if you listen to those daily Murrow newscasts in the forties on the radio, Murrow would do the news, two and a half, three minutes, take a break, and then do a two- or three-minute commentary.” It could be argued that Murrow’s work in wartime London—he would report on the Battle of Britain, and also advocate against continued American neutrality in the war—is hardly the same thing as telling the President to “shut the hell up,’’ or posing the question regarding Bush (as Olbermann did): “Pathological Presidential Liar or an Idiot-in-Chief?”

But of course, while Murrow was renowned for keeping his cool, even as he being bombed by Nazis, Olbermann is renowned for his non-cool. One senses a mania in Olbermann, which, of course, is only partially visible on the air. The Cable Gamer has noted the existence of Karma Bites, and Boyer does not, but Boyer nonetheless adds some more detail about Olbermann’s past:

One of his co-anchors, Suzy Kolber, has said that Olbermann was sometimes so overbearing that she would lock herself in the bathroom and cry. Another colleague, Mike Soltys, has said that when Olbermann left the network, in 1997, “he didn’t burn bridges here—he napalmed them.”

One can only imagine all the juicy details that might come from Kolber and Soltys.

And more corroboration comes from Phil Griffin, the senior vice president in charge of MSNBC, who has been Olbermann’s producer, off and on, for 30 years, says of Olbermann: "I mean, the guy is crazy, but he is made for this."

Indeed he might yet prove to be made for more than this. Boyer offers what I think is a scoop—that in 2005, Olbermann was seriously romanced by CBS News to be its evening news anchor, taking over from Bob Schieffer, who was filling in for Dan Rather. Which, of course, is the gig that went to Katie Couric. Recalling that lost opportunity, Olbermann told Boyer, “I think it would not do any worse than the three that are out there now.”

And on that much, at least, TCG agrees with Olby. The decline, and further decline, of the broadcast nightly news shows has many causes, but the most obvious one is this: By 6:30 or 7 p.m., everybody already knows what the day’s news has been. They have seen it in on cable news, they have heard it on the radio, they have read it on their Blackberry. So folks just don’t need a network’s idea of "The Voice of God" to tell them the news. Nor do they need a perky "girl next store" to tell them the news. They already know it, so it isn't news anymore.

What people need, in the evening, is perspective, insight, or analysis. OK, we know the news, now tell us what it means, or at least what you think it means. Tell us something useful about Bush, or Iraq, or China, or whatever. Venture an opinion! Dare to say something fresh and different!

Obviously not everyone will agree with everything that an individual anchor/commentator might say, but that’s why we have cable news—each to his own, scattered across the dial. As they say, if you want "just the facts ma'am," there's always C-SPAN. And beyond the proliferation of TV channels, of course, is the infinitely greater proliferation of the Net.

Meanwhile, Olbermann has found his niche, on the Bush-bashing hard left. And other commentators, of course, have found their niches, too, such as Lou Dobbs, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Yes, those latter two are comedians, but as the Cable Gamer (and many others) have pointed out, Stewart, in particular, packs more wisdom into his humor than most "wise men" can pack into a ponderous lecture—as Will Rogers demonstrated, decades back, there’s no reason why political commentary has be dull and unfunny.

Of course, there are others who offer commentary. One is Olbermann’s bête noire, Bill O’Reilly. He has plenty to say about the news, and he says it every night.

So, as I was reading that Olbermann was seriously considered as a nightly news anchor, TCG thought to herself that maybe O’Reilly should be considered for such a gig. He would a whole new dimension to the nightly news, speaking for the half of America that feels neglected by the usual bi-coastal liberals who dominate the news biz.

But of course, O’Reilly won’t be so considered, because he is a populist conservative. And the MSM can’t have that, even if O’Reilly could draw a good rating. The MSM would rather continue to shrink doing things in the familiar liberal way, rather than risk growing in an unfamiliar conservative way.

So yes, Olbermann has changed TV news. But he is not the only one who has changed it. There will be others, and they won't all be histrionic Bush-hating lefties.

Huckabee Joins Fox News

The Cable Gamer has always liked Mike Huckabee. On the campaign trail, he seemed to combine a seriousness about public policy with a sense of fun and good times--albeit while still being a teetotalling Southern Baptist.

So TCG was delighted to see the always-on Howard Kurtz reporting that Huck will be joining Fox Newsas a contributor.

He will bring a valuable Heartland perspective to the usual gang of Beltway types that overpopulate the cableverse.

The All-Seeing Eye Will Become Many Eyes--The Cable Game Will Be The Video Game

A news item fromBeet.TV details how The Washington Post has trained 185 staffers in using videocams. In other words, everyone at the Post, if the plan works, will be "vlogging." And not a moment too soon, Beet adds, since Microsoft's Steve Ballmer is predicting that "dead tree" newspapers won't exist in ten years.

So that's on the production end--what will ordinary people be doing in ten years? They will no doubt be generating a lot of their own content, too, but within five years, not ten, Americans will be consuming eight hours a day of video, according to TV Week.

So the WaPo is on the right track, one might say. The Post is sprouting new portals, new eyes. And so there won't just be a few Washington Post "channels," there will be hundreds, even thousands.

The Cable Gamer is reminded of the peacock. It's the symbol of NBC, of course, or at least it was, but whereas NBC picked it because of its colors, one might pick it again because of its many eyes.

And that's the future history of the Cable Game--it will be the Eyeball Game.

Keith Olbermann Jumps The Shark?

Keith Olbermann has jumped the shark. That's a reasonable interpretation of Howard Rosenberg's incisive TV column in the LA Times on Saturday. How else to interpret a piece that appears under the headline, "Is Olbermann's snide act on MSNBC the future of TV news?" And Rosenberg's answer to that question is obviously, "I sure as heck hope not." But there's an element of the forlorn in Rosenberg's authorial voice.

"Jump the shark," of course, is a key concept in television. Yes, it's mostly associated with television entertainment, as opposed to television news, and so whole whole websites are devoted to the question of which show is going over the edge. That is veering--more likely, plummeting--into derivative, unimaginative, self-parody. That's what happened to Fonzie on "Happy Days" (pictured above). Eventually, they ran out of funny or amusing scripts for that set of characters; in desperation, they put Fonzie on water skis, and the rest is bad-television history.

Now, Cable Gamers, here's Rosenberg on Olbermann:

The leer, the smug histrionics, the relentless needling, the shameless self-puffery, the accusatory rants excoriating Bushies and other Republicans as well as cable competitor Fox and its temperamental bully, Bill O'Reilly. And, of course, the comedy.

That's unintentional comedy, of course.

And so Rosenberg goes on to ask a good question that Cable Gamers ought to think about:

But is his ends-justifies-means credo good for the news biz? The answer is no, even if you dislike the president and his policies as much as Olbermann does. I do, and can still testify that watching Olbermann collect Republican scalps like baseball cards is only marginally more rewarding than watching his favorite foil, O'Reilly, batter guests who don't share his wacky views.

But at least O'Reilly invites dissenters to his lair (if only to disembowel them), whereas "Countdown" is more or less an echo chamber in which Olbermann and like-minded bobbleheads nod at each other.

Of course, in the short run, this strategy is working for MSNBC. But surely, Olbermann can't keep it up much longer.

So just one key question: What will Olbermann do if his man, Barack Obama, wins the White House? Will he continue to be slavering toward Obama and the Democrats, even when they're in charge? Or will be be a cheerleader for them? The Cable Gamer is reminded of a joke told about the Germans: They are either at your feet--or at your throat. That could be Olbermann.

H/T: TVNewser.

"I don't understand Anderson Cooper's appeal" (Marion Davies, Wherever You Are, Call Home!)

Market Watch's Jon Friedman is one of The Cable Gamer's favorite media columnists. He is fair-minded, and he also seems like a nice guy, to wit, this good-natured--maybe even a little schmaltsy--valedictory piece about CNN's Myron Kandel.

But if Friedman declares himself to be "mystified" by Anderson Cooper's appeal, as he does here, well, I can help him with that question.

Three reasons.

First, CNN has spent tens of millions to promote him. Somebody at CNN/Time Warner loves him, if you get my drift, and so they spared no expense to make him a star. It worked for Marion Davies, pictured above, for awhile, because she was much beloved by another media mogul, William Randolph Hearst. And it's working now for La Anderson.

Oh, and by the way, there is no second or third reason for Cooper's success.

Many parallels, indeed, between the winsome but not overly talented Davies--who had her talents!--and the winsome but not overly talented Cooper.

"Russert Has Spent 20 Years Building Credibility. All Of A Sudden He's Taking Questions From [A] Daily Kos Blogger?" Plus, A TCG Prediction!

How do you think Keith Olbermann is going to react to David Gregory the next time they see each other? After reading the headline above, which appeared in today's TV Newser.

"A high level source inside MSNBC" reports, you decide. Actually, TV Newser reported it, in great detail, and I am merely transcribing. But I will offer my own prediction in a moment.

But first, let's take a look at Steve Krakauer's TVN story:

MSNBC has bore [sic] the brunt of much of the criticism, from a candidate, a competitor, and many voices in between. Now, TVNewser speaks with a high level source inside MSNBC, who sheds light on some of the inside rumblings.

MSNBC has drawn criticism from pundits from both parties, other journalists and the White House, for the perceived, and often obvious, leftward shift of their lead political anchors Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann.

"Every Tuesday night Keith is up there as the face of NBC News. That's a problem," says our source. "[Tim] Russert is upset about it. Russert has spent 20 years building credibility. All of a sudden he's taking questions from Keith Olbermann, the Daily Kos blogger?"

The insider says Olbermann's election night partner has reservations as well: "Chris Matthews is quite pissed about it. He knows a lot about politics and he takes it seriously. He's so close to it that he's not that political. He's not an activist — Keith's an activist. That's the difference."

Now, of course, on-the-record MSNBC-ers dismissed this sniping. Here's more from Krakauer: "Asked for a response, an MSNBC spokesperson tells TVNewser, 'Your source is ill-informed and the assertions are laughable.'" And then later, MSNBC chief Phil Griffin, obviously alarmed by the story, and eager to do what he could to stamp it out, added this: "Whoever you're talking to knows nothing, it's that simple. MSNBC has offered the most interesting election coverage this season and the audience is responding. We're thrilled that Tim Russert chooses to be part of that coverage. If your source doesn't, they should leave."

Boy, are they mad over there at MSNBC! To see a staffer equate Olbermann to the left-of-left Daily Kos, pictured above, has to hurt. Oh sure, lefty viewers don't mind, but reporters care, and advertisers care. A lot.

And yet, interestingly, damaging as the story was to MSNBC, the suits at MS obviously respect Krakauer as a reporter--that's why they aren't claiming, as they could, that Krakauer simply made up his "blind" quotes. Which is to say, they must know that their network is honeycombed with Olbermann critics. One who has been "made," of course, is Gregory.

So we'll have to see what happens. But of course, the KO m.o. is to blow. That is, blow his stack; lose his cool.

Even a casual Cable Gamer can tell that he's obviously a deeply angry man, and this series of stories will only make him angrier. No doubt he will by now have marched into the office of Griffin, or NBC News chief Steve Capus, and demanded tough action. KO will say, most likely, that MSNBC could be doing more to shut these leaks down, or to try to intimidate TVN from printing such items. No doubt he will eventually say, "Either Gregory goes, or I go."

Because, you see, the Olbermann personality type can sure dish it out, but he can't take it. He will be convincing himself that he will be happier at Air America, say, or maybe just on the lecture circuit, where he can speak about George W. Bush and others in even harsher terms, if that's possible. Which, of course, it is--no doubt Olbermann will be happier saying what he really thinks, although, of course, he will eventually discover that he is surrounded by traitors, wherever he goes. Why? Because the bile is mostly in him--he is a walking spleen.

And so, as promised: Here's The Cable Gamer's prediction: By this time next year, Olbermann, Russert, and Gregory will not all be working for NBC/MSNBC. For reasons stated above, most likely, the missing man will be KO, although he might find a way to take Gregory down, too, on the way out. Or maybe, of course, MSNBC and NBC will be thrown way off course if GE spins them off. In that case, lots of folks will have jumped ship, or been thrown off the ship.

But one way or another, their happy little family--as happy as Liz Taylor in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"--will have broken up by next June.

You read it here first!

Planet Green: A New Entry Into the Cable Game

The Associated Press's David Bauder has the scoop on Planet Green, a new addition to the cable TV ranks. Here's Bauder's summary--AP reports, you decide:

Viewers who tune in the new Planet Green network expecting a sober documentary on the plight of the yellow-breasted whooping finch will be in for a surprise.

Instead, they'll see celebrities such as Tommy Lee, Ludacris, Tom Bergeron and Adrian Grenier — and absolutely no lectures, promises Eileen O'Neill, the network's president.

Planet Green switches on Wednesday at 6 p.m. EDT and runs counter to type. The environmentally conscious network will soft-sell its mission, making entertainment a bigger priority than education. O'Neill calls it "eco-tainment."

The Cable Gamer suspects that's billed as "eco-tainment" will turn out to be, in fact, lefty-greeny propaganda. But maybe I'll proven wrong. I am certainly curious.

If I can find the new channel, I will be watching on Wednesday.