Keith Olbermann Says Reports of His Death Greatly Exaggerated

As I reported yesterday, the media sharks are circling Countdown, hoping for a quick meal. Since then, Newsbusters and the NY Post joined the dogpile, prompting another rebuttal from host Keith Olbermann. The message? Countdown is doing just fine, thank you, and these critics are just part of the right-wing noise machine. He’s mostly right, but that doesn’t mean he should ignore them.

Here’s Keith’s response:

Keith is correct, the notion that his show is circling the drain is a sales job. Clearly, Newsbusters and the Murdoch Post are not disinterested observers, either. They’re making a mountain out of one month’s worth of soft demo ratings.

On the other hand, Keith isn’t exactly objective. While he uses total viewers to make his case here, he has never hesitated, in the past, to trumpet his demo ratings when the news was good. In any case, an objective observer would have to conclude that one month of soft demo ratings isn’t the end of the world, but bears keeping an eye on.

As a nightly Countdown viewer, I don’t think it’s all that important that Keith grow a world-dominating audience. Fox News‘ ratings dominance is no more a measure of the quality of their programming than Jersey Shore‘s. Countdown‘s success was born with an audience that considered itself “the smart 48%.”

That’s what Olbermann should be focusing on, putting on a smart show. Throwing out chunks of blue meat will certainly make the Kos kids cheer, but it isn’t enough. As Jon Stewart pointed out, Countdown‘s snark-to-smart ratio has been out of whack for awhile.

So, Keith, the sky is not falling, but not all of your critics are out to get you.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.