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<p>ESPN is expected to announce on Wednesday that the former network mainstay Keith Olbermann, who contentiously departed in 1997, will return to host a one-hour, nightly show for ESPN2 later this year, according to three executives with knowledge of the deal but not authorized to speak about it publicly.</p>

ESPN will reportedly announce next week that it has hired Nate Silver to contribute to Keith Olbermann's new late-night talk show. The numbers-crunching baseball geek gained national fame when he correctly projected the outcomes of the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. The New York Times, which reported the news on Friday, hired Silver, who brought his FiveThirtyEight franchise with him, in 2009.

Keith Olbermann, late of current TV, late of MSNBC, late of CNN - well, you get the picture. Keith can't hold a job because he's got a big mouth and no sense. That combination fits perfectly on ESPN. Olbermann will make his return to television at the network where he first made a name for himself. Paired with Dan Patrick in the 1990's to anchor ESPN's signature broadcast, "Sportscenter," Olbermann's snarky cynicism about professional sports and athletes was a breath of fresh air from the usual fare of hero worship and highlight reels offered by local news outlets. Olbermann willl...

It has been a long flirtation, but after 14 months of "intense discussion" between Keith Olbermann and ESPN, the network reportedly plans to announce Wednesday that it's taking the anchor back— provided he stays away from politics. Apparently Olbermann's stint hosting Countdown on MSNBC made him nearly too politicized to hire, The New York Times reports: "On his new show, Olbermann will be free to discuss matters other than sports, including pop culture and current events, but not politics, the two-year pact specifies." But he's a draw, so they're trying him out. Not everyone at ESPN will be glad to...

It's been 16 long years since Keith Olbermann left ESPN's SportsCenter to make his name as a political commentator at MSNBC and, most recently, Current TV. But as Variety first reported this evening, Olbermann will be returning to the network he helped put on the map as an anchor alongside Dan Patrick on SportsCenter. Variety says ESPN is likely making the official announcement tomorrow. Olbermann will host his own hourlong show on ESPN2, which will air later this year. The move has been 14 months in the making; as recently as March, it seemed like the 54-year-old anchor was trying,...

Like a zombie that just won't stay dead, pretentious left-wing talking head Keith Olbermann has somehow managed to find a way to befoul Americans' living rooms once more. Thankfully, unless you are a baseball junkie, you won't have to witness his bloviations since Olbermann is scheduled to serve as a host for the Turner Broadcasting System's coverage of post-season Major League Baseball playoff games. The move is a logical one for Olbermann, who began his television career as a sportscaster for almost 20 years before venting his venom on politics for the liberal MSNBC and Current TV channels. According to...

The talented but mercurial Keith Olbermann has found one more unburned bridge. Olbermann, who has seemingly been on every network under the sun over the years, has joined TBS. There, he will host the network's MLB post-season coverage, working alongside Dennis Eckersley. This puts Olbermann back in baseball on any sort of full-time basis for the first time since 2000, when he hosted the World Series for Fox. The move comes along with a shakeup of the rest of TBS' MLB coverage. Analyst Cal Ripken will move from the studio to the booth full-time. He'll work on TBS' lead team...

10:06 p.m. | Updated For nearly a year now, Al Gore and Joel Hyatt have been building their liberal cable news channel, Current TV, with the mercurial television anchorman Keith Olbermann at its center. This week, the center collapsed. Current said on Friday afternoon that it had fired Mr. Olbermann — one of the nation’s most prominent progressive speakers — just a year into his five-year, $50 million contract. It was the culmination of months of murky disputes between Mr. Olbermann and the channel that he was supposed to save from the throes of ratings oblivion. Yet as inevitable as...

Olbermann To Sue Gore Keith Olbermann to File Against Current TV By KEACH HAGEY Keith Olbermann's full statement in response to the termination of his contract by Current TV: 'I'd like to apologize to my viewers and my staff for the failure of Current TV. Editorially, Countdown had never been better. But for more than a year I have been imploring Al Gore and Joel Hyatt to resolve our issues internally, while I've been not publicizing my complaints, and keeping the show alive for the sake of its loyal viewers and even more loyal staff. Nevertheless, Mr. Gore and Mr....

It was only weeks ago that Keith Olbermann abruptly announced his departure from MSNBC's 'Countdown,' but it looks like the opinionated host might have already lined up his next television home. According to the NY Times, Olbermann will announce Tuesday his plans to work with Current TV, a public affairs channel founded by Al Gore and other independent backers. Sources claim Olbermann would have an equity stake in Current TV, and a public relations agency hired by the host has already scheduled a Tuesday morning call for "an exciting announcement regarding the next chapter in (Olbermann's) remarkable career." Olbermann's new...

If you read JedEckert.com, you know that our sources inside NBC have been very good at providing context and background to the always entertaining Keith Olbermann saga. And this latest news makes perfect sense as we observe the overall narrative of the self-absorbed, self-destructive, troubled TV personality.Here's what we've been told: The stand-off between Keith and MSNBC execs lasted much longer than anyone on the outside knew. As of 7:30pm on Tuesday night, bitter recriminations were still flying back and forth. Keith was still demanding that the network apologize to him before he would take the anchor chair.MSNBC, on the...

Sorry. I just had to stop a moment and look outside to see if a flock of pigs was flying by. MSNBC is giving Obama both barrels. The usually loathsome Olbermann and the tingly Chris Matthews are tearing into Obama as if he were George W. Bush. They are furious and amazed at tonight's Obama lie fest on the Gulf oil spill. They usually lap-up like poodles Obama's lies, bullying, and incompetence. Not tonight. They are damning him for being completely useless in both stopping the spill and communicating to the public about it. They are all over him for...

I once did a lot of freelancing for a daily newspaper called The Flint Journal, whose editorial pages regularly and vociferously called for “affirmative action.” They were located in a majority black city, but very often they had few black writers and no black editors. If you wanted to keep working for them, pointing this out was not a good idea. Last night, Keith Olbermann read reactions to his race-baiting rant the other night from conservative blogs Hot Air, GOPUSA, and the below bit from Meltdown with Keith Obermann Part 33: FORSMARK: The next time Keith Olbermann calls you racist...

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has offered another of his mindless rants that he calls "Special Commentaries." This time, he tried to rile up his audience by throwing around vague charges of racism against white people, including himself! People-especially anti-Obama Tea Partiers-are surrounded and motivated by racism, Olbermann said, huffing and puffing in righteous indignation. This helps explain why Obama is losing popularity and his policies are failing, he implied. Olbermann's diagnosis is correct, at least in part. Taking him at his word, he is a racist, and so is his network. Is this why there are no black faces hosting MSNBC...

The idiot attacks, insults, bad mouths not only Tea Party attendees, but Free Republic as well. He claims that the source of the disgusting phrase 'teabaggers' is from a FREE REPUBLIC.COM rally held a year ago! And of course FReepers are racists because they participate in Tea Party rallies! I'm fighting mad over this bonehead and his bizarro world 'lectures' that freedom/Constitution loving PATRIOTS of all shapes, sizes, genders, religions, COLOR, etc. are 'racists' because 'everyone looks exactly like you'--that is KKK white Obama hating because he is black racists. Keep it up, Koolaid Keith. The Tea Party attendees KNOW...

I'm beginning to smell a rat named Keith Olbermann. I think he might be the source from whence comes all the lies about Rush. Did anyone pick up on what Rush said yesterday about the source of all the smears came from someone named Hoverman or Hobermann (Rush never gives Olbermann a plug...that's why he didn't pronounce his name). The he said this Hoverman wrote a book titled the 100 Worst Persons in the World. Well, Keith Olbermann did "put together" a book called The Worst Persons in the World based on his lame schtick on Countdown. The plot thickens...

Remember "Baghdad Bob," the Iraqi Information Minister Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf? Even with Iraqi forces in a full rout and American Marines just blocks away Baghdad Bob would completely deny the presence of U.S. troops in the Iraqi capitol. Watching MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," on September 24 was reminiscent of Baghdad's Bob's press conferences. Olbermann asked Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, also an MSNBC political analyst, how "the GOP" would convince the public that the health care system "is not really in crisis" and that it does not need to be a priority compared to Afghanistan. Turning right to page three of...

MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann is looking for dirt on Fox News' Glenn Beck. "Find everything you can about Glenn Beck, Stu Burguiere, and Roger Ailes," Olbermann posted on The Daily Kos. (Burguiere produces Beck's radio show; Ailes is the head of Fox News.) Read about the top 5 talk-show controversies of 2009 Olbermann's request for fact-finding was a somewhat cheeky reply to Beck's own similarly phrased, ALL-IN-CAPS request, on his Twitter feed, for his followers to dig up some dirt on Cass Sunstein, Mark Lloyd and Carol Browner, President Barack Obama's nominees to fill the positions of the head of...

Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment about Mr. Cheney's speech. Neurotic. Paranoid. False to fact and false to reason. Forever self-rationalizing. His inner rage at his own impotence and failure dripping from every word and as irrational, as separated from the real world, as dishonest, as insane, as any terrorist.

MSNBC's Olbermann Receives Coveted "Order of Obama" from Gunny Bob Gunny Bob, who has once been named the third worst person in the world, and once named the very worst person in the world by Olbermeinkampf, has received a beautiful and prestigious medal: The "Order of Obama" is the highest award available from the Gunny, or the lowest, depending on your point of view. www.850koa.com/pages/gunnybob.html