Network News

Exit Deal Blocks Olbermann From TV

Will be off the air for six to nine months.

Don’t expect to see Keith Olbermann on another news network in the near future or to watch him pull a Conan on MSNBC: He agreed to stay off television for six to nine months as part of an early exit from the network, and he is also forbidden to discuss his departure. The deal should give him the freedom to be back on TV in time for the 2012 election. “Give us a bit of credit for getting eight years out of him. That’s the longest he’s been anywhere,” one NBC executive tells The New York Times. Olbermann was fired from UPI early in his career for telling his boss they were “minor leagues”; had a stormy brief stint at CNN; called his own departure from ESPN “nuclear war”; and was called “crazy” by Rupert Murdoch, who fired him from Fox Sports.