Keith Olbermann Announces Today Is His Last Day At MSNBC

Keith Olbermann, the bombastic cornerstone of MSNBC's evening talk show block, announced that tonight's Countdown with Keith Olbermann was his last on the cable news network. Olberman, who was suspended last November and said NBC's policy about donation disclosure was probably not legal, over not disclosing political donations to management, said tonight, "There were many occasions, particularly in the last two-and-a-half years, where all that surrounded the show—but never the show itself—was just too much for me. But your support and loyalty and, if I may use the word, insistence, ultimately required me to keep going. My gratitude to you is boundless and if you think I've done any good here, imagine how it looked from this end...this may be the only television program wherein the host was much more in awe of the audience than vice versa." Here's video and a rough transcript is below:

MSNBC issued a statement saying, "MSNBC and Keith Olbermann have ended their contract. The last broadcast of ‘Countdown with Keith Olbermann’ will be this evening. MSNBC thanks Keith for his integral role in MSNBC’s success and we wish him well in his future endeavors." The new lineup: Lawrence O'Donnell and The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell moves to 8 p.m. from 10 p.m. while Ed Schultz's The Ed Show moves to 10 p.m. from 6 p.m. Rachel Maddow remains at 9 p.m. as does Chris Matthews at 7 p.m.

According to Media Decoder's Bill Carter, "The host, who has had a stormy relationship with the management of the network for some time, especially since he was suspended for two days last November, came to an agreement with NBC’s corporate management late this week to settle his contract and step down... NBC executives said the move had nothing to do with the impending takeover of NBC Universal by Comcast. Mr. Olbermann had signed a four-year contract extension in 2008 for an estimated $30 million. He hosted 'Countdown' at 8 p.m. since 2003 and it became the foundation of the channel’s surge to status as the second-ranked news channel on cable television, after Fox News, surpassing the one-time leader CNN."

Brian Stelter, the NY Times' other media reporter, Tweeted, "NBC News held an advertiser presentation earlier this week. Olbermann was not featured in the promo reels, an attendee notes," and "Says a top MSNBC source of Olbermann: 'It's all about what he did after the suspension.'" Stelter also offered Comcast's statement: "Comcast has not closed the transaction for NBCU and has no operational control at any of its properties including MSNBC... We pledged from the day the deal was announced that we would not interfere with NBCU's news operations. We have not & we will not." Comcast completed its takeover of NBC on Tuesday; Stelter also Tweeted, "Months ago, Comcast exec told me they dreaded being blamed if Keith quit."

Olbermann's farewell:

I think the same fantasy popped into the head of everybody in my business who has ever been told what I have been told: This will be the last edition of your show. You go to the scene from the movie Network, complete with the pajamas and the rain boat and you go off on an existential otherworldly verbal journey of unutterable profundity and vision, You damn the impedients and you insist upon the insurrections . And then you emit Peter Finch's gutteral resonant, "So..." and you implore the viewer go to the window, open it, stick out his head, and yell... You know the rest. In the mundane world of television goodbyes, reality is laughably uncooperative. When I resigned from ESPN 13 1/2 years ago, I was given 30 seconds to say goodbye at the end of my last edition of Sportscenter. As God as my witness, in the commercial break just before the emotional moment, the producer got into my earpiece and said, "Can you cut it down to 15 seconds so we can get in the tennis stuff from Stuttgart?"

I'm grateful that I have more time to sign off here. Regardless, this is the last edition of Countdown. It is just under eight years since I returned to MSNBC. I was supposed to fill in for the late Jerry Nachman exactly three days. Forty-nine days later, there was a four-year contract for me to return to this 8 o'clock time slot which I fled four years earlier. The show established its position as anti-establishment to the stagecraft of Mission Accomplished to the exaggerated rescue of Jessica Lynch in Iraq to the death of Pat Tillman to Hurricaine Katrina to the nexus of politics and terror to the first Special Comment. The program grew and grew thanks entirely to your support, with great rewards to me and I hope for you too. My gratitude to you is boundless and if you think I've done any good here, imagine how it looked from this end.

There were many occasions particularly in the past two and a half years where all that surrounded the show, but never the show itself, was too much for me. With your support and loyalty, and if I may use the word insistence, ultimately required that I keep going. My gratitude to you is boundless and if you think I have done good here, Image how it looked from this end as you donated $2 million to the National Association of Free Clinics. And my dying father watched from his hospital bed, transcendentally comforted that his struggles were inspiring such good for people he and i and you would never meet but would always know. This may be the only television program wherein the host was much more in awe of the audience than vice versa.

You will always be in my heart for that and the donations to the Cranick family in Tennesse and these victims of governmental heartlessness in Arizona to say nothing of every letter and email and Tweet and wave and handshake and online petition. Time ebbs here and I want to close with one more James Thurber story. It is still Friday. So let me thank my gifted staff and a few of the many people who fought with me and for me. Eric Sorenson. Phil Alongi. Neal Shapiro. Michael Weissman. The late David Bloom. John Palmer. Monica Novotny. Alana Russo. My good friends Rachel Maddow and Bob Costa. And my greatest protector and my indefatigable cheerleader, the late Tim Russert.