Keith Olbermann is calling a truce with his protégé Rachel Maddow.
He announced on Twitter that his Current TV show will be just one hour — and no longer overlap into Maddow’s MSNBC show, potentially hurting her ratings. He had been criticized online after his premiere ran four minutes late.
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“At @current we’ll soon have a 9 PM companion commentary show to mine. But in the interim there is no reason for me to be overlapping…
…with my friend Rachel, nor to ignore the wishes of those who’ve been so loyal to both of us for so long. We’ve heard you: as of
…tomorrow night Countdown finishes at 9. Bonus stuff will instead go to Countdown Online. Thanks for upsiding my head on this :)” He Tweeted.
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Olbermann said last week in an interview on NBC’s Late Night With Jimmy Fallon that he’d like to see Maddow come to Current once her contract is up.
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But in an interview for a recent cover story in The Hollywood Reporter, he admitted that his split with MSNBC was so bad he still has not spoken to Maddow since his abrupt exit in January.
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“There were lots of people who were forced to choose sides,” he said. “And particularly in Rachel’s case, I didn’t want to add to the pressure on her already. The last thing I need to do is be calling her up and saying, ‘How’s that Michael Steele working out for you?’ [He signed to NBC as a political analyst May 23.] Which is exactly what I would do if I were in the office.”
Olbermann’s Current TV show premiere beat CNN in the demo.
