Friday, Keith Olbermann gave his last Countdown. He had signed a four year contract in 2008, and apparently part of his buyout deal keeps his off the air for "'maybe not for two years' but for an extended period of time." One day prior, it just so happened that Comcast's purchase of NBC became final, as the FCC and DOJ approved it officially. Of course the NBC execs are stating that the two have nothing to do with each other, but I'm honestly not sure how we're supposed to credit that statement. Even if they weren't doing it with the intention of pleasing their new corporate overlords, Olbermann was fired after the new people took over, and still worked there when the old people were in charge.
Rarely are there such brazen demonstrations of corporate power over our discourse. He was loudest lefty in mainstream discourse, and that's intolerable to large corporations like Comcast, despite crazy right wingers like Beck and Palin staying on the air and inspiring assassination attempts. I'm guessing Comcast just prefers to hear right wing views for their pro-corporate slant rather than some other reason (as opposed to Murdoch, where I really just don't know). By that conjecture, they'd probably keep "centrist" Democrats on too, since they're all corporatist. But regardless, the end result is that now, as Josh Silver of Free Press put it:
The new Comcast will control an obscene number of media outlets, including the NBC broadcast network, numerous cable channels, two dozen local NBC and Telemundo stations, movie studios, online video portals, and the physical network that distributes that media content to millions of Americans through Internet and cable connections.And they have an agenda - to ensure a political climate that grows their profit.
