Might MSNBC be having a change of heart over network star Keith Olbermann?

The Countdown host who's become the face (and programmer?) of MSNBC regularly anchored presidential primary debate coverage, which was once the territory not of pundits, but hard news men and women. Such a ratings draw in primetime, Olbermann then headed up Denver's broadcasts from the DNC, where he and Chris Matthews tag teamed lead coverage — and spearheaded a series of on-air dust ups with colleagues.

But this week, in St. Paul at the RNC, Olbermann is nowhere to be found. That's because he's been ordered to stay in New York, while Matthews and none other than Tucker Carlson — MSNBC's whipping boy — will lead coverage from the Republican convention; Morning Joe's Joe Scarborough will also broadcast on location.

So why no Olbermann?

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That Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann continue playing both hard news anchor and opinionated talking heads is of no consequence to NBC News president Steve Capus. Responding to taunts from Fox News' Chris Wallace made earlier this week at the Television Critics Association annual event, Capus told MSNBC's audience he has no plans to change the formula, where his star power pundits anchor news coverage like elections while going on the air every night to deride the right wing. Says Olbermann: "We know there are different rules for us, and the viewers — I think based on how many of them have turned out — know there are different rules."

And Capus agrees: "The audience gets it, and that’s the single biggest factor that I see."

Hey, remember when a certain other left-leaning institution thought their audience would "get it"?

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So, NBC, how's your plan for broadcasting 3,600 hours of Olympics coverage across your 500 different television properties going? With just 19 days to go, we hear you've sold 90 percent of your ad inventory for the games, but we've been hearing that for awhile now.

Sure, most of your programming time will be a cakewalk: Point the camera at Michael Phelps crotch as he dives into the pool; point the camera at Paul Hamm's crotch as he bounds across the gymnastics floor.

But what to do if, say, something controversial — and this means more than your standard doping accusations — happens in Beijing? Like if an athlete starts carrying on about Tibet, or the Chinese authorities crack down on a human rights protest outside Olympic Village, or the Today show's license to broadcast live from Tiananmen Square suddenly gets revoked? You still going to abide by Business As Usual?

NBC News president Steve Capus insists, "If there’s news, we’re going to cover it."

This is funny. Not because we don't believe NBC News' crackteam of reporters will try to do their jobs as best they can, because they will.

Rather, look to corporate overlord GE, who has a lot riding on these Olympics games. And not just the $1 billion in ad revenue.

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Though Brian Williams filled in the moderator's chair on Meet The Press today, Mr. Tom Brokaw will take over through the election as we suspected. It might've been easy to think Williams was actually quite apt for the gig: He followed Russert's traditional line of questioning that brought up past statements and offered politicos the chance to contradict themselves or reaffirm their past; Joe Biden was today's example, asked about the vice presidency. (He had said before that under no circumstances would he want to be VP. He said that again today. Then he qualified that statement by saying he doesn't want to be VP because Barack Obama just wouldn't ask him — if if Obama did ask, he'd have no choice but to say yes.)

But that's not what Jeff Zucker and Steve Capus had in mind. The official announcement came this morning, and Williams telling viewers at the end of today's broadcast, with 30 Rock revealing Brokaw will take over MTP beginning next Sunday and last through the November election.

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NBC News President Steve Capus, who says "numerous people" will be hired to replace Tim Russert, on the media's chattering classes predicting who will take over the late newsman: "I put it in the borderline-crass territory. I saw something posted that I've made a decision about this or that. Honestly, it's inappropriate. [...] It's too soon. I'm sitting in my funeral suit, coming home from honoring a man who was the glue that held us all together." [TVN] We get it, Capus: You don't want to offend Russert's family, anyone in the NBC News division, or the industry in general. But MTP is also quite a franchise, and it'd be corporate negligence to not be considering who will take over running NBC News' D.C. bureau. You've even been holding conference calls on the matter.

On a NBC News conference call this morning, NBC head Jeff Zucker, NBC News chief Steve Capus, and anchor Brian Williams joined in with a number of others to discuss the future of Meet The Press and the D.C. bureau. A source who was not on the call, but overheard a colleague's speakerphone listening session, says Tom Brokaw's name was bandied about. (It's unclear whether Brokaw was on the call.)

More on the post-Tim Russert future is here.

Steve Capus, Phil Griffin, and the rest of the NBC good old boys are on a vigorous hunt for the leak behind today's scathing Tim Russert v. Keith Olbermann item, which the network has flat-out denied.

But there's one place in particular, Jossip hears, that their attention is aimed:

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The most worthwhile takeaway from today's O'Reilly/News Corp. vs Olbermann/GE feud story isn't the whiny phone calls from Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch to Jeff Zucker and Jeff Immelt complaining about Keith's attacks on Fox News, or the whiny phone calls from Steve Capus to Ailes complaining about O'Reilly's attacks on NBC News correspondent Richard Engel.

It's that News Corp. wanted an lefty blog's Bill O'Reilly "ambush video" to be off limits for Olbermann, even though O'Reilly's own use of ambush video cameras drive some of the show's highest ratings and YouTube views.

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While this morning's Page Six item about Keith Olbermann recyles previous Jossip reports, it also makes one thing more clear: News Corp. has many vehicles to push its anti-MSNBC/GE crusade, and Bill O'Reilly's diatribes are just one of them.

Repeating our previous reports about Keith Olbermann's behavior and conflicts with other talent like David Gregory and Dan Abrams, P6 also finds itself on the front lines of O'Reilly's battle against the network — which, it turns out, News Corp. tried to quell at the highest levels, and is now more than content to keep supporting. Just like the real war!

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Depending on who you ask, NBC News president Steve Capus is either a big baby, or a big baby who had to use the restroom while somebody else picked up a trophy for, effectively, making him look like an ass.

At yesterday's duPont Awards, peacock execs including Capus walked out of the ceremony when Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA won for their story "Television Justice," which exposed the relationship between Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" and the local police involved in their sting operations. This, despite NBC and MSNBC each winning an award.

Sounds like somebody needs a Shelley Ross tequila shot.

As MSNBC staffers have their walking papers prepared, the hunt is on for who's leaking info from the inside about all those job cuts coming. Peter Lauria's item in today's Post inadvertently points the finger at now-former Washington D.C. chief and Hardball EP Tammy Haddad, since Lauria wrote that she "left MSNBC of their own volition" when, as even mid-level staffers know, is a complete farce. (She left after a spat with Chris Matthews, where he blamed her for his low ratings.) Lauria also describes axed daytime programming VP Susan Sullivan in the same light, but Sullivan was forcibly removed and relocated to to NBC's San Francisco affiliate, where she is news director. If either were providing info, of course, they get to write her own happy ending.

MSNBC chief Phil Griffin and NBC News SVP Mark Whitaker (the former Newsweek who came aboard in the spring) are trying to keep tempers cool as the message travels up the ladder to NBC News chief Steve Capus. So it's Griffin's new hire – Shannon High-Bassalik, the Miami news director he plucked from the outside, and who took over Dan Abrams' job as general manager in October when MSNBC moved to 30 Rock – who's responsible for mediating. She'll also be your point person for addressing those building rumors that everyone from operations to the news desk is at risk.

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"There are going to be firings very soon — everybody is terrified."

That's the promise being made to us by a former NBC News network insider who maintains close ties with Mama Peacock's news division. The axings, to be sure, will be part of a larger cost cutting move; "tens of millions is the figure being thrown around."

"There's even one rumor that the Nightly News could be shot on one 'flash cam'. Which i can't imagine." Heh. Us either.

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• Could NBC's properties be scoring all those Larry Birkhead exclusives because they have some sort of business relationship? Take that, The Insider.

• Nothing is more exhausting than being news executive everybody hates — except coming up with a catchy term like "media manifesto" that you hope everyone else will start using.

• Jon Friedman holds out his wang for Dave Zinczenko to touch it, fingers crossed that he will.

• So, like, Rosie O'Donnell is a big deal and stuff?

• Like most average working people, Matt Lauer had a bad day once.

• New Garden & Gun magazine takes one part Guns & Ammo, one part Home & Garden, and one part "out on a limb."

NBC News president Steve Capus only needed until yesterday evening – only five days since the incident – to fire off a missive to all staffers about Don Imus' recent transgressions. Banned from the airwaves for two weeks (but not until Monday), Imus gets a few more days of broadcasting not to reap the ratings windfall the controversy has caused, mind you, but "because we did not want to do anything to hurt the previously scheduled radiothon which raises money for some truly worthwhile organizations."

The rest of Steve's "internal dialogue is healthy of our organization" shtick after the jump.

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NBC's $750 million budget cut will hit more than the production assistants running scripts around MSNBC's Secaucus studio. Reports the Philadelphia Inquirer's Gail Shister, the top-paid talent across NBC's programming may be asked to take a reduced fee in order to meet GE chief Bob Wright's bottom line requirements — otherwise, they'll be directed toward the exit sign.

Individuals with rational thought processes might assume NBC's brass would curry savings at the top, where salaries are most exhorbitant. So will NBC News chief Steve Capus be going after NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams' $10 million annual cheque? Nah. How about Today newcomer Meredith Vieira same $10 million pay? Hells no. So, if not those outrageous expenses, then who?

"When somebody puts themselves into the talent ranks, they get judged differently," Capus says. "They may be a hard worker, but there are other factors that come into play.

Such as: "On-air performance, or ratings, or how they carry themselves in the field, or what we think is their potential for growth."

If that sounds as if it includes just about everybody in the news division, Capus insists that's not the case. He says it's not going to be a bloodletting, and that it won't compromise the quality of NBC News programs.

So, to sum up: Capus wants cuts based on: 1) Talent not bringing in ratings; 2) Talent not adding much to "the quality" of NBC's programming. It's a pity we need to be the first to point to our item from last week, where MSNBC's Tucker Carlson and Rita Cosby got name checked. Not surprisingly, they both fall into Capus' categories.

NBC's on-air talent is not immune from salary cuts [Gail Shister, Philadelphia Inquirer]