Keith Olbermann (born January 27, 1959) is an American news anchor, commentator, and radio sportscaster. He currently hosts Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, an hour-long nightly newscast of five selected stories with commentary by Olbermann and guests. Starting with the 2007 NFL season, Olbermann also serves as co-host of NBC's Football Night in America with Bob Costas.

Countdown with Keith Olbermann is an hour-long weeknight news program on MSNBC which airs live at 8pm Eastern Time and reruns at midnight on weekdays. The show, hosted by Keith Olbermann, debuted on March 31, 2003 and counts down five selected news stories of the day with news reports and interviews with guests, along with commentary by Olbermann.

The show is the highest-rated program on MSNBC. In the third quarter of 2007, the show averaged 677,000 viewers a day, 214,000 more than the next highest rated show, Live with Dan Abrams Countdown has been referred to as the "flagship" MSNBC franchise, so much so that on February 15, 2007 Olbermann received a four-year contract extension which will include two Countdown primetime specials on NBC, appearances on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams as a commentator, and his addition as an in-studio host on Football Night In America, NBC's NFL Highlight/Pre-Game Show.

The show is notable for Olbermann's fast-paced rhetorical style, historical and pop culture references, ready interjections, and strong opinions, which make Countdown distinctly different from most newscasts. Olbermann combines serious news stories with humorous segments and with commentaries critical of the Bush administration.

The show has generated some controversy due to Olbermann's strongly stated opinions which include criticisms of FOX News Channel and his feud with commentator Bill O'Reilly of FOX News' The O'Reilly Factor, whose more widely viewed show runs directly opposite Countdown (see O'Reilly vs. Olbermann below).

On Monday, October 22, 2007, with the move of NBC News and MSNBC from Secaucus, New Jersey (where they had been located for eleven years) to their newly redesigned studios at 30 Rockefeller Center, Countdown unveiled a new opening, new graphics, and a new logo. The show broadcasts live from the Second Floor of Studio 1A, the home of NBC's Today Show.

Genial and sharp-witted Keith Olbermann covers the top five news stories of the day in the course of an hour with stories by other NBC/MSNBC reporters and his own interviews with experts or pundits. Interspersed are such segments as the "Top 3 Newsmakers of the Day", "Top 3 Soundbites", "Oddball" (in which weird news and video are shown for the viewers' amusement), and "Keeping Tabs" (celebrity and entertainment news). On Fridays, Keith is quizzed about the events of the week by Monica Novotny, using viewer-submitted questions and is punished or rewarded depending on the percentage of questions he gets right in the time allotted. Guest-hosting when Keith is out has been handled by Alison Stewart (II). Written by Anonymous

Olbermann's first book, "The Major League Coaches," was published when he was 14. He began his career while still in high school as a play-by-play announcer for WHTR. Began college at age 16 and graduated with a Bachelors of science degree in communications arts from Cornell University at the age of 20. He began his career at UPI, and then RKO-Radio and WNEW until CNN found him in 1981. In 1984, he became a sports anchor in Boston at WCVB TV, then to Los Angeles for KTLA and KCBS. While in California, he received 11 Golden Mike Awards for Best Sportscaster and Best Sportscast, and was voted Sportscaster of the Year three times. In 1992, he was part of the team that launched ESPN Radio, and then began what was to become his "signature" post at ESPN SportsCenter. He and Dan Patrick worked together until 1997. Keith then went to MSNBC, where he hosted "The Big Show with Keith Olbermann" and "White House in Crisis". Keith despised doing 24 hour a day coverage of the Clinton/Lewinsky saga and his contract was bought out by Fox to become anchor and executive producer of "The Keith Olbermann Evening News" on Fox Sports Net on Sunday nights and was host of Fox's Saturday pregame baseball studio show. In 2001, Keith left Fox for "other opportunities", and kept a low profile at ABC Radio. The attacks of September 11, 2001 affected Keith profoundly, saying that the events of Sept. 11 "sobered me up." He knew five people who died in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. He won an Edward R. Murrow Award for reporting from the site for 40 days for his ABC Radio show. After September 11, and while contributing to Salon.com, he published a profound "Mea Culpa" to ESPN and fellow workers and addressed the burned bridges in his career. He attributed most of his "outbursts" to feelings of "insecurity" and "fear of being blamed". What September 11 also taught him was "If you're 44 years old and you're not smarter than you were when you were at 35 years old or 25 years old, just stay in your room." Keith is an avid baseball historian, and has a collection of at least 35,000 baseball cards. He's received numerous distinguished awards in radio and television broadcasting, including the 1995 Cable Ace Award for Best Sportscaster, 11 Golden Mike Awards for excellence in television and radio, and four Sports Emmy Awards. He has written for dozens of publications, including The New York Times, USA Today, Newsweek, Time, Sports Illustrated and Playboy, and authored a book with his "tag-team partner" Dan Patrick entitled "The Big Show - A Tribute to ESPN's SportsCenter". Keith currently hosts "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" on MSNBC, and will be the host of its coverage of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.