Mediaite is reporting that Keith Olbermann was visiting his dad in the hospital, which explains why he wasn’t there at 10 p.m. But they also ask: Why didn’t one of MSDNC’s other anchors take over rather than go to a repeat?
On MSNBC the program began with Olbermann tossing to Lawrence O’Donnell, who seemed to share anchoring duties with Chris Matthews. At first. Around 10:15pmET, there was a commercial break, and the repeat 8pmET Countdown kicked in. It aired the rest of the hour. We hear Olbermann was visiting his dad in the hospital, which accounted for his absence. But that doesn’t answer why O’Donnell or Matthews didn’t fill in during the prime results hour. In the MSNBC release Monday, it was listed as a live edition of Countdown.