Greta Van Susteren has weighed in on CNN's announcement of its new prime-time show hosted by Eliot Spitzer and Kathleen Parker. Her take? Keith Olbermann had better watch his back.
Writing on her blog, "Greta Wire," Van Susteren, who hosts "On The Record" at 10PM on Fox News, said the new show would take viewers away from MSNBC's Olbermann:
This is bad news for Keith Olbermann since if CNN is to be successful, it will have to draw viewers from Keith Olbermann's viewers. The total number of cable news viewers seems to be a limited number so they have to grab from Olberman [sic].
Van Susteren said she wasn't even including Fox's BIll O'Reilly in the conversation:
O'Reilly is SO FAR AHEAD OF EVERYONE IN ALL OF CABLE NEWS that NO ONE can lay a glove on him. No one even tries to compete with O'Reilly so I don't include him in this discussion!
In their interview with the Huffington Post today, Spitzer and Parker addressed the issue of competing against O'Reilly and Olbermann at 8PM time slot, widely regarded as the toughest in all of cable news:
Parker: It's a big challenge, they're both amazing. They're giants in their field and they have a huge following, but we will be offering an alternative to them...
Spitzer: There's still a lot of people who are not watching either one of them...so somehow we're figuring there's still a little reservoir there, we'll put our fishing rods in and see what we can come out with. Because we're going to craft something different. The way I look at it: if you want to be validated in your underlying world view, you go to their shows and you feel good and they're great shows. If you want to see something different, be challenged, be pushed, then we're trying to create something that will be exciting for you.
UPDATE: Keith Olbermann has now responded to Van Susteren's comments, telling the Huffington Post: "Since Greta agrees with me that Countdown's the only news show not on CNN at 8 PM, I guess she's right."