It turns out Olby is the least of Al Gore’s worries these days. Reuters:

According to three sources with knowledge of the situation, Time Warner Cable Inc’s carriage agreement with Current TV stipulates that, if the left-leaning political news network fails to meet a minimum threshold for overall viewers in a given quarter, financial penalties such as Current TV being required to increase marketing and promotion spending on the cable operator’s systems are triggered.

If Current TV misses the audience benchmark in two consecutive quarters, another clause is triggered that would allow Time Warner Cable to drop the channel…

If it was not for Olbermann’s show, which averaged a total of 177,000 viewers per night, Current TV likely would have missed Time Warner Cable’s viewership benchmark, said one of the sources.

The appointment of Spitzer, another outspoken news commentator, led to speculation among Time Warner Cable executives that Current is courting controversy to attract viewers.

Based on the 47,000 total viewers who tuned into the initial broadcasts of Spitzer’s “Viewpoint,” the source said that “just enough people are tuning in to keep Current over the quota.”

Good for you, Keith! Your ratings were merely abysmal, as opposed to nonexistent.

But don’t count Current TV out yet. They’ve still got Cenk Whatisface. And that other Marxist, Jennifer Whoever, she’s pleasant-looking and probably not entirely unwatchable. And of course, America can’t get enough of Current’s star attraction, Governor Blacksocks.

Just think, Keith: Soon, we’ll be gloating over the same thing for once!

Now go read about Keith’s babbling to Cindy Adams.