• MSNBC.com, Friday, February 16, 2007 12:30 PM

A top MSNBC franchise is locked in place for at least four more years as "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann and NBC News have agreed to a contract extension through 2011.

"It is obviously an incredibly important franchise for us," says NBC News President Steve Capus. "It is something that has really put MSNBC back on the map." In addition to his nightly newscast/talkfest, Olbermann will contribute occasional "essays" to the "Nightly News with Brian Williams" and host two "Countdown" specials a year on the Peacock Network.

Those essays will be different from his "special comments," which have helped boost Countdown's ratings by 85% over the last year. The show finished January with an average of 715,000 viewers. "There was just a sense, last year I think, that stuff needed to be said in this country, and the first 95 people who probably should have done it didn't," Olbermann says, "and the response to this was just phenomenal."

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