`COUNTDOWN' SUCCESS OLBERMANN'S RATINGS GET A MAJOR BOOST FROM O'REILLY FACTOR, CHEEKY TAKE ON NEWS.

Byline: David Kronke Television Critic

War is good. It is, that is, if you're Keith Olbermann and you've chosen as your combatant a time-slot competitor who can't help but to keep giving you cannon fodder.

In March, "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" won MSNBC its first ratings victory over CNN in five years in the demographic most desired by cable-news advertisers (viewers ages 25-54). "Countdown" is MSNBC's No. 1 show in that demo, as well. Both networks are left in the dust at 5 p.m. by Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" (which has five times more viewers than Olbermann and twice as many in the key demo). But while CNN and even Fox have recently lost viewers in the hour, "Countdown" has posted across-the-board double-digit gains.

Much of Olbermann's ratings success, oddly enough, is attributable to O'Reilly - or, at least, Olbermann's constant digs at Fox's conservative commentator's more outrageous behavior. Not long ago, O'Reilly introduced an online petition to get Olbermann fired; Olbermann himself signed it on-air, and it was eventually withdrawn.

More recently, he found comic gold when O'Reilly threatened a caller to his radio show who merely mentioned Olbermann with a call from "Fox Security," who, O'Reilly gravely vowed, "will contact your local authorities and you will be held accountable." So while the colorful Fox star insists he doesn't engage in personal attacks, Olbermann announced on the air, "If he didn't do personal attacks, he'd be a mime." "Some people think I've been paying him to do this," Olbermann jokes during a phone interview. "He has been self-destructive in this regard; it's just like walking in every day and there's a new pile of candy in front of your door.

"There are two conflicting schools of thought" about O'Reilly's attacks, Olbermann continues. "Some have been trying to get him to calm down, which they tried (when he raged against) Al Franken, and that obviously didn't work. And others are saying, 'No, Bill, you have to respond.'" That O'Reilly hasn't mentioned Olbermann in a couple of weeks, however, perhaps suggests a new strategy at Fox.

O'Reilly did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment. While not disputing an observation that O'Reilly seems to have ceased his pokes at Olbermann, a Fox News Channel spokeswoman declined comment.

But there's much more to "Countdown" than a silly feud.

If "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" is a comedy series about the news, then "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" is a news show heavy on the comedy. Olbermann brings a wry, absurdist spin to many of the stories he covers, particularly trivial news stories inflaming the rest of the media. He presented the Michael Jackson trial and Anna Nicole Smith's Supreme Court appearance as "puppet theater" - faces on Popsicle sticks bobbing up and down.

He's capable of being gravely serious, as well: Editorials on the governmental response to Hurricane Katrina and, more recently, conservative talk-show host Laura Ingraham's dismissal of reporters based in Iraq were concise bursts of righteous wrath.

Olbermann takes pride in the entertainment value his broadcast offers, comparing "Countdown" to a daily newspaper, which finds room for both hard news and comic strips: "I like to do that breadth in TV-news broadcasts," he says, "An hour is an eternity in TV time. You want to hold onto your audience, so you want to keep them entertained." "Countdown's" sensibility, he says - puppet shows, the robot news and his own on-air denouncements of stories "my producers are forcing me to cover" - reflects the same attitude he brought when working for KNX-AM (1070) and KCBS (Channel 2) in Los Angeles in the 1980s, when he received 11 Golden Mike Awards and was named Sportscaster of the Year three times.

"I've always enjoyed that kind of anti-TV sensibility, going back to my sportscasts," Olbermann says. Still, it's his feud with O'Reilly that sent Olbermann on a recent flurry of guest appearances, on C-SPAN, Al Franken's Air America radio show and Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," itself a cagey parody of O'Reilly's hectoring style. Olbermann likewise figured prominently in a recent New Yorker examination of O'Reilly's sensibility.

Eric Deggans, media analyst for the St. Petersburg Times (and himself a one-time O'Reilly target), notes, "This helps them both. A lot of people who hate O'Reilly are now checking out Olbermann, while O'Reilly's fans are bonding closer to him because of their intense hatred for Olbermann.

"O'Reilly's game is enemies," Deggans continues. "He needs public fights. ... If he paints Olbermann as an out-of-control liberal mouthpiece for MSNBC, he's discrediting the entire network for viewers."

Olbermann says he realizes he must approach the feud carefully: "These things produce a ratings spike ... and management will say, 'Keep doing it.' But you want to leave it alone for a while. ... If nothing happened this week, there's nothing to hang it on. Where's the news in it? Viewers will go, 'What the hell is this?'"

Besides, the anchor eschews the sort of grandstanding, partisan bickering that most TV news embraces. "Countdown" offers perspective on the serious stories it covers, yet pointedly avoids featuring two ideologically opposed talking heads screaming at one another.

"I was traumatized in my last show (for MSNBC, in the late '90s, during the Monica Lewinsky scandal) from too much of that," he admits. "Part of my deal with the network is that I don't have to have debates. The idea that 'balance' is always fair is absolutely false. If I say there's an 800-pound elephant - or 800-pound donkey, depending on your politics - in the room, and someone else says, 'No, there isn't,' one person can be right and one can be objectively wrong. Having both sides politically debating a point adds nothing to the political discourse; plus, it makes me queasy."

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

What: Wry account of the day's news in the world and in popular culture.

Where: MSNBC.

When: 5 p.m. weekdays; repeated at 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) KEITH OLBERMANN

(2 -- color) BILL O'REILLY