Maybe it was the constant on-air feuding between the two MSNBC anchors, or the fact that the cable channel finished last in the Nielsen rankings of all news coverage during the two weeks of political conventions, but the network reported that Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann would no longer be anchoring Election Night programming.

MSNBC announced Monday that Olbermann and Matthews are going to be replaced by the chief White House correspondent David Gregory. The two newsmen will still be used as commentators.

MSNBC president Phil Griffin told The Hollywood Reporter that the channel made the decision Thursday night after reconsidering the complaints that the network had to fight off all summer, that the two newsmen could serve as impartial newsmen.

“If you move two feet over (from the anchor desk), you can say whatever you want virtually at the same time,” he said.

Therefore, Gregory will, from now on, anchor MSNBC's coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates and election night, network spokesman Jeremy Gaines said Sunday.

The complaints addressed to MSNBC this summer reached the tipping point last week, when Olbermann, who was reporting on the Republican National Convention from New York rather than St. Paul, apologized to the audience after the channel aired a Sept. 11 video tribute crafted by the RNC.

“We would be rightly eviscerated at all quarters, perhaps by the Republican Party itself, for exploiting the memories of the dead, and perhaps even for trying to evoke that pain again. If you reacted to that videotape the way I did, I apologize,” Olbermann said at the time.

Griffin insisted that it was not the external pressures that forced the replacement of the anchors, but actually, a discussion initiated by Olbermann himself, who told him he felt constrained after the Republicans aired the Sept.11 video.

So this new move is supposed to offer Olbermann and Matthews more freedom of expression.

Olbermann’s strong left views and his harsh exchanges of words with other MSNBC hosts have been in the headlines all summer. He had no sympathy when GOP expressed anger at Internet news about Sarah Palin’s personal life. He also sarcastically dismissed Republican pundit Pat Buchanan on the air, after Buchanan said he thought the GOP had been enlivened by Sarah Palin’s vice presidential nomination.

Moreover, he also couldn’t help mocking his own colleagues. As Joe Scarborough was discussing the positive developments in McCain’s campaign, Olbermann could be heard in the background, saying: “Jesus, Joe, why don't you get a shovel?”

Representatives of New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and, more recently, Republican presidential nominee John McCain, have objected to NBC executives about the two commentators.

MSNBC’s decision comes just before Olbermann’s “Countdown” show is set to air on Monday, the anchor’s interview with Senator Barack Obama. Olbermann’s interview will go up against Bill O’Reilly’s interview with Obama on FOX News. A fragment of the Obama interview, which was aired last Tuesday on FOX, earned O’Reilly his second highest rating ever, with more than 6.6 million viewers.