They Shoot Horses Don't They?

Piers Morgan's virgin foray into LIVE! TV was D.O.A. Friday. Morgan went from "Keeping Up with The Kardashians" (498K 164,000 25-54) Thursday to "Keeping Up with Breaking News" (658K 178,000 25-54) with embarrassing ratings results. TVbytheNumbers breaks down Morgan's dive (right).

Morgan's vaunted debut week finished behind Larry King's numbers for the same week last year.  TVbytheNumbers

Larry's gotta be laughing his ass off . . .

CNN viewers came back at 10p for Anderson Cooper's live coverage of 1979 Iran redux:  Extreme Egyptian Makeover.




Complete Friday, Jan. 28, 2011 cable news ratings here. TVbytheNumbers






So to console Piers, Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen "Lost In The Ozone Again" 1971:



NPR interview with Commander Cody.  There IS hope for Piers.  One of the Airmen became a rocket scientist.  John Tichy Ph.D. Oh yeah. I forgot. Cable TV news is NOT rocket science . . .

Space Junk: Major Tom and His Lost Planet Airmen

"Where it got sticky is when our commentators were anchoring political coverage. Those are, in some ways, incompatible roles. We worked our way through that." Tom Brokaw to the Chicago Tribune's TV guru Phil Rosenthal. 

ROSENTHAL:  "So — as the senior statesman of NBC News, he has to expect the question — is MSNBC better off or worse without controversial commentator-anchor Olbermann, the channel's most controversial and most popular host right up until his abrupt final signoff Jan. 21?"

BROKAW: "You're not going to get me to go there. All of our component parts — NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC — are much bigger than one player, and I include myself in that.  If I went away tomorrow, NBC News would still be the dominant news division in America. There ain't none of us who is irreplaceable."

Taking Brokaw's analogy further:  Fox News is the Sun, a star around which all the planets orbit. The nuclear fusion of the Sun's hydrogen and helium gases produce enough energy to last another 5 billion years.  CNN is dwarf planet Pluto with an odd "eccentric orbit"  farthest from the Sun.  Pluto's ice is formed by nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and methane gas (cow flatulence).  MSNBC is "gas giant" Jupiter's boundaryless atmosphere of helium and hydrogen. 

H/t ZD 

West Wing to Left Wing

Aaron Sorkin, frequent MSNBC talking head and creator of the hit TV series "The West Wing" has sold a pilot about a prime time cable news show to HBO. Deadline Hollywood  dishes that although Sorkin watched Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from the wings, Olbermann does not have a new gig.  Sorkin also hung out at Fox News and CNN.NYP

HBO, which brings you "Real Time with Bill Maher" could manufacture some real prime-time slime by lifting plot points from "The Sopranos," "Real Sex," "Deadwood," "Bored To Death," "Hung," "Big Love," "In Treatment." 

For Chris Matthews "Curb Your Enthusiasm;" Keith Olbermann "Six Feet Under."

Why watch when the the truth is stranger than fiction?

Casting:  Charlie Sheen as Chris Matthews. Your dream team?

Far Cry

"You have me confused with John Boehner." Churlish Ed Schultz through a MSNBC spox to NYP Page Six on reports Ed "cried with joy" at Keith Olbermann demise and his own ascension to 10p.

Related:  NYP columnist Andrea Peyser on the seminal moment in 2009 that precipitated Olbermann's downfall. Two words:  Ben Affleck.

H/t ZD

Mutt and Jeff

Frank Rich NYT

@ Is For "About?" "At?"

Katie: "It's a massive computer network that's becoming really big now." Jan. 1994 NBC's Today show:
Bryant Gumbel:  "What is the Internet anyway? . . . What do you write to it like mail?"



H/t ZD

Piers Morgan: From the Kardashians to Cairo

Piers Morgan does his first CNN show LIVE! Friday night.  He appeared in over his head.  At 10p Anderson Cooper interviewed the same CNN reporters on the scene. Anderson:  grade A.  Piers:  C+.

The Baltimore Sun's TV guru David Zurawik fleshes out Morgan's flaws on Egypt where he's so clueless he has to take on-air cues from a producer babbling in his ear.   Zurawik has a clip of Piers's deer in the headlights performance.

Washington Examiner  Gawker on Piers probing the "talents" of the Kardashians.

Prediction: CNN dumps the canned celebrity interviews and Piers goes live with Real Time News . . .

Lawrence O'Donnell: The Last Word In Fashion

O'Donnell and actress Dana Delaney 2009

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell is outspoken and bespoke.  The Cable Gamer drills down a Women's Wear Daily puff piece on "elegant and well-groomed" self-described socialist limousine liberal Lawrence's exquisite wardrobe and discovers O'Donnell slipped into Keith Olbermann's shoes in socks that are $88 a pair.

WWD O'Donnell nuggets:  "All men in makeup are playing a part,”   " I understand why they hate me. There’s a way to avoid being hated — I can do the fucking weather.”

Lawrence is boardroom-ready in his Dolce and Gabbana silk tie and obscenely expensive Tod's loafers. Tod's sneakers start at $445. 

Clash Of The Titans

"He's off the grid right now." Ted Turner spox to the NYT on media mogul John Malone's dethroning Ted as the largest individual landowner in the United States.  Malone also refused comment.

Billionaire boys' club of two...

CNN Lands Mark

CNN has hired Fred Willard lookalike (albeit younger and black), Mark Whitaker, from NBC News Washington. Via CNN

Whitaker starts his new job Valentine's Day.  EVP/Managing Editor is a huge promotion from Tim Russert's empty chair as NBC's Washington bureau chief.  NYT Media Decoder

CB hears Whitaker is universally despised at NBC Washington and dismissed as an empty suit.  Whitaker was the editor of Newsweek before NBC News.

In November 2008, shortly after he stepped into Tim's shoes, Mark threatened layoffs if employees didn't take buyouts.

Attention Shoppers! Blue Light Special On Aisle 14

Deep discount ad rates for CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight!   Jan. 27th, 2011 cable news ratings Via TVbytheNumbers:

Piers falls below a half mil losing in total viewers and the golden 25-54 demo to CNBC's Supermarkets INC.  Not even the busty Kardashian babes teasing sex tapes bumped his numbers. Glenn Garvin Miami Herald  H/t Vinney

Comcast: Let The Games Begin . . .

"I agree that given the right economics, it would make sense. Probably better to spend money on something like Starz, than overbidding for the next Olympics in a Dick Ebersol ego boosting maneuver."  TVbytheNumbers' Bill Gorman commenting on BTIG's Richard Greenfield's suggestion that Comcast buy Starz to stick it to HBO and Netflix .

Rush Limbaugh's Fairness Doctrine

 “She was trying to comfort me during the State of the Union speech.”  Rush Limbaugh gets an earful from English sheepdog puppy, Abbey.  Via Al Peterson's N/T/S

Has anyone seen FCC head Julius Genachowski lately?

"An iconic ABC News Radio moment."

It was 25 years ago today that the space shuttle Challenger blew up after liftoff.  ABC News Radio announcers Vic Ratner and the late Bob Walker live.  Via Al Peterson's News/Talk/Sports

On today's anniversary ABC News uploaded this video of Peter Jennings on ABC World News Tonight after Americans watched with horror and grief that morning.

MSNBC's Psycho Analysis

You'll hear no more Psycho Talk on Ed Schultz's MSNBC show.  NewsBusters reports the plug has been pulled on that segment.  H/t ZD


After vehemently denying there'd be any changes,  Ed's posturing with predictable psycho babble:  It worked at 6p but doesn't work at 10p.

Gay Blade

Former WABC anchorman Charles Perez hits below the belt in a book out Feb. 1 ripping his former Ch. 7 colleagues new assholes.  Richard Huff NYDN

Earlier this month Perez told South Florida Gay News: "The book is filled with cameos  from Anderson Cooper to Sam Champion to Ricki Lake."

After his unhappy tenure at Ch. 7, Perez bolted for Miami's WPLG where he didn't last long. Fired in 2009, Perez sued the station claiming a gay Ch. 10 suit discriminated against him. 

Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon?

The Beat Goes On

She possesses a tongue that would make Gene Simmons envious.  He divorced his wife for this babe. Both are Republicans.  One is still in Congress and married a Florida Repub congressman.  RadarOnline reveals all. Bitten & Bound claims the above photo was taken at a 2006 fundraiser a year before her marriage.

Katie: I Can Fly!

Katie Couric and Jeff Zucker.  Together again at last?  NYP reports the duo may be cooking up a daytime TV talk show for Couric who is nearing the end of her $15 mil a year CBS News contract. Zucker, the former CEO of NBC Universal booted out by Comcast, was Katie's executive producer on NBC's Today show.

Peacock Dethroned

AP reports Comcast is dumping the NBC peacock and replacing it with this logo. The peacock was created in 1956,  H/t Ron Brown
Huff Post readers huff and puff with 84% preferring the peacock.

Jack In The MSNBC Pulpit?

Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock's Jack, to MSNBC  prime time? Via Pop Eater H/t Vinney

Cable News Ratingzzz

Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011 Via Robert Seidman TVbytheNumbers:

DC's New Power Couple: This is a big f**king deal!

Obama has a new press secretary.  And it's not Keith Olbermann.  The AP reports the WH's  mouthpiece is Jay Carney, former TIME mag reporter, and more recently, Joe Biden's head flack. Carney replaces Robert Gibbs. NYP Politico

Carney had been with TIME for years (1988) before switching to the dark side. In 2003 he was named the deputy chief of TIME's Washington bureau, and in 2005, chief.

He's married to ABC News babe Claire Shipman.

Obama's Reagan Heart-On: A Thousand Points Of Hype

Barack Obama January 2008: I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what's different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980 was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism  that had been missing

Barack Obama walks back the above a few days later.

Barack Obama November 2008:

Barack Obama January 2011:  TIME mag cover Why Obama Hearts Reagan revealed on Thursday's MSNBC's Morning Joe:



Related:  Newsweek How Barack Obama is like Ronald Reagan  NYDN: Barack Obama is no Ronald Reagan  Forbes Barack Obama is no Ronald Reagan  ABC News:  Barack Obama's "Absolutely Uncanny" Similarity To Ronald Reagan UK Telegraph Obama reads Ronald Reagan bio on Hawaii vacation

TIME's Joe Klein:  Obama's SOTU Success:  Making Democrats The Party Of Optimism

CNN: The Boys On The Buss

MSNBC accelerates CNN attacks as both battle for second place in the cable news wars.

Rachel Maddow continued bashing CNN for not bagging Tuesday's SOTU Tea Party responder Michele Bachmann.  CNN ran the Repub rep's response live after the Official Repub Rebuttal delivered by Paul Ryan.  Via Mediaite Huffington Post

Rachel excoriated CNN for legitimizing the Tea Party Express and running this CNN/Tea Party Express bus buss on CNN's website.

When the moment is right, will Rachel be ready to out Michele and CNN czar Ken Jautz?

The Sea Party

Related:  Politico: "GOP is peeved at CNN"

Baltimore Sun's David Zurawik dumps dry ice into Maddow's bathtub:  MSNBC thinks I should see and note that Maddow's argument boils down to this: Bachmann should not have been covered because she was not "ordained" by the Republican Party as its official responder.his is the mentality of a lockstep party member, not a journalist. Unless the party "ordains" someone to speak, they shouldn't be covered by the press, in Maddow's thinking. Memo to Maddow: That's not the way journalists think. We bring citizens as much information as we can whether THE PARTY ordains it or not. Just like we don't let the executive branch tell us which news operation is a "legitimate" journalistic enterprise, and which isn't, we don't let political parties tell us who we should and shouldn't cover. Journalism 101 at Goucher College where I teach. H/t ZD

Down Pat

DC's NBC O&O TV reporter Pat Collins is the go-to guy when it comes to standing outside during a snowstorm performing live shots with a yardstick and thermometer. Collins has been doing this local TV news shtick for years.

Wednesday the snow must have been getting to him.  When a local restaurant brought him a giant Italian sub as he stood in the street, Collins pronounced it "fifteen inches of fun," adding "on a night like this everyone needs fifteen inches of fun."  Via Mediaite

CNN's Poll Dancing

Page Six says CNN's Eliot Spitzer rebelled when the cable network's Standards and Practices czar issued "guidance" on how to report CNN's how did Obama do? polls post-SOTU Tuesday.  The fuming ex-NY gov: I know polls and this is no poll. 

SOTU Ratings

Nearly 43 mil watched Obama's SOTU -- down about a tenth from 2010. Via TVbytheNumbers   NBC led the broadcast networks.

As for cable, Fox wiped the floor with rivals CNN and MSNBC:  5 mil total viewers. 1.6 mil 25-54.  CNN 3 mil, 1.2 mil 25-54.  MSNBC 2.5 mil, 836,000 25-54.

Post-game:  Fox 5.4 mil, 1.8 mil 25-54.  CNN 3 mil 1.2 mil 25-54.  MSNBC 2.4 mil, 739,000 25-54.  Via Deadline.com TVNewser

Via TVbytheNumbers

Rachel Maddow: Delta Don

In an age where it's becoming more difficult to separate fact from fiction and performance from substance, one could almost find comfort in SOTU's traditions. We don't know exactly what there is to talk about, as witnessed on MSNBC's pre-show coverage of the milling about and mingling before the speech. The gang burned off time noting wardrobe choices, almost like a red-carpet pre-show. "Women wear red," Chris Matthews observed. "That's [Missouri Sen.] Claire McCaskill, I think. Women wear red at events like these to draw attention to themselves?"

Stuever continues: Rachel Maddow, a know-it-all who in fact still does seem to know it all, especially on live television, replied, "Even though there is a woman wearing white right next to her." (Insert obligatory Edward-R.-Murrow-spinning-in-his-grave joke here. And while you're at it, stick newly axed Keith Olbermann in with him.) Hank Stuever Washington Post

"Know-it-all" Rachel, holding center stage at the point of the anchor desk's delta, was incensed that rival CNN was the only cable network to run in real time the Repub response to Obama's SOTU and the Repub unsanctioned response from Tea Party Repub Rep. Michelle Bachmann:

Fox News, busy with a Frank Luntz focus group hooked up to dials gauging their responses to Obama's speech, ran Bachman a bit later.

An aside: CNN's newest star, Brit Piers Morgan, lost me forever when Wolf Blitzer called on him to opine, with [the speech] "was historic.  John Boehner didn't cry. . . If I were an American . . ."

Later I checked back and Piers had disappeared from the CNN panel of analysts Wolf, Candy Crowley, Erick Erickson, and David Gergen. 

Related:  Baltimore Sun TV guru David Zurawik:  "CNN, Fox wisely cover Tea Party, Bachmann." H/t ZD As for MSNBC's A-team:  "Without the adolescent Olbermann, the tone was more professional -- there is no doubt about that. And MSNBC is better for it."

MSNBC: Average White Band

"It was pure Jack Kennedy.  It was America. . . . Slightly center-left... It was a speech for better-educated people."  MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Wednesday's The Daily Rundown. 

On Hardball hours before the SOTU Matthews cast civlity to his wind by branding Repub Rep. Michelle Bachman "a balloon head."  Bachman delivered a Tea Party response to Obama's speech. Story and vid via Huffington Post.

Chuck Todd:  "It didn't feel like he channeled the inner Kansan in him."

On Wednesday's Morning Joe the talking heads were far less charitable.  Lacking in energy.  Passion.  Flat. NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent and MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell:  "It doesn't add up."  Via NewsBusters Wash Post The Fact Checker



After the speech Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough pronounced the speech "boring."  Via Huffington Post

MSNBC Poaching Roland Martin?

NYP teases MSNBC is eyeing CNN's Roland Martin to fill out the prime time now that Keith Olbermann is out.  Perhaps the 6p slot.

Roland has an impressive resume and a slew of awards including two NAACP awards for his interviews with Barack Obama and Michelle Obama. 

Betsy Wetsy

The classical clash among U.S. intelligence agencies on sharing (and hoarding) information is a turf war.  Lack of sharing intel lends itself to incompetence. 

The same can be said of the blogosphere.  Is there a turf war between two sister blogs?  Mediabistro's FishbowlDC and TVNewser?  Or is it merely incompetence? FishbowlDC's editor Betsy Rothstein apparently didn't read TVNewser's earlier story before writing her own erroneous piece insinuating Fox News journalists weren't invited to Wednesday's traditional WH lunch for journalists.  To add insult to injury, Rothstein credits Mediabistro's rival TV writer Michael Calderone.

TVNewser noted that Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Shep Smith were among those invited to the WH for lunch with President Obama pre-SOTU.

Gossip purveyor Betsy Rothstein appears to have gone off the reservation. Again. By not including Baier and Smith sister TVNewser reported among the lunch guests.

Ms. Rothstein's "Exclusive Journos To Dine With Potus" posted at 6:39p Tuesday finds the young blog editor in the deep end and late to the party.  Her Twitter profile reads: " I write about the lives of D.C. journalists in a sometimes candid way that usually upsets someone."\

Candid, incompetent, bitchy, bully, and pathological are not synonyms. The Washington City Paper concludes (my interpretation), that the troubled, insignificant, pedestrian gossip hack isn't playing with a full deck.

"Rothstein has never had much patience for having her methods (or her innumerable factual errors) questioned." Via TBD

In April 2009 FishbowlDC posted an item about Betsy leaving The Hill newspaper after 10 years of gossip and feature stories for the West Coast "seeking to balance her chakra."

Ostensibly "balanced," Rothstein returned a few months later as FishBowl DC editor.

TVNewser posted this more than an hour earlier: 

Rothstein updates FishBowl DC with this profoundly embarrassing, unprofessional, unnessesary, caustic clueless chatter which flunks Journalism 101 who, what, where, when, why, by not including Bret Baier:

I yearn for the days of yesteryear in Washington, DC -- the 1970s and '80s -- when Chuck Conconi wrote the Washington Post's "Personalities" column, and before that, the incomparable Rudy Maxa.  Rudy went to The Washingtonian Magazine. A few years later Chuck followed as editor-at-large.  Both were seasoned journalists

For CNN, Situation Normal All F**ed Up

After standing by helplessly as CNN's Piers Morgan's audience peeled off during his vaunted debut week like mutinous U.S. Army soldiers switching sides in the most famous case of desertion in American military history -- the Saint Patrick's Battalion -- at CNN the operative acronym is SNAFU.

Piers is wondering WIIFM.  What's In It For Me?  CNN is muttering WTF as Piers is turning out to be the "half-wit" rather than the "genius" for which CNN is paying big bucks to defibrillate prime time.

Monday, Jan. 24, 2011 cable news ratings Via TVbytheNumbers