Reese Schonfeld today noted Broadcasting & Cables’ numbers for all ad supported cable channels and where the cable networks rate on the scale…

So, Fox continues to trend upwards. Worse yet, my other network, Food, finished in 24th place, among the ad-support networks, beating CNN by 23,000 households. I never would have thunk it!

CNN did achieve one triumph, Headline News edged out MSNBC 195,000 households to 190,000. Headline News was 36th on the list, MSNBC 37th. Still, that’s the first quarter in a long time where Headline News had the edge, and one anchor made all the difference. Nancy Grace, with her courtside reporting, has proved an enormous hit.

ICN wonders, rather rhetorically, about how long before someone uses the stat that the Food Network had more viewers per quarter hour than CNN against it? We can see it now… “Report shows Food more important than CNN”…”Viewers prefer Food over CNN”…this is an ad firm’s dream come true…a campaign that writes itself…ugh..

No official release has been given for MSNBC’s coverage but there has been a change in the scope of the coverage. According to reports on MSNBC, the coverage will now be anchored by Brian Williams with Chris Jansing (apparently) in a reporting role. With the first launch attempt, Williams was anchoring NBC’s coverage and Jansing was anchoring MSNBC’s coverage but now the morning launch time apparently has caused NBC to shift it’s resources around a bit. This may have something to do with Today being on during that time period on the west coast though ICN hasn’t heard anything about anyone from Today covering the launch. Or maybe to cut costs they’ve merged the two into one broadcast (as NBC did with the ceremony for Pope Bennedict the XVI). MSNBC’s coverage kicks off at 7:30 AM EST….

CNN released its official schedule for tomorrow’s shuttle launch….

CNN’s special coverage of the Discovery space shuttle launch will be anchored by CNN space correspondent and American Morning anchor Miles O’Brien on Tuesday, July 26. The special, “American Morning Special Coverage: Return of the Shuttle” will air from 10-11 a.m. (ET) to coincide with Discovery’s scheduled liftoff at 10:39 a.m.

From 7-10 a.m., O’Brien will anchor American Morning from Kennedy Space Center in Florida while co-anchor Soledad O’Brien anchors from London where she is covering the latest in the terrorist bombings.

…

CNNRadio correspondent Ed McCarthy and CNN en Español correspondent Ines Ferre will both report live from Kennedy Space Center for Discovery’s launch.

CNBC released a notice today saying that the scheduled August 14th date for the Las Vegas, Inc. special with Dylan Ratigan has been postponed. The new date is TBD…

Here are the numbers for the coverage period when that Brazillian Electrician was shot dead by the London Police on Friday. They thought the man was a part of a terrorist group at the time.

Overall Total Viewers during the 7am-11am period when the shooting story was breaking. The P25-54 Demo numbers are in parentheses…
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Despite fielding a prime time lineup made up almost entirely of sub hosts (except Alan Colmes who apparently drew the short straw and had to work), FOX still dominated the evening nearly 3:1 over CNN. Grace beat Zahn…er…I mean Grace beat CNN Presents which stood in for Zahn. Deutsch double scratched for the evening. Connected scratched in the afternoon.
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A few changes to highlight on FOX. Coverage tomorrow will be hosted by Jon Scott from the Kennedy Space Center on the FOX News Channel with reports from Jamie Colby and Rick Leventhal at the Center and Phil Keating at Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX. Former astronaut Thomas Jones will provide analysis. Martha MacCallum will be covering the story (ICN assumes from New York) on FOX Broadcast affiliates that pick up the coverage. Scott’s coverage begins at 9 am EST though the press release says his first on air appearance will be at 7 am.

The Tampa Tribune’s Walt Belcher offers up a profile of FOX’s morning show FOX and Friends.

Launched five years ago, “F&F” has steady climbed in the ratings to about 1.2 million viewers nationally.

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In the cable world, “F&F” is ahead of CNN’s oft-revamped “American Morning” with Soledad O’Brien and Miles O’Brien (who are not related).

It’s way ahead of MSNBC’s morning effort, “Imus in the Morning,” which is just a video version of cranky old Don Imus’ long-running morning radio show.

ICN was expecting something of a puff piece but the article isn’t afraid to go for the jugular…

The program, which airs from 7 to 9 a.m., became embarrassingly childish in making fun of former Fox News Channel anchor Paula Zahn after she left the network for CNN.

The New York Daily News’ Lloyd Grove chimes in on last weeks Big Idea fireworks by adding previously unknown backstory to Bill O’Reilly’s participation after the story broke which has turned into a dispute over what constitutes a proper statement…

CNBC host Donny Deutsch reminds me of the pilot of a teensy biplane flying directly at the nose of cable television’s King Kong - Bill O’Reilly.

“How dare he get on his show and lie about me?” Deutsch seethed about the Fox News star - whose average viewership, around 2.4 million, is more than 20 times that of Deutsch’s “The Big Idea.”

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O’Reilly informed his audience: “We asked NBC for a statement. They declined to provide one.”

Never mind that Deutsch did provide a statement, which said in part: “Mr. Goldberg was treated respectfully by the show, and had the choice of whether to stay on the air for the panel discussion after his segment ended.”

…

Nonsense, O’Reilly’s executive producer insisted.

“We wanted to know what NBC’s policy is when you have four journalists and a host who didn’t even read the book, ganging up on another journalist,” Dave Tabacoff told me. “And we didn’t get an answer.”

Howard Kurtz today in the Washington Post tries to get a grip on the John Roberts story and finds it as…um…interesting…as the cable channels…

“Supreme Court arguments and decisions are fascinating to a few of us and really pretty boring to most,” says MSNBC’s Dan Abrams.

“The Supreme Court deals overwhelmingly with abstractions, and ideas and abstractions are not easy to convey on television,” says CNN’s Jeff Toobin.

“The minutiae of it, how people interpret statutes, that’s not the most exciting stuff,” says Fox’s Greta Van Susteren.

If three of cable’s best legal commentators, all lawyers, struggle with the subject, imagine how difficult it is for all the other anchors, correspondents and producers.

ICN concedes that the Roberts story is not compelling on several fronts, not the least of which is that cable news loves to sink its teeth in on controversy and Roberts is so far proving to be a teflon pick because nothing is sticking. But ICN wonders if controversy should be the story of this story? There are other things to relate to the average public which really needs to be informed of just how big the Court does matter to them. And Kurtz shows that for the most part that cable news (in fact most of the MSM) is not doing its job…

On Wednesday, the day after the Roberts announcement, Van Susteren, who has camped out in Aruba several times, did four Holloway segments on her “On the Record” program and one — an interview with John McCain — on the court vacancy.

“I see it as a lesson in how we collect evidence,” says Van Susteren, whose ratings have soared since Holloway’s disappearance in late May. “Far more people are going to be touched by trial courts and police investigations than by Supreme Court decisions. I would not be so arrogant to think that only the Supreme Court matters. More people now know about Aruban law than they ever did before.”

ICN isn’t trying to single Van Susteren out on this because all the networks aren’t talking enough about how much the Court affects their lives and what Roberts may or may not do to the Court. Nor is ICN going to weigh in on the debate over whether Cable News is over-reporting on the Aruba story. Nontheless ICN would counter that “far more people” are going to be touched by what the Supreme Court does in a single year than what Aruban law does to them in their entire lifetime…

Broadcasting & Cables’ J. Max Robbings makes a lot of relevant observations on the cable networks…. (via WHAC)

Believe it. A day doesn’t pass by when I don’t hear about one of a long list of news executives with big bull’s-eye targets on their backs. At NBC News, division President Neal Shapiro is all but out the door. With MSNBC not even third in the cable news race anymore (it’s fourth, behind CNN’s Headline News), there’s also an ominous drumbeat about President Rick Kaplan. The recent slow start of The Situation With Tucker Carlson only exacerbated the situation with Kaplan. At least, nobody’s making that kind of noise about CNBC President Mark Hoffman—but then, he’s been on the job only since February, and when a new guy takes over, the rumors start about the people below him.

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And then there’s Fox News. From the outside looking in, Fox appears to be an island of stability in a crazy-competitive market. But how much growth is there in a mature business, even if you’re the cable news leader? No wonder FNC Chairman Roger Ailes appears to be in no hurry to launch a Fox News financial channel. As the rest of the TV-news industry could tell him, change isn’t always good.

ICN is not convinced that Kaplan will be the first to go at MSNBC if there’s to be a regime change. There are lieutenants under him who are more vulnerable in ICN’s opinion. But the scuttlebut is that some of those people have cultivated close ties to the NBC mothership to the point that they may not be easily dislodged from their positions. Which makes Kaplan an easy target.