Inside Cable News

August 22, 2005

Bakhtiar no longer with CNN?

Rudi Bakhtiar Is Rudi Bakhtiar gone from CNN? Her bio is no longer on CNN’s bios page. Her appearances had been very infrequent on Anderson Cooper 360 the past couple of months and word was that she had family matters to attend to. But now her bio is gone. It’s not under “CNN” or “HLN” or even “Reporters”. The mystery deepens…

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Friday’s Numbers…

Once again FOX’s 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 pm programs beat all the competition combined. But what happened with Newsnight? It came in fourth behind FOX, HLN and MSNBC’s shows. Thursday The Situation Room topped 500,000 for the first time. Friday, it dipped below 400,000 for the first time. With Rita now doing at least above 300,000 every night, the new prime time low show on MSNBC seems to be Countdown…which has been hanging around in the under 300,000 range the past week and a half. Katie Couric’s comments nonwithstanding, Deutsch continues to scratch on a regular basis and did so again Friday. The Situation continues to have no momentum in latenight…
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More on Ailes….

TVWeeks Michelle Greppi has more on Roger Ailes and his job as FOX Television Group President…(via TVNewser)

Mr. Ailes is scheduled to meet today with Fox Television Stations CEO Jack Abernethy, who in the past 10 years has been a key Ailes executive at CNBC and Fox News Channel.

Among other challenges the executives face, Twentieth has failed for years to launch hit programs for the stations, a track record Mr. Ailes and Mr. Abernethy need to improve.

At the same time, News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch continues to push for Mr. Ailes to launch a business news network, an endeavor Mr. Ailes said is still a ways off.

For now, though, it’s too soon to talk about most things concerning his new responsibilities, Mr. Ailes said more than once during the interview.

He did, however, talk a bit of office politics, refuting speculation that his new assignment became a fait accompli as soon as Lachlan Murdoch, who previously oversaw Fox TV Stations, resigned from his father’s empire July 29. Mr. Ailes downplayed the notion of any friction between himself and News Corp. President and Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin.

In addition, Mr. Ailes dished about the competition, CNN, whose longstanding affiliate relationship with the Fox stations he is expected to abolish as soon as he is able.

There’s also some quotes by Ailes on CNN’s The Situation Room…

“What they’ve decided is they’re not getting the ratings with their programming, so they’ve decided to get the ratings with their walls. In other words, just program the walls-and by the way, if I were Wolf, who is a very nice guy and a very good journalist, I would be deeply suspicious of them having me spend half of my time with my back to camera. I’m not sure what that plan is, but every time I look at that his back is to camera,” Mr. Ailes said.

“It’s like going to one of those Imax movies where you go out and you say, ‘Wow, that was great,’ and then you puke, because your stomach is upset from watching the walls move. It’s not good. You actually don’t want your walls to move that much. It’s like a fundamental thing among humans. You’d sort of like your walls to be steady.”

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