TVNewser notes MSNBC’s Hardball beating The Situation Room in the P25-54 Demo in February. However CNN doesn’t see this as a trend but an abberation…

Every single month since the Situation Room launched at 7pm it has beaten Hardball in the P25-54 demo— the MSNBC ratings for February are nothing more than a halo effect from the Olympics.

Here is a side by side Demo comparision since The Situation Room launched…
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Broadcasting & Cable’s Anne Becker goes over the numbers…

The Olympics helped give ratings boosts to both of NBC’s cable networks for the month of February.

MSNBC was up 47% in news’ target demo, viewers 25-54, for total-day viewing of an average 116,000 viewers, and up 35% in the demo during prime, to 153,000 viewers.

CNBC was up 72% in total-day viewing to an average 81,000 viewers in the demo, and 37% in prime to an average 81,000 in the demo.

February’s numbers are out and CNN is touting its successes for the month…

- CNN Gains Audience Across The Board in February 2006 (FNC Declines in P25-54)

- CNN Posts Double Digit Growth Nearly Every Hour From 3 p.m. On

- Lou Dobbs Tonight Up 55% in P2+ and 34% in P25-54; Anderson Cooper 360 10p-12m Up 32% in P2+ and 39% in P25-54; and Situation Room at 7 p.m. UP 31% in P2+ and 9% in P25-54

- Headline News Has Doubled Its Primetime Audience Since New Lineup Launched: P2+ Up 101%, P25-54 Up 80%

- HLN Nancy Grace Celebrates Its First Year On Air (2/21/05-2/17/06) Nearly Tripling Audience Versus Prior Year
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From the end of today’s “Street Signs”…

RON INSANA: FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE NOT READ THIS IN THE PAPER OR HEARD OTHERWISE, I SHOULD LET YOU KNOW THAT TODAY I’M TAKING ON A NEW ROLE ON CNBC AND THAT WILL START TOMORROW. I WILL DEPARTING THE ANCHOR CHAIR I’VE OCCUPIED ON CNBC FOR 15 YEARS ALMOST 21 YEARS IF YOU COUNT MY DAYS AT FNN. STARTING TOMORROW, I’LL BE A SENIOR ANALYST HERE ON CNBC COMMENTING ON THE DAY’S TOP STORIES, IMPORTANT TRENDS, BOTH FISCAL AND MONETARY POLICIES EVERY DAY ON “CLOSING BELL” WITH MARIA BARTIROMO AND OTHER SPOTS AS WELL.

IT’S BEEN A HONOR AND PRIVILEGE TO SEE THE WORLD FROM THE VANTAGE POINT I’VE HAD OVER THE LAST 22 YEARS AND THE MET SOME OF THE WORLD’S POWERFUL AND INTERESTING PEOPLE AND WORKED WITH THE BEST PROFESSIONALS IN THE FIELD OF BUSINESS JOURNALISM AND SPENDING ALMOST ALL OF MY ADULT LIFE AND LAST 15 YEARS WORKING FOR THE THREE BEST COMBINED COMPANIES AROUND. CNBC, NBC AND GENERAL ELECTRIC.
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Jossip doesn’t think much of them apparently…

Are MSNBC’s anchors (read: top brass Rick Kaplan) developing a passive-agressive guilt-trust complex with all these (empty) promises? Perhaps. Either way, we doubt we’ve seen the last of these spots, if only because we’ve yet to see Rita Cosby face the camera one more time and promise to get the big interviews.

Here’s a chart listing the numbers for Feb 06 vs. Feb 05 and the percent change between the two periods…
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NBC announced today in separate releases tha NBC News President Steve Capus had promoted Lloyd Siegel to Vice President for News Partnerships.

“Lloyd has been a critical member of this news division and is invaluable in maintaining the connection between our stations and the network,” said Capus. “As the reach of what we do expands to many different platforms, the relationship with our affiliates and their news directors has never been more important. There is nobody better in this arena than Lloyd.”

Michelle Greppi in TVWeek has the 2nd announcement, which for whatever reason hasn’t shown up on the NBC Universal Media Village site, that Doug Vaughan has been brought in as a Vice President.
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CNN is making a big deal out of FNC declining in the demo for the month of February. They broke down FNC’s demo changes for the 24 news cycle and found that FNC was down in the Demo for 22 out of 24 hours…
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A rather unscientifc poll about who should replace Bob Schieffer. As of now, Keith Olbermann comes out ahead of Katie Couric but behind Lassie. Not sure what this means exactly…

Earlier on American Morning, Soledad O’Brien interviewed Mayor Ray Nagin. Transcript follows…

SOLEDAD O’BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, the party is on in New Orleans! We all know that. Many sober reflections, obviously, in this first post-Katrina Mardi Gras.

Let’s get to the mayor of New Orleans, Mayor Ray Nagin. He joins us to talk about the celebration and also what lies ahead for this city.

Nice to see you, Mr. Mayor. Thanks for talking with us.

MYR. RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: Good morning. And happy Mardi Gras.
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CNN reporters Chris Lawrence and Susan Roesgen will be in the Zulu and Rex parades taking place today. Roesgen will be riding on a float during Rex. CNN notes that Roesgen will be the first woman riding in the Rex parade’s 135 year history. I don’t know why this stat is important since Roesgen is reporting on the parade (though she’s doing it from a float) not taking part in the parade. All this is being broadcast today, Fat Tuesday, on Pipeline for free.

I don’t know about you but I’m already suffering from Mardi Gras burnout. Yes, it’s nice to know that Mardi Gras is happening but New Orleans, not to mention the rest of the Gulf Coast hit by Katrina, is far from back to normal. I’d like to see less Mardi Gras and more about reconstruction.

UPDATE: Added pic of Roesgen from the Rex parade.

Variety’s John Dempsey writes about the cable news carriage wars that could play out in the near future as new fees are negotiated…(via TVNewser)

Channels such as CNN and Lifetime are ubiquitous in the cable world but are watched during an average night by relatively few of those subscribers. Nielsen may take a seat at the bargaining table as ratings begin to play a bigger role in operators’ willingness to drop nets if they make exorbitant demands — leaving subscribers caught in the middle.

For example, CNN, hammered in the Nielsens by Fox News over the past few years, will face some stiff resistance from operators when the current deal expires because the ops are resigning themselves to gigantic increases from Fox. Scenarios like CNN vs. Fox News will play out across the cable-TV landscape.

Cable operators and satcasters “are preparing for trench warfare to keep cable-network rate increases to the low single digits,” says Boston-based media consultant Rob Stengel.

Johnny Dollar has video from yesterday’s Studio B on FNC where they were giving a behind the scenes tour throughout the program…

This one from the AP’s David Bauder (via TVNewser)

His office and staff are tucked away in a corner of CNN’s new headquarters in New York City, marked by a huge portrait of the host. Dobbs said his world view changed in 2001 because of Enron and other corporate corruption scandals and, finally, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Perhaps the first sign he was changing his way of doing things was a refusal to use the term war on terror, saying it should properly be called a war on radical Islamists who are committing terror.

“I believe the issues are too important to feign any kind of neutrality, or pretend to some objectivity that simply doesn’t exist,” he said. “I’m not one of those journalists who’s interested in doing he said-she said journalism. You know as a journalist, the truth is not about fair and balanced.”

Hal Boedeker in the Orlando Sentinel looks at Lou Dobbs’ rising profile in light of recent events…

Of course, CNN has thrown more promotion behind Anderson Cooper, who seems to be the network’s designated poster boy. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer has the nicer digs, as he constantly reminds us when we’re in “The Situation Room.”

Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly draws bigger audiences, and the broadcast anchors do far better in that respect. But Dobbs is forcing viewers and policymakers to pay attention to issues, from immigration to the much-disputed port deal.

Of the latter, Blitzer said last week, “Lou has been on top of this story long before most of the mainstream media.”

Ed Bark of the Dallas Morning News turns in a snarky piece on MSNBC. Note to Ed: MSNBC’s ratings were actually pretty decent for them last week…

MSNBC, cable’s More Silly News network, had a night for the ages last week.

The odds that you watched were longer than Bob Costas’ chances in a slam-dunk contest with Shaq. Nielsen Media Research says that the NBC-owned channel’s average national prime-time audience amounted to – if that’s the word – fewer than 450,000 viewers last year.

That’s what TV critics are for, though. We’re ever-vigilant in search of stuff that had to be seen to be believed. Wednesday offered a two-bagger courtesy of Countdown With Keith Olbermann and Live and Direct With Rita Cosby.

Near the end of Countdown, a blaring MSNBC promo promised juicy tales of American Idol scandals on Live and Direct. “THE STORIES THEIR PRODUCERS DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW” – that was the hook.

The Akron Beacon Journal’s Jim Carney has a Q&A with American Morning’s Carol Costello…

Q: What do you do in your spare time?

A: I am training for a marathon. I mentor six college kids. And I try to be there for my husband.

Q: How is the cable news battle going between CNN, Fox and MSNBC?

A: It’s invigorating. There should be a healthy competition. Makes for a better product.

Q: What’s next for you at CNN?

A: Hopefully more political reporting. I love it.

Howard Kurtz sumarizes some of Jack Cafferty’s latest comments that have drawn puclicity to the CNN commentator…

And when Dick Cheney, after his hunting accident, granted an interview to Fox’s Brit Hume, Cafferty said it “didn’t exactly represent a profile in courage for the vice president to wander over there to the F-word network.” (”Get your mind out of the gutter,” he says now. “The F-word is Fox.”)

Responds Fox spokeswoman Irena Briganti: “Jack is about as unstable as CNN’s programming lineup — nobody pays much attention to his incoherent ramblings.”

Cafferty’s cutting remarks have made him a hero to some on the left. Liberal radio host Cenk Uygur called for Cafferty to get his own prime-time show, saying on http://HuffingtonPost.com that “he is a rare truth-teller on cable news.” But Tim Graham of the conservative Media Research Center writes that Cafferty “has created a little career as a gruff anti-Bush commentator” in “an attempt to be the anti-Bill O’Reilly.”

The Sacramento Bee’s Sam McManis writes about the media trying to reach out to young people…

Krongos doesn’t fault her friends, though. Rather, she blames the mainstream media for failing to connect with people of her generation.

“All they think we care about is entertainment news,” she says. “Yes, I’m a sucker for pop culture. But the media directs the actual news toward older people.”

Well, what about CNN – her primary news source? The network recently elevated Anderson Cooper, 38, to be its main anchorman in a push, network executives say, for the coveted 18-to-34-year-old demographic.

No go. “To college students,” says Krongos with a smile, “he is definitely not young.”

National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley was on Late Edtion with Wolf Blitzer (off topic: When is CNN going to find someone else to host Late Edition so Wolf can have a life on weekends?). They discussed the violence in Iraq and the Port sale issues. Transcript follows…
WOLF BLITZER, HOST: Stephen Hadley, welcome back to LATE EDITION.
Thanks very much for joining us. There was a really powerful explosion at that Golden Mosque in Samarra in Iraq this past week, threatening all out civil war, if you will. Does the United States government know who was responsible for that attack?

STEPHEN HADLEY, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: We do not have the kind of forensic evidence at this point to know who is specifically responsible. I can tell you what the Iraqis have said. The Iraqis have basically said that the — the threat to the unity of Iraq is the terrorists and their terrorism activities. And they are clearly putting it on, those terrorist elements that have caused so much carnage in Iraq here in recent days.
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The Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rosenthal writes about this week’s Olbermann/O’Reilly petition skirmish…

“Our show’s never done better,” Olbermann told this columnist by e-mail before showtime Friday. “We’ve beaten Paula [Zahn of CNN] for viewers in the demo 12 of the last 14 nights and the total audience numbers are giddying. But that [O’Reilly has] helped, I’m sure has never occurred to him.

“I really should send him a check every week. In the interim I just pray he keeps this up.”

Maybe he should start a petition.

Page Hopkins announced at the end of Fox and Friends Weekend that viewers should expect them on a new set next weekend. I doubt that FNC will wait until the next Fox and Friends Weekend to debut the set so I would expect to see the new set tomorrow maybe…

…is a lot more extensive than you may realize if you’re young. Another one of the NBC Old Gaurd, a group which has been getting a lot smaller the last few years with Tom Brokaw, Bob Hager and other NBC stalwarts having hung up their journalistic spurs for the most part, Kur started at NBC 30 years ago. During his time at NBC News Kur…

- covered Ted Kennedy’s 1980 campaign for the Democratic Nomination.
- covered the assasination of Anwar Sadat
- covered the Israeli invasion of Lebanon
- covered the State Department for two years
- covered the House of Representatives for six years
- was named NBC News’ National Correspondent in 1988
- was news anchor for Weekend Today from 1996-1998
- was a news anchor for MSNBC from 2001-2003
- has been an NBC/MSNBC White House correspondent since 2004

If Kur is indeed departing NBC/MSNBC, it is a loss for the network(s)…

The Washington Post’s Korin Miller notes that long time NBC veteran and current NBC/MSNBC White House correspondent Bob Kur is moving in to radio…

The forthcoming station WTWP (107.7 FM and 1500 AM) has hired NBC White House correspondent Bob Kur as its afternoon-drive host. Kur, who has anchored on MSNBC, will run the 3 to 7 p.m. shift.

It’s not clear however from the article if Kur is leaving NBC/MSNBC or just adding radio to his TV duties…

Blomberg via The New York Post reports on internet traffic levels for the Olympics…

The number of visits to NBCOlympics.com has topped NBC’s prime-time Olympics TV audience every day since the Winter Games began Feb. 10. The site recorded 261.1 million page views in the first 12 days of skiing and skating from Turin, Italy, more than during the entire 2004 Athens Summer Olympics and almost double the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games.

“Our Internet business is exploding,” NBC Universal Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol said on a Feb. 20 conference call from Turin. NBCOlympics.com will probably post its first profit ever this year, Ebersol said, estimating the figure at $5 million to $6 million. NBC Universal’s fourth-quarter operating profit fell 7 percent to $801 million, GE said on Jan. 20.

Broadcasting & Cable’s J. Max Robins rains on Roger Ailes’ My Network TV parade…

I must say, I love the moxie of these News Corp. guys. They never fail to put the “show” in showbiz. And that’s the lesson to draw from My Network TV.

Forget that stations rarely become anything but less profitable when they lose network affiliation. And forget that no one has ever been successful at bringing soaps in the telenovela mode to American prime time TV.

And never mind that the My Network TV launch looks undeniably slapdash, with its development slate chock-a-block with reality shows that seem either stolen from MTV (Celebrity Love Island) or cloned from someone else’s good ideas (Catwalk: “the ultimate search for the next ‘It’ supermodel). On Scene, the network’s nightly newsmagazine to be spun out of Fox News, hardly seems like the thing to draw those young female audiences that advertisers love so much.

Out of the gate, this operation seems way behind The CW programming-wise, given the latter’s plan to draw on established series from UPN and The WB.

Broadcasting & Cable’s John Eggerton writes about Lou Dobbs taking his illegal immigration crusade to Spanish Language TV…

In an interview planned for next week, Dobbs reiterates that the flood of illegal immigrants is “absolutely an illegal invasion,” according to the station, and adds that “we are destroying the way of life for an entire generation,” according to a written excerpts of the interview supplied by the station. It is a point Dobbs has made frequently in the “Broken Borders” segment of his 6-7 p.m. CNN show.

The comments came in an interview with Univision’s Antonio Martinez for WXTV’s 11 p.m. news Feb. 28 and March 1. Martinez is a legal immigrant who became a citizen seven years ago.

As advertised, Keith Olbermann responded to the O’Reilly petition drive and it was as brutal as I thought it would be. Keith said he couldn’t recall exactly why Bill might be upset and then ran about a two minute long retrospective of the “worst” of O’Reilly on Countdown. Then he signed the petition. He then said he had the full backing of everyone at MSNBC and while he was talking they cut to a whole mess of people signing the “Fire Keith” petition including but not limited to…
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From an emailer…

This was clipped earlier today from the website, before they shut down the ability to be able to see who had signed Bill’s petition:

I’ve also read that they’ve blocked click-throughs from several sites, including Daily Kos, TVNewser, etc. Can’t imagine why after reading this list can you?

Correction: As Johnny Dollar pointed out the petition URL has changed since the petition went up. Click throughs are not being blocked.

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Johnny Dollar has the video of Shepard Smith and Jane Skinner discussing this petition thing. Smith makes the obvious point (which I agree with) that it’s giving publicity to the “other guy” and it doesn’t make sense to him…

TVNewser emailed Olbermann and Olbermann said he and the entire Countdown staff were going to sign the petition. Coincidentally, or maybe not so coincidentally, one of ICN’s commentors notes that the petition now no longer lists who has signed it.

Bill’s website has now blocked the ability to see who had signed the petition.

Heck I can’t even get in to view the petition now, let alone sign it…I keep getting a server error…

Olympic Gold Medalist Shaun White was all over HLN’s Robin and Company this morning. As yesterday’s Press Release noted…

Lead anchor Robin Meade will interview the gold medalist, but White will also get involved in weather reports with meteorologist Bob Van Dillen, entertainment segments with Adrianna Costa, and may even try his hand at reading sports updates with anchor Will Selva.

Partial transcript follows…

BOB VAN DILLEN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Oh yeah, we have some great video, that’s for sure! This is Shaun White. He is the Olympic gold medalist for snowboard. And Shaun, come on up here. Do me a favor, will you?

SHAUN WHITE, OLYMPIC SNOWBOARD GOLD MEDALIST: I love my intro.

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If the long range schedule is to be believed, MSNBC’s so called “Five week experiment” - running crime shows on Friday instead of its regular prime time lineup - is going to be running longer than five weeks. If that’s the case this looks less and less like an experimental lead in for the Olympics and more like a permanent change.

Is the cost cutting so severe at NBC that MSNBC has to run tape on Fridays to balance the books?

I got tipped off on this last night but the link wasn’t working so I had to hold off posting it. Bill O’Reilly has started a petition drive to have Keith Olbermann fired! We haven’t heard the last of this I’m sure…

Dear Chairman Wright:

We, the undersigned, are becoming increasingly concerned about the well-being of MSNBC and, in particular, note the continuing ratings failure of the program currently airing weeknights on that network at 8:00 PM EST.

It is now apparent to everyone that a grave injustice has been done to the previous host for that time slot, Phil Donahue, whose ratings, at the time of his show’s cancellation three years ago, were demonstrably stronger than those of the current host.

Therefore, in an effort to rescue MSNBC from the ratings basement and to restore the honor and dignity of Mr. Donahue, who was ignobly removed as host three years ago, we ask that you immediately bring Phil Donahue’s show back at 8:00 PM EST before any more damage is done.

UPDATE: This may have had something to do with the petition…

WHAC notes that CNN will be offering Pipeline for free for a day on Tuesday February 28th. Is this part of CNN’s Mardi Gras coverage?

UPDATE: This is from today’s press release…

CNN.com will offer broadband Internet users worldwide free access to CNN Pipeline, its commercial-free on-demand video news service, on Tuesday, Feb. 28. CNN Pipeline’s first “Free Preview Day” will begin at midnight and run until 11:59 p.m. (ET) coinciding with Fat Tuesday celebrations across the U.S. Gulf Coast.
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