This may be a first. On Friday’s Countdown, there was another tit for tat between FNC talent and Keith Olbermann. It got started during the “Brian and the Judge” radio show where Brian Kilmeade and Judge Andrew Napolitano tossed a dig at Keith Olbermann. Nothing new there really. The back and forth between FNC talent and Olbermann has been going on for some time now. And I wasn’t going to blog it this time because I didn’t find out about it until this morning’s Countdown repeat when Olbermann aired the audio clip from the FNC Radio show.

But then I got word from Johnny Dollar that the source of audio clip came from an unusual location; Olbermannwatch. I’ll let Dollar take over from here…

Keith ran the clip of the Kilmeade/Napolitano radio quote. He got it from Olbermann Watch, who got it from the clips I posted. Keith always credits Crooks & Liars when he uses their clips, but didn’t credit Olbermann Watch for this one. (Surprise!)

Here is the edited clip that ran on Olbermannwatch.

And here is the write-up on Olbermannwatch that talks about Olbermann using their clip…

Finally came the segment the infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann had been so tirelessly promoting since the top of the hour. And, much to our delight, it began with this audio clip lifted straight off Olbermann Watch! So great is our impact and prestige that we are required reading even for Krazy Keith himself. Though he is willing to credit blue blogs like Crooks & Liars when he appropriates their media clips, he didn’t give any nod of acknowledgement Olbermann Watch tonight, even though he used our clip.

I’m no fan of Olbermannwatch because it’s biased (”the infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann”??? Puh-leze..). But this twist was just too ironic to ignore…

Somehow this one got by me yesterday. Tim Arango in the New York Post writes about a deal between Liberty Media and Time Warner that could result in some CourtTV talent coming to CNN…

A deal between Time Warner and John Malone’s Liberty Media, which will result in Malone owning the Atlanta Braves and Time Warner taking control of Court TV, is all but wrapped up.

But the announcement has been held up as Time Warner plots how to shuffle Court TV executives and talent, which may include frontwoman Catherine Crier, over to CNN, according to sources.

Once the deal is complete - an announcement could come this week - Court TV will be merged into Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting, Multichannel News reported last week.

Unanswered Question: If Crier comes to CNN, could Paula Zahn Now’s days be numbered? It’s the weakest link in the CNN prime time lineup.

CNN is noting gains for Lou Dobbs Tonight vs. Special Report with Brit Hume on FNC during April…

So far in 2006, CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight has increased both its P2+ and P25-54 audience each month and narrowed the gap with FNC in the P25-54 demo to only 22k.

April 2006 versus year-ago, Lou Dobbs Tonight increased its P2+ total viewers audience by 46% (817K vs. 559K) and its P25-54 demo audience by 34% (211K vs. 157K).

FNC’s Special Report with Brit Hume delivered its lowest P25-54 month (233k) since August 2001 (129k).

CNN included a couple of slides to illustrate their point…
(more…)

TV Week’s Marianne Paskowski writes about FNC’s plans for increasing its subscriber rate and what possible fallout could occur… (via TVNewser)

Several sources have told me that so far the distributors currently in ongoing renewal discussions with Fox are the NCTC, Cablevision Systems and News Corp.-owned DirecTV. (If you can call the DirecTV situation a negotiation, given that Fox and DirecTV are siblings in the same corporate family).

If that is true, how interesting-and how foxy of Fox: First establish a rate with a relative-DirectTV-then tackle the little guys like NCTC members (and Cablevision, which only has 3 million subscribers in the New York metro area) and then go after the big distribution dogs.

MSNBC issued a press release on The Most this afternoon…

In addition to covering the top hard news stories of the day, “The Most” will cover a range of topics, from politics to pop culture, including business, technology, lifestyle, entertainment and news relating to people’s everyday lives. The program will cull all major daily newspapers, a plethora of news and information websites, weekly periodicals, and more, as it pinpoints the most widely searched topics of interest. “The Most” will also turn the tables on itself from time to time, featuring a most “underreported” story of the day or a most “overexposed” person of the week.

“This is a truly ground breaking show and yet so simple in its concept,” said Rick Kaplan, president of MSNBC. “‘The Most’ will be a multi-media pursuit of information that is relevant to people’s lives and it is the perfect afternoon program for our news-hungry viewers.”

“The Most” recognizes that today’s news consumer is busy and also very savvy. Says Stewart, “‘The Most’ is about responding to our viewers and it’s about the information-seeker in all of us. People are telling us what they want to learn about, we just have to listen.”

Johnny Dollar emailed in to note that ahead of MSNBC’s 3pm premiere of The Most, FNC did a new thing in the 2pm hour…

I thought it was interesting, with “The Most” starting today, that the 2:00 hour of Fox News Live had a new feature. It was only a passing reference, and they didn’t build the hour around it, but there it was.

Here are the weekly top 10 cable primet time network ratings for the week of April 17-23 courtesy of TVWeek. FNC came in fifth. FNC came in 10th in the Total Day rankings. No other cable news outlet placed in the top 10 (ESPN is a sports network).

USA - 1.8 rating with 2,038,000 viewers
Disney - 1.7 rating with 1,823,000 viewers
TNT - 1.5 rating with 1,660,000 viewers
Cartoon Network - 1.3 rating with 1,398,000
FOX News Channel - 1.1 rating with 1,235,000 viewers
Nick at Night - 1.1 rating with 1,228,000 viewers
TBS - 1.1 ratings with 1,186,000 viewers
Lifetime - 1.0 rating with 1,134,000 viewers
ESPN - 1.0 rating with 1,055,000 viewers
Spike - 0.9 rating with 999,000 viewers

The Patriot News’ Barry Fox has a profile of CNN’s Candy Crowley… (via WHAC)

While CNN’s senior political correspondent jokingly refers to herself as “a cynical journalist who has seen it all,” she still is fascinated by politics and especially voters.

Seeing thousands of people greet the president inside a sweltering airport hanger or folks waiting three hours after their workdays for a town hall meeting with their senator is why she does what she does.

“I’m in awe of those people,” Crowley said from her office in Washington, D.C. “I think this is what the founders had in mind. I don’t use these terms, but it’s awesome. And it’s the greatest people watching, ever. I get to ask people all these strange questions that if I weren’t a reporter, they would call the cops. It feeds my curiosity constantly.”

Michael Starr in the New York Post reports that FNC’s Dr. Manny Alvarez will be appearing on The Montel Williams show today…

Mediaweek’s Anthony Crupi writes in must read fashion about FNC targeting broadcast morning news advertising dollars…

After four years of touting its dominance of the cable news market,
Fox News Channel is heading into this year’s upfront marketplace with its sights locked onto bigger game, aggressively targeting dollars that its ad sales chief believes are his to snatch away from the broadcast networks.

Paul Rittenberg, Fox News senior vp of advertising and market research, said he is particularly focused on grabbing dollars from the morning-news monoliths, touting FNC’s Fox & Friends as a viable alternative to ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s Today show and CBS’ The Early Show. Rittenberg, who last week returned to New York from Dallas, where FNC has just opened a new regional ad sales office, said a number of factors play into his decision to take on the broadcast morning shows, including Katie Couric’s decampment from Today and Fox & Friends’ uncluttered avails.

MediaChannel.org notes that Rory O’Connor will be doing the 20 question thing with Rick Kaplan soon and wants your questions. Previously O’Connor interviewed Jonathan Klein of CNN and John Moody of FNC.

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Gail Shister writes up the story…

Both networks are Ziploc’d to the max about the Cooper-60 Minutes partnership. Both say they will neither confirm nor deny the deal.

Here’s why: CBS Corp. kingpin Les Moonves - nothing if not a showman with great hair - wants to make the announcement himself May 17 in New York at CBS’s “up-front” presentation of its fall schedule to advertisers, sources say.

The paperwork isn’t finalized yet, but network sources say Cooper will put together five to 10 pieces a year for the venerable newsmagazine. He’ll start shooting this summer for broadcast in the fall - 60 Minutes’ 39th season.

USA Today’s Peter Johnson writes about the new MSNBC show… (2nd item)

Invariably before a staff meeting, MSNBC’s Alison Stewart checks out what topics are hot on websites such as Yahoo, Google, CNN and MSNBC.com.

That got her to thinking: Why not air a daily program that would focus on just that?

“My theory was, if this many people find a certain story interesting on the Web, why wouldn’t other people? They might say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that was happening.’ ”

TV Week’s Michelle Greppi writes about the Fox News Sunday 10th Anniversary Party last week…

The Insider’s eyes and ears in Georgetown said a good time definitely was had by all the Republicans and Democrats and conservatives and liberals packed into Café Milano to toast the 10th anniversary of “Fox News Sunday.”

“It was a fair-and-balanced party,” said “Sunday” moderator Chris Wallace, appropriating Fox News Channel’s famous slogan.

Fairly balanced though it might have been, the gathering was top-heavy. Indeed, the guest list smacked of The Insider’s alter-ego’s annual pundits poll.

Vice President Dick Cheney was in and out early. News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch came early and stayed late.

Broadcasting and Cable writes about how FNC’s Shepard Smith got embarrassed during a panel discussion on Hurricane Katrina at the Radio-Television News Directors Association conference last week…

Smith, a Mississippi native, was a model in reportorial courage, covering the storm on the ground in New Orleans and tracking its impact on his home state extensively thereafter.

But you wouldn’t know it from the long highlight video that preceded the panel talk. While the montage included the heroics of local stations WWL and WDSU—and even prominently featured reports from Fox competitors MSNBC and CNN—Smith was nowhere to be found.

The omission wasn’t lost on the brash anchor. “We covered it, too,” he said dryly after the video ended. “I guess no one was watching.”

Do note the kicker paragraph at the end of the story…