Are you thrilled that Portugal beat England and France upset Brazil? Rooney is going to bet raked over the coals for this…

What do you want to see, but don’t think you’re going to get, from the upcoming campaign season in terms of cable news coverage?

The launch was scrubbed. Of the three networks I know for sure that MSNBC covered the NASA announcement live because I was watching it when Chris Jansing cut off her interview so that she and Jay Barbree could tell the viewers that the scrub notice was apparently about to come down and MSNBC switched to the NASA TV feed.

Since I watched the whole NASA scrub announcement I don’t know for sure whether CNN or FNC had that too. I channel hopped to CNN and saw the tail end of a splash screen that could have been a “Breaking News” banner flyer or maybe it was CNN coming out of commercial break. Whichever, it had Miles O’Brien scrambling and talking to his control room. I then switched to FNC and they still had “Launch may be postponed” on their lower 3rd while Martha MacCallum announced that the launch was scrubbed and then they immediately launched a Fox News Alert.

If anyone can fill in the blanks it would help…

UPDATE: A commentor confirms what I suspected. CNN was caught in a commercial break. Lousy timing for a commercial break…

Jansing and Jay Barbree say that NASA says there’s “No hope” but they’ll continue with the countdown down to nine minutes and hope things suddenly change.

Chris Jansing just reported that one lone anvil cloud is being eyeballed by NASA and could force the launch being scrubbed.

David Lee Miller is talking about the 100 cameras that will be covering the shuttle launch including the 5 “lipstick cameras” being mounted on the shuttle…

UPDATE: An emailer sent in a pic he took from his home 15 miles from the Kennedy Space Center

The hatch is closed. MacCallum is interviewing Florida senator Bill Nelson, a former Astronaut. Lots of discussion on funding and priorities.

Meanwhile France is playing Brazil (go France!)…

I know she’s been on the air several times already but in my channel hopping I kept missing Martha MaCcallum. FNC has their set up in the same location as last year. MSNBC definately brought their set back too. CNN has been spending more time covering this in the run up to the final hour than either MSNBC or FNC have. But then not much has been going on.

And when not much is going on reporters do man on the street interviews…

Meanwhile MSNBC’s experiment with its control room version of “Star Search” keeps hitting new lows. The last one turned comical when Contessa Brewer couldn’t hear the control room, said she couldn’t hear the control room, and took over the tease while the control room looked dumbfounded.

Ok..I’ve seen MSNBC’s lead in from break. They’re recycling the one they used for the last launch.

NASA now says 70% chance of mission being scrubbed. MSNBC has the crawl back now.

Osama Bin Laden stuck his nose into the news cycle. FNC and MSNBC are discussing his new statement. CNN is sticking with the Shuttle for the moment.

I caught CNN’s spot they’re running for coming out of break to announce their coverage. Very nice. I haven’t seen one for MSNBC or FNC yet…

This is nuts. MSNBC is going off the deep end with these control room shots. Do they really think that we will believe that this is spontaneous? It’s such an awkward moment to watch and it looks so fake. And the transitions from control room to the anchor are sometimes not smooth. And sometimes they repeat news to the anchor that the anchor just mentioned…

On the other hand look what’s missing from this image. That’s right. No crawl. They’re not using it today.

Some caps of the early coverage…

CNN with Miles O’Brien
(more…)

MSNBC’s lower 3rds are saying it’s a Go. FNC just threw up an alert that it’s back to No Go. Who’s on first? I don’t know…Third base!

Odd split screen on FNC. On the left footage from the recent Gaza problems. On the right NASA channel footage.

UPDATE: FNC threw up a Fox News Alert that the Shuttle was back on Go status. A quick channel hop showed both MSNBC and CNN in break but I don’t know if FNC was first with the news…

Shuttle is in “No Go” mode but not necessarily scrubbed. All three networks went to live coverage of the shuttle crew being ferried via bus to the shuttle.

Lots of analysis going on…too much to keep up. All the main anchors have been on the air: O’Brien on CNN, MacCallum on FNC, and Jansing on MSNBC. MSNBC did another one of these a few minutes ago before a break…

UPDATE: MSNBC is doing a lot more of those. I’ve counted three in the past hour. The idea that they have to show the control room telling the anchor what’s coming next and we sit there and watch the anchor sit there is ridiculous…

Ohhhhh…Rooney just got ejected with a red card!

…yeah…ok..I peaked…

The wait is over. It’s Saturday. It hasn’t started yet but already there’s talk of a potential problem. Deco and Costinha are suspended which puts Portugal in a hole. Still it would be great to see Figo beat his former Real Madrid team mate Beckham…

Oh wait…wrong subject…

start over…

The Shuttle Launch is progressing but a problem has crept up in one of the control boosters which threatens to scrub the launch. If the weather doesn’t scrub the launch…

World Cup…Shuttle Launch…Shuttle Launch…World Cup…

ARGH!