Larry King’s interview with the President and the First Lady airs in half an hour. King sat down and spoke with President George W. Bush and Laura Bush in an exclusive interview earlier today at the White House. Among the topics discussed with the President, North Korea’s missile testing earlier this week. Already portions of the interview regarding North Korea have aired on The Situation Room.

A group of MSNBC editors were nominated today for an Emmy for “Outstanding Picture Editing for a Special” for The Concert for Katrina Special. Rico Bolignino, Paul Musilli, Sean Sohl and Barry Spitzer’s nomination was the subject of much congratulations at the network today…

From: McCoy, Dave (NBC Universal, MSNBC)
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2006 3:54 PM
Subject: Congratulations!
Importance: High

Awesome news guys, MSNBC A&P has hit the big time and congratulations are in order.

Please give a huge pat on the back to editor/producers Rico Bolignino, Paul Musilli, and Sean Sohl and senior editor/producer Barry Spitzer who have just been nominated for a national Emmy Award by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Their work on the NBC Special “A Concert for Hurricane Relief” was nothing short of stunning and deserves much praise indeed as this is a huge accomplishment. Their nominated colleagues in this category clearly illustrates the quality of their work (see the official NATAS list below). Winners will be chosen end of next month but in this business being nominated is very rare and consummately important. Make no mistake this was a team effort and there are a lot of people who toiled tirelessly for four days and nights straight to help create such emotional video pieces under such a crushing deadline. From research to writing to music, graphics and the sweet sound mix the complete work deserves recognition. But most noteworthy our efforts can best measured in millions of relief dollars for the victims of Katrina and for that all of us on this team should be very proud.

Congrats guys. Job very well done!!!

Dave McCoy
Sr. Creative Director
MSNBC Advertising & Promotion
(more…)

TVNewser has CNN Washington Bureau Chief David Bohrman’s memo announcing that David Ensor is leaving CNN and Ensor’s farewell message…

July 5

P2+ Total Day
FNC – 888,000 viewers
CNN - 565,000 viewers
MSNBC - 254,000 viewers
HLN - 185,000 viewers
CNBC – 147,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 1,525,000 viewers
CNN – 947,000 viewers
MSNBC - 394,000 viewers
HLN – 319,000 viewers
CNBC - 139,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC - 236,000 viewers
CNN - 197,000 viewers
MSNBC - 109,000 viewers
HLN – 84,000 viewers
CNBC – 55,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC - 348,000 viewers
CNN - 297,000 viewers
MSNBC - 146,000 viewers
HLN – 119,000 viewers
CNBC – 74,000 viewers
(more…)

CNN is touting its Demo success the evening the North Korean Missle launch story broke and rubs tape in MSNBC’s eyes…

On Tuesday, July 4th CNN’s breaking and continuing coverage of the North Korean Missile Launches beat the cable competition, winning every hour in the P25-54 demo from 6p to 12M.

· CNN won primetime by 31% over FNC and 68% over MSNBC, which aired taped programming.

· CNN’s The Situation Room at 7p was the 5th most watched cable news program of the day, beating FNC The Fox Report by 42% in the P25-54 demo (350k vs. 246k).

· CNN’s 8p breaking news coverage of the North Korean missile test beat FNC’s The O’Reilly Factor by 14% (304k vs. 266k).

· Larry King Live delivered 345k to beat FNC’s Hannity & Colmes (202k) by 71% as the 6th most-watched cable news program of the day.

· At 10p, CNN Presents: Undercover in the Secret State beat FNC’s On the Record w/Greta by 23% (332k vs. 271k).
· CNN’s 11p breaking news coverage beat FNC’s replay of The O’Reilly Factor by 11% (218k vs. 197k).

**Additionally, CNN’s 2p hour of Live From was CNN’s most-watched hour of the day (566k) and the 2nd-ranked cable news telecast of the day, featuring the NASA space shuttle launch.

GretaWire has an email from Catherine Herridge…

Baby Peter is looking better every day. He is spending a lot of time now playing with the mobile we have set up in his hospital crib. It has a big sun and birds and a caterpillar that rotate to the songs “Jumpin’ Jazz” and “Cozy Classic.” Peter’s nurses are good sports because after eight hours it is impossible to get these tunes out of your head.

The doctors say it is an excellent sign that he has started to play again — in other words — act like a baby again. His belly looks smaller, not only will he grow into his new liver, but his new organ knows to shrink because his body doesn’t need that much capacity. While modern medicine is an amazing thing, I find it more impressive how much the body can do on its own.

CNN’s Pipeline will be covering the shuttle docking/hatch event at 12:52 ET today.

Viewers can go to http://www.cnn.com and click on the Pipeline link to watch it *live* and get a two week free trial.

Shuttle Launch

2:00-3:00P
FOX 2,154,000 (780,000)
CNN 1,549,000 (566,000)
MSNBC 497,000 (275,000)
CNBC 71,000 (38,000)
HLN 399,000 (183,000)

North Korea Missle Launch

4:30-7:00pm
FOX 1,231,000 (335,000)
CNN 864,000 (316,000)
MSNBC 213,000 (122,000)
CNBC 30,000 (12,000)
HLN 277,000 (131,000)

4:30-8:00P
FOX 1,206,000 (309,000)
CNN 864,000 (326,000)
MSNBC 232,000 (122,000)
CNBC 86,000 (29,000)
HLN 256,000 (113,000)

Tuesday afternoon and evening was the time when the North Korea Missle Launch broke. FNC won the Primetime Total viewers for the day. CNN won the Primetime Demo. MSNBC got pasted with its taped programming. I’ll have more precise breakdowns for the North Korea story shortly which paint a slightly different picture. Also the Shuttle Launch…

July 4

P2+ Total Day
FNC – 821,000 viewers
CNN - 600,000 viewers
MSNBC - 239,000 viewers
HLN - 239,000 viewers
CNBC – a scratch with 90,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 915,000 viewers
CNN – 779,000 viewers
MSNBC - 262,000 viewers
HLN – 335,000 viewers
CNBC - 117,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC - 259,000 viewers
CNN - 241,000 viewers
MSNBC - 129,000 viewers
HLN – 95,000 viewers
CNBC – a scratch with 43,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC - 249,000 viewers
CNN - 327,000 viewers
MSNBC - 122,000 viewers
HLN - 81,000 viewers
CNBC – a scratch with 47,000 viewers
(more…)

July 3
P2+ Total Day
FNC - 728,000 viewers
CNN - 473,000 viewers
MSNBC - 200,000 viewers
HLN - 167,000 viewers
CNBC - a scratch with 100,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC - 1,155,000 viewers
CNN - 802,000 viewers
MSNBC - 308,000 viewers
HLN - 228,000 viewers
CNBC - a scratch with 91,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC - 202,000 viewers
CNN - 182,000 viewers
MSNBC - 95,000 viewers
HLN - 59,000 viewers
CNBC - a scratch with 33,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC - 212,000 viewers
CNN - 276,000 viewers
MSNBC - 123,000 viewers
HLN - 53,000 viewers
CNBC -a scratch with 42,000 viewers

Morning programs
FOX & Friends - 693,000 viewers (249,000)
American Morning - 400,000 viewers (148,000)
Robin & Co. - 191,000 (104,000)
(more…)

Liz Smith praises Larry King for coming in to anchor North Korea coverage and takes a shot at MSNBC…

BRAVO TO Larry King! He took time out of his Fourth of July holiday to go on-air with an hourlong live program about North Korea’s launch of seven missiles. The missile launch is no immediate threat to the United States. While Larry’s program made that clear - we were not under attack - it was nice to see CNN on the ball. No other cable news station bothered its well-known flag-waving talking heads away from their family barbecues. Repeats were ubiquitous. MSNBC did a night on serial killers and prisons!

BC Beat takes issue with what I guess was a lower 3rd CNN displayed yesterday during the Ken Lay news…

But I have a bone to pick with its taste in headlines. I’m not saying that Enron exec Ken Lay wasn’t fair game for corporate punching bag taking down countless pensions, but that was before he suffered a massive heart attack, after which different rules need to apply.

CNN’s headling for the story, at least a late take on it: “Sudden Death: Ken Lay Avoids Jail Time.” Uh, uh. Can’t do it. As an obituary writer of many years experience, I know well the temptations of clever headlines. Daily Show, yes, but it should not be done in straight newscasts. Period.

The Globe and Mail’s Suzanne Ma has an interview with former HLN anchor Lynne Russell…

She left CNN in 2001 because she wanted to change her lifestyle. “Life is too short,” she said. “And I was tired of trying to catch up all the time.” Both her parents died that year and Beck was diagnosed with colon cancer (he underwent surgery and is now cancer-free). Life at CNN was also in a state of flux, after the network was purchased by the newly merged AOL Time Warner.

“I watched good friends and colleagues have to leave . . . and things were being changed so dramatically. Finally, when I was asked what I wanted to do to change the evening shift [the shift Russell had worked on for years], I said, ‘I think I’ll just go home now.’ ”

Two weeks later, Russell went home for good. “There are still wonderful journalists at CNN and very dear friends of mine . . . but the mission is over,” she said. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be part of a birth of a network, but it’s changed so much and you can’t miss what’s not there any more.”

An emailer noted that FNC is reporting that North Korea has 3 to 4 missles ready to launch.