NewYorkBusiness.com’s Matthew Flamm speculates about whether a downturn in Republican fortunes is affecting FNC…(sub. req.)

But in the past two years, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center, Republicans have been tuning out international news and news about Iraq at more than double the rate of Democrats and Independents. It may be that some of them are also tuning out Fox News.

“There is widespread evidence, not so much that Republicans are changing their politics, but that they’re becoming less motivated,” says Andrew Tyndall, an independent television news analyst.

Fox News executives respond that the channel has no political leanings and that ratings declines are due to comparisons with a news-filled prior year–a period that featured the 2004 election, a tsunami, the deaths of Terry Schiavo and the Pope, and the disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba.

“News is a cyclical business,” says Bill Shine, senior vice president of programming. “This is not a big deal.”
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HLN beat both MSNBC and CNN in the Primetime Demo Friday…

P2+ Total Day
FNC - 845,000 viewers
CNN - 460,000 viewers
MSNBC - 301,000 viewers
CNBC - 170,000 viewers
HLN - 245,00 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC - 1,475,000 viewers
CNN - 653,000 viewers
MSNBC - 453,000 viewers
CNBC - 120,000 viewers
HLN - 472,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC - 268,000 viewers
CNN - 156,000 viewers
MSNBC - 135,000 viewers
CNBC - 51,000 viewers
HLN - 104,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC - 322,000 viewers
CNN - 173,000 viewers
MSNBC - 179,000 viewers
CNBC - 52,000 viewers
HLN - 191,000 viewers
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CNN announced that Wolf Blitzer will have an interview with President Bush following his address to the U.N. The interview will air on The Situation Room Wednesday, September 20th..

In a wide-ranging interview the morning after President Bush and Iranian President Ahmadinejad address the United Nations General Assembly, President George W. Bush will answer questions from CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer. The interview will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 20, in New York City and will cover Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, U.S. interrogation policy and the upcoming mid-term elections.

The interview will air in the 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. (ET) hours of CNN’s three-hour news program The Situation Room. CNN political director Sam Feist is the show’s executive producer.

Broadcasting & Cable’s Joel Topcik has a profile of Jonathan Wald, CNBC Senior Vice President, Business News…

Jonathan Wald was already planning to return to producing TV news when Hurricane Katrina hit last year. The storm just sped up his timetable. The Emmy-winning former NBC News producer had been developing an evening-news program for CNBC for a December launch. But with the waters rising in New Orleans on Aug. 31, CNBC President Mark Hoffman phoned Wald on Long Island, N.Y., where he was vacationing with his family. Could he have a newscast ready by 7 p.m.?

Wald drove to CNBC’s New Jersey studios and went live that night with Hurricane Katrina: Crisis and Recovery.

“It felt great to be wanted to produce something,” says Wald, 40, who served as executive producer for NBC Nightly News and Today.
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Here is some more information on the new FNC website…

FOX News today launched a redesigned FOXNews.com (www.FOXNews.com) – giving online news consumers more functionality, personalized tools, and news and video content announced. The FOXNews.com site now offers users a clean, contemporary look while simplifying the site’s navigation and organization of breaking news content.

FOX News will introduce cellular and Blackberry platforms of the new web site on Tuesday, Sept 19, 2006. Cellular and Blackberry users will be redirected to a web site that reflects the FOXNews.com redesign, but prioritizes breaking news for a smaller screen.

Highlights of the new FOXNews.com site:

MyNews – Users of FOXNews.com can now control where their headlines come from and how they are organized in a single customizable page. The site provides users with a searchable catalog of thousand of headline sources which are searchable by keyword.

Expanded News Content – FOXNews.com includes over 30 added news content sections including You Decide 2006 – a home base for FOX News’ 2006 campaign coverage on the web, and Celebrity Center – a collection of latest news, biographies, pictures and video clips from the web’s most searched celebrities.

Video Content – In addition to original video content and live streams, online users can now create custom play lists and e-mail their favorite FOX News videos to friends.

BuzzTracker – Opinion BuzzTracker is an online tool that permits Internet users to easily filter through thousands of conversations, news articles and analysis in over 5,000 politically-focused blogs and Web-based media resources and determine the “wisdom of the crowds” in a continuously, updated format.

MyWeather – FOXNews.com users can now customize their homepage to track weather for the city they choose. In addition, MyWeather offers consumers expanded access to weather maps and satellite images.

Search by Google – Users can now search the FOXNews.com website using a search engine powered by Google.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Alyson Ward has an interview with Fox and Friends’ E.D. Hill…

You’ve been on Fox & Friends for several years. How have you managed to co-host a morning show and survive as a mother of eight?

I go to work very early, but I get home really early. I can have a full mom day and a full workday. It is exhausting, but you do it because you have to. If you want to be a working mom, as any working mom knows, you’re working two full-time jobs. It’s not easy at all, but Fox has made it a lot easier for me, because when the kids were born I was able to bring them to the office with me.

CNN’s Dana Bash traveled to Iowa over the weekend with Sen. Barack Obama. She turned in a report on the speculation of an Obama ‘08 Presidential run on “American Morning” this morning. Transcript follows…

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Count them, 50 days until Election Day ‘06, and ‘08 is not far behind. That means ‘08 isn’t far behind. It all begins in Iowa. That’s where we find Dana Bash this morning in Des Moines.

Good morning.

DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

You know, Senator Tom Harkin’s steak fry is an annual event that always draws potential candidates for president, looking to meet Democratic activists. Now this year potential candidates for 2008 included Tom Vilsack, who is the governor of Iowa, and the former governor of Virginia, Mark Warner. But even they knew most in the 3,500-plus crow came to catch a glimpse of Senator Barack Obama, the new rising star in the Democratic Party.
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Not much happening in cable news so far today (and it’s a Monday which makes it doubly unusual), so when the news is slow it’s time to speculate about things I really don’t know the answer to…

What has happened to CNN Sunday Night? For the last four or five weeks the 10 pm ET timeslot has been filled with taped programming. With CNN signing off the air with live news, so to speak, at 7 pm ET, that leaves FNC’s 7 pm ET The Fox Report as the last news cast on Sunday nights. And, I think that’s too soon for a weekend. Nobody else is running a news cast after that. MSNBC is long into tape. HLN is now running repeats of its weekday primetime lineup. I’m dissapointed CNN has apparently dropped Sunday Night but it may be a ratings move.

FNC quietly launched a new version of its website…this morning? Had to have been between Friday, when I last looked at it, and today. Haven’t read a word about it on the internet and none of the blogs has it yet.

An odd aspect of the new site is its non-traditional size. It’s slightly larger than 1024 x 768 which means that anyone using that resolution (or smaller…but who runs at 800x600 anymore?) will have a horizontal scrollbar. This may just be a formatting glitch though since the site just launched.

UPDATE: Here’s an article on the redesign…(via TVNewser)
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FTVLive rips Nancy Grace and GMA’s Chris Cuomo for their interview last week…

If this happened to most TV people, I think many would have taken some time off and stayed away from the spotlight. Nancy Grace is trying to use this young woman’s death to jack up her ratings.

As for Chris Cuomo….maybe next time he can find some bigger softballs to lob at his next interview.