CNN’s Kyra Phillips, on assignment in Iraq, interviewed CENTCOM’s Rear Admiral William Fallon. Transcript follows…

JIM CLANCY, CNNI ANCHOR: All right. Well, it’s all about Iraq and what’s going on there. And there’s more violence to report today.

Two car bombs targeting markets killed at least 30 people in the northern city of Tal Afar. Fifty people were also wounded in that incident.

In all now, at least 52 people have been killed in violence today. Most from suicide bomb attacks.

Meantime, the head of the U.S. Central Command tells CNN there’s a lot of work to be done in Iraq by everyone before security and stability are returned to that country. He spoke with CNN’s Kyra Phillips in a broad-ranging interview just hours ago.

Kyra joins us now live from Baghdad.

Admiral Fallon tackled the regional challenges as well, didn’t he, Kyra?

PHILLIPS: He sure did. He talked a lot about Iran. Or Iran, as a matter of fact.
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The first night of the Countdown at 10pm experiment didn’t yield much of a result. But as far as I know this move wasn’t publicized on TV yesterday so only those who tuned in accidentally or stayed on after Scarborough Country knew about it. HLN beat MSNBC for third in the Total Day and Primetime Demos. O’Reilly led the night in the Demo.

Cable News Daily Ratings for March 26, 2007

P2+ Total Day
FNC – 863,000 viewers
CNN – 452,000 viewers
MSNBC – 317,000 viewers
CNBC – 190,000 viewers
HLN – 291,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 1,646,000 viewers
CNN – 782,000 viewers
MSNBC –490,000 viewers
CNBC- a scratch with 11,000 viewers
HLN – 540,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC – 253,000 viewers
CNN – 156,000 viewers
MSNBC – 126,000 viewers
CNBC –79,000 viewers
HLN – 136,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC – 480,000 viewers
CNN – 269,000 viewers
MSNBC – 167,000 viewers
CNBC – 56,000 viewers
HLN – 208,000 viewers

Morning programs P2+ (25-54)
FOX & Friends – 744,000 viewers (296,000)
American Morning – 299,000 viewers (91,000)
Imus in the Morning– 312,000 viewers (105,000)
Robin & Co. – 276,000 viewers (158,000)
(more…)

Back in the beginning of March, it was noted in The Indianapolis Star that Mad Money was coming to Indiana University. Today CNBC put out a release announcing the show…

CNBC’s Jim Cramer takes on the Indiana University Hoosiers on his next stop of his “Back to School” tour on Wednesday, April 4. The program will be broadcast from the school’s renowned basketball arena, Assembly Hall.

Mark Cuban, owner of The Dallas Mavericks, and alumnus of Indiana University will be Cramer’s special guest.

“Mad Money w/Jim Cramer” is seen Monday through Friday on CNBC at 6PM ET and re-airs at 11PM ET.

“The students at Indiana University really grabbed my attention with their knowledge of the markets and enthusiasm for ‘Mad Money,” said Jim Cramer. “I expect the students to bring the spirit and high energy typical of Assembly Hall.”
(more…)

ICN got emails from MSNBC viewers asking what was up with the Countdown 10pm repeat last night? As I got these emails after 10pm, I didn’t see this repeat myself. The obvious question they had was, “Is this permanent?”. The answer is, I don’t know. NBC/MSNBC has invested a lot of time, effort, and money expanding its long form programming department, which is bearing fruit with Richard Engel’s “War Zone Diary” and Robert Bazell’s “Wounds of War”. To now undercut that by airing a Countdown re-run two hours after the original doesn’t make a lot of sense.

That said, Countdown is MSNBC’s ratings’ leader. And the notion of airing your highest rated program in primetime twice to jack up your channel’s overall ratings would not be unprecedented (see: HLN; Grace, Nancy). This may be an experiment to see what Olbermann does to the ratings both at 10pm and for primetime overall.

Note too that “Wounds of War” has been pushed back to an 11pm airtime this week and not the usual 10pm airing which premieres on MSNBC usually get. That’s a statement of some significance. The question is how significant?

The Hartford Courant’s Lifestyle section notes that CNBC has hired Brian Shactman as a business reporter. (via FTVLive via TVNewser)

“The role of our business is to develop people,” said David Doebler, Channel 30 president and general manager. “So when they move on to bigger things, it’s the station’s success.”

Shactman follows former Channel 30 broadcaster Natalie Morales, now one of NBC’s “Today Show” team.

The Courant also notes that WVIT’s Keisha Grant and Brad Drazen are filling in on MSNBC’s First Look this week. Well…actually….it doesn’t say that. It says they’re filling in on NBC’s Early Today. But both programs use the same the same set with the same talent so if Grant and Drazen are filling in on Early Today, they’re also doing First Look. One MSNBC viewer spotted Drazen doing overnight updates as well.

MSNBC.com announced this morning the launch of its new “Multimedia on Mobile” product…

MSNBC.com today launches its “Multimedia on Mobile” news product. Developed in partnership with Action Engine Corporation and uVuMobile (OTCBB: SMVD.OB), “Multimedia on Mobile” offers consumers a rich news and entertainment experience on mobile devices. After downloading the product to Windows Mobile smartphones, consumers can find and save their favorite video, photo and text content – including NBC News video from “Today” and popular slideshows from MSNBC.com including “The Week in Pictures” – and easily share content directly through SMS and email. Free to consumers, “Multimedia on Mobile” is advertising supported, launching with Windows Mobile as the sole sponsor.

“We are excited to launch a compelling, easy-to-use news product that is free to users, at a time when ad-supported content on mobile phones is generating excitement in the industry,” said Dan Mucha, Director of Business Strategy and Development at MSNBC.com. “While the product will initially be available directly to consumers, we see great potential in partnering with carriers to distribute it to their subscribers and to MSNBC.com’s base of 29 million monthly unique users.”
(more…)

MSNBC had a strange weekend. It came in last in the Saturday primetimee Demo and fourth, behind HLN, in both the Total Day and Primetime Demos on Sunday. But it beat out CNN for 2nd in the Total Day Demo on Saturday.

Cable News Ratings for March 24, 2007

P2+ Total Day
FNC –644,000 viewers
CNN – 373,000 viewers
MSNBC – 320,000 viewers
CNBC – 266,000 viewers
HLN – 269,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 777,000 viewers
CNN – 482,000 viewers
MSNBC – 334,000 viewers
CNBC – 329,000 viewers
HLN – 307,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC – 173,000 viewers
CNN – 137,000 viewers
MSNBC –138,000 viewers
CNBC – 100,000 viewers
HLN – 107,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC – 181,000 viewers
CNN – 163,000 viewers
MSNBC – 91,000 viewers
CNBC – 99,000 viewers
HLN – 97,000 viewers

Cable News Ratings for March 25, 2007
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A CNN Spokesperson contacted ICN to take issue with MSNBC’s characterization that Robert Bazell’s “Wounds of War” was “unprecedented”…

I’m sure that Robert Bazell’s upcoming documentary on combat support hospitals (CSHs) in Iraq for MSNBC will be a good show, but it would not be accurate to call this program “unprecedented…”

CNN Presents: Combat Hospital (premiere: Saturday, November 11, 2006) followed five doctors, 14 nurses and 22 medics of the 10th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad during their inspiring life-saving work for more than two weeks in May 2006. Viewers can watch Combat Hospital again on Wednesday, March 28 at 11pm as a special programming event for Anderson Cooper 360°. In the meantime, we invite viewers to experience Combat Hospital via visiting the Combat Hospital page

In addition to the airing of Combat Hospital, the Spokesperson also pointed to “CNN Presents: Wounded Warriors” which also aired in 2006…
(more…)

CNN’s Richard Quest blogs about getting stuck in an Alitalia shower at JFK…(via FTVLive)

I was given the key to my dressing room, with the glass shower cubicle off to the side. I disrobed and showered. Switching the water off, I knew I was in trouble. The glass door had become stuck and I was trapped inside the shower. I pushed, pulled, tugged and heaved the vast door, but to no effect. It wouldn’t budge. And with last year’s shower accident still fresh in my mind (That occasion required 22 stitches!), I certainly wasn’t going to force the glass. There was no alarm button to push!

Wet, naked, shivering and with a plane to catch, what’s a man to do? Shout! For thirty minutes, I banged on the wall and shouted for help. I made as much noise as possible. Nothing. No one it seemed could hear me (even in the next door toilet, which was regularly being flushed).

FTVLive has some (FNC?) insiders taking a big dump on Phil Keating. This isn’t the first time that the ubiquitous “insiders” have had a run at Phil. They did it when he went over to Geraldo At Large (I wish I had a link available but I can’t find it).

Anderson Cooper interviews Larry King as part of CNN’s retrospective on King…

COOPER: It was June 3, 1985, your first broadcast [on CNN]. Were you nervous?

KING: I was. You know something? I didn’t know whether I was going to like it or not. I had done television. I wasn’t nervous about television. … Ted Turner had convinced me to come over, and he was like a friend of mine. I liked him a lot. So we were being made up in this little studio in Georgetown, where you had to be made up here, and then walk through an alley to go to another building to go on the air, and [former New York Gov.] Mario [Cuomo] was there. But five minutes in I said, “It’s going to make it.” There was an electricity. … It had an intimacy of radio with the kinetic adventure of television. I liked the set, I liked the whole thing about it, so I knew five minutes in.

COOPER: Your interviewing style is different than so many other people, and I was asking around to a couple of people who had been on your show about what it is that makes it work so well. And they said that you make guests comfortable, to the point where they feel they can say anything, … therefore [they] will say to you what they haven’t said before, and wouldn’t say anywhere else.

KING: I do know this, I know I’m intensely curious … and I make good eye contact, I listen to the answers, I ask short questions. If you ask a question over two sentences to me, you’re showing off. No question should have to take more than two sentences. If you turn on the camera on “Larry King Live,” the guest should be on, nine out of 10 times. If I’m on nine out of 10 times, the show is about me. So I never thought the show was about me.

My role is not to make a guest uncomfortable. I know some people like to make a guest uncomfortable. I don’t. I’m uncomfortable if I make them uncomfortable, and I, at least in my sense, you don’t learn a lot if you’re confrontational. So I learned a long time ago that the best way to be is really curious, and people like responding to someone who they know is. Like Sinatra said to me once, “I know you care about my answer, therefore I’m going to answer it because I know you care.” I do care. And that’s true to this day. Whether it was Anna Nicole Smith or Frank Sinatra or band leaders or presidents, I care about their answer, and then I hope through me it goes to the audience. I’m a conduit. I think that’s my role. I’m a conduit.

HotAir.com has the audio of Chris Wallace responding to Keith Olbermann bestowing upon him Worst Person in the World…

You know something? He’s a joke. First of all, he doesn’t even have his facts right because in fact if he had paid any attention - but it was probably moving too fast for him…he could handle sports highlights - he’d know that in fact Brit and I were disagreeing. I was saying in fact that I thought she had gotten a raw deal from the White House and Brit - he’s (Olbermann - Spud) right - Brit was saying that…he was questionig her story. I was defending her. But that would be a little too complicated for Keith Olbermann.

There was some more back and forth between Wallace and radio host Mike Gallagher (including Wallace recycling Lloyd Bentsen’s 1988 debate line of “I met Edward R. Murrow. My father worked with Edward R. Murrow. And Keith Olbermann you are no Edward R. Murrow”) which led to this…

That got me going. I’ve had a thing about this for a while because I watch him and I think “This is what the news business has become”. First of all, to be lectured about news by Keith Olbermann is like being called ugly by a frog. And the idea that this guy - doing the crap he does on MSNBC - would sit there and pretend to be some sort of Murrow or journalistic authority about anything…he couldn’t cover a two alarm fire.