Here’s the lineup (all times Eastern)…

9am - Tim Russert
10am - Chip Reid
11am - Lester Holt
12pm - Chris Jansing
1pm - Brian Williams
2pm - Andrea Mitchell
3pm - Joe Scarborough
4pm - Tucker Carlson
5pm - Chris Matthews
6PM - Joe Scarborough

MSNBC’s Newshole has apparently been lurking the blog…

Just minutes after interviewing his boss, Rupert Murdoch, Cavuto is apparently doing a segment on the history of FOX, and who pops up on screen but “He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken” himself.

Technically, Keith’s name was not actually spoken, it was spelled out and his image was shown, but Neil didn’t actually say “Olbermann”, so he’ll probably keep his job.

But clearly, they’re going to have update the “No KO” memo to include archival tape.

During this evening’s Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper was on with a copy of the key clause in Don Imus’ contract (for backstory read this) . Cooper reported that CNN Legal Analyst Jeffery Toobin is reading over the clause and there will be more on this tonight on Anderson Cooper 360…

UPDATE: This from CNN…

Following a day of widespread speculation about Don Imus’s contract and what it may mean for a potential lawsuit, tonight’s Anderson Cooper 360 will feature the first look at an actual copy of a portion of Imus’s contract with CBS Radio, specifically the clause that could be at the heart of Imus’s case. CNN’s Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin provides analysis and suggests it is a very unusual provision – and one that may force CBS to pay Imus the $40 million remaining on his contract.

CNS News’ Fred Lucas writes about the May 15th South Carolina Presidential Debate on FNC…

All 10 current candidates for the Republican Party’s 2008 presidential nomination will be able to take part in a debate to be aired on Fox News on May 15, the cable channel said Wednesday.

Cybercast News Service reported earlier that seven of the 10 might not make the cut for the debate given the organizers’ decision to exclude those not achieving at least one percent in opinion polls.

That drew sharp criticism and concern from some conservative commentators and campaigns. But the network and the organizers - the South Carolina Republican Party - affirmed that all 10 candidates would be in the debate.

A Fox News spokesman said the criterion applied to a poll in South Carolina - where the debate is to be held - and not national ones. The rules were set by the South Carolina GOP, which also requires that candidates must have filed papers in South Carolina and have paid the proper fees to be a candidate.

The network spokesman said the poll being used was a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Polls of 600 likely South Carolina voters surveyed April 1-3, in which each of the 10 candidates polled one percent or higher.

Here is the April program ranker for the cable news channels. FNC had 13 of the top 15 shows and 8 of the top 10 in the Demo…

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Paula Zahn Now cratered last night with only 372,000 viewers. Fox and Friends’ Demo beat American Morning’s Total Viewers. FnF had the highest Total Day Demo in cable news on Monday.

Cable News Ratings for May 1, 2007

P2+ Total Day
FNC – 868,000 viewers
CNN – 469,000 viewers
MSNBC – 250,000 viewers
CNBC – 223,000 viewers
HLN – 199,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 1,862,000 viewers
CNN – 776,000 viewers
MSNBC – 530,000 viewers
CNBC – 292,000 viewers
HLN – 316,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC – 244,000 viewers
CNN – 174,000 viewers
MSNBC –98,000 viewers
CNBC – 63,000 viewers
HLN – 89,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC – 426,000 viewers
CNN – 257,000 viewers
MSNBC – 209,000 viewers
CNBC – 102,000 viewers
HLN – 126,000 viewers

Morning programs P2+ (25-54)
FOX & Friends – 871,000 viewers (377,000)
American Morning – 360,000 viewers (149,000)
MSNBC Live- 221,000 viewers (108,000)
Robin & Co. – 217,000 viewers (108,000)
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Miller said this was submitted by a viewer…

TVNewser reports that Tucker Carlson will have the 6-9 am slot Thursday and Friday and radio yakker Larry Elder will be on Monday and Tuesday.

Indiana University media researchers did a study of Bill O’Reilly’s O’Reilly Factor program which will no doubt be controversial. But will O’Reilly comment on it? I’m sure Olbermann will…(via Romenesko)

Bill O’Reilly may proclaim at the beginning of his program that viewers are entering the “No Spin Zone,” but a new study by Indiana University media researchers found that the Fox News personality consistently paints certain people and groups as villains and others as victims to present the world, as he sees it, through political rhetoric.

The IU researchers found that O’Reilly called a person or a group a derogatory name once every 6.8 seconds, on average, or nearly nine times every minute during the editorials that open his program each night.

“It’s obvious he’s very big into calling people names, and he’s very big into glittering generalities,” said Mike Conway, assistant professor in the IU School of Journalism. “He’s not very subtle. He’s going to call people names, or he’s going to paint something in a positive way, often without any real evidence to support that viewpoint.”

Maria Elizabeth Grabe, associate professor of telecommunications, added, “If one digs further into O’Reilly’s rhetoric, it becomes clear that he sets up a pretty simplistic battle between good and evil. Our analysis points to very specific groups and people presented as good and evil.”

CNBC’s David Faber is on a roll. Yesterday he broke the News Corp. bid for Dow Jones. Today he breaks that the Dolan family is going to try to take Cablevision private. Faber reported this news at 9am during “Squawk on the Street” according to the CNBC transcript…

THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF CABLEVISION HAVE AGREED TO A DEAL UNDER WHICH THE CONSULTING FAMILY OF THE COMPANY, THE DOLANS WILL TAKE THE COMPANY PRIVATE IN A DEAL WORTH $36.26 A SHARE. I DIDN’T MISSPEAK. 26 CENTS. ALTHOUGH IT IS ALMOST EXACTLY A 21% PREMIUM TO THE DOLANS’ LAST OFFER FOR THE COMPANY WHICH WAS $30 A SHARE WHICH WAS REJECTED BY THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE REPRESENTING A CABLEVISION SHAREHOLDER. SPECIAL COMMITTEE OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS. THIS WAS AN INTERESTING AND LONG NEGOTIATION THAT’S GONE ON HERE. REMEMBER, THE DOLANS HAVE BEEN TRYING TO TAKE THEIR COMPANY PRIVATE FOR YEARS NOW. THEY HAD A PLAN A NUMBER OF YEARS, A COUPLE OF YEARS BACK ALREADY WHERE THEY WOULD SPLIT THE COMPANY INTO ITS COMPONENTS, RAINBOW, AND THEN TAKE THE CABLE COMPANY PRIVATE. THEN THEY CAME BACK WITH THE LATEST PRIVATIZATION PLAN EARLIER THIS YEAR AT 30.
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The NY Daily News’ Richard Huff speculates about Rosie O’Donnell coming to cable news…

However, giving O’Donnell a prime-time talk show on a news channel isn’t such a wacky idea, says Syracuse University popular culture Prof. Robert Thompson.

“If I were MSNBC, I would really be courting her to go up against O’Reilly,” Thompson said. “For so long, they’ve been looking for a different perspective.”

Marketwatch’s Jon Friedman loves the marketing behind the deal…

With the news Tuesday of a dramatic, unsolicited bid to acquire Dow Jones & Co. for $60 a share, Murdoch has created a tremendous amount of excitement. Since brand awareness means everything these days in the media, News Corp.’s coming business channel just got a supersonic promotional push. It’s slated to appear in the fall.

This is a glorious time to be writing about the media, you know. The events on Tuesday added plenty of intrigue; there is now a new war of the worlds in the media universe. It’s being contested by two superpowers, News Corp., which controls CNBC.

Whatever the outcome in his Dow Jones takeover bid, Murdoch has seized the upper hand in publicity. He has everyone talking about News Corp. and Fox, which can only enhance the prospects for his financial-news network.

The Washington Times’ Kara Rowland writes that Dow Jones’ controlling interests will vote to reject the offer…

The Bancroft family, which owns more than 60 percent of the voting stock in Dow Jones, will vote against the $60-per-share proposal from the Australian media mogul, Dow Jones said last night.

“Dow Jones said its board would factor this information into its evaluation,” its statement said.

It remains to be seen whether Dow Jones, which also owns a newswire, the financial weekly Barron’s and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, is dead set against a takeover or if the New York company is simply baiting News Corp. and other potential bidders to raise the stakes above what was an already premium bid.

“It’s not surprising,” said Larry Grimes, president of W.B. Grimes & Co., a Gaithersburg firm that handles media mergers. “You get an unsolicited offer, it’s kind of standard practice not to just accept the first offer that comes on the table but to see if there’s any room for negotiation.”

UPDATE: The New York Times’ Richard Siklos and Andrew Ross Sorkin have more…
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The New York Times’ Bill Carter writes about Mark Whitaker coming to NBC News…

In a telephone interview yesterday Mr. Whitaker acknowledged that he has no previous experience on the television side of journalism, other than supervising NBC’s use of Newsweek correspondents on many of its news programs.

“I had lots of dealings with NBC News in the course of placing our people on TV for them,” Mr. Whitaker said. “But the TV part of the job will be new for me.”

Mr. Capus said he had no concerns about Mr. Whitaker’s lack of television experience. “That is not an issue at all,” Mr. Capus said in a telephone interview. “His journalism skills are what count here.”

Mr. Whitaker said Mr. Capus approached him about moving into television in conversations that began about eight weeks ago. “I liked the idea of working with him,” Mr. Whitaker said.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Paul J. Gough and Georg Szalai write about yesterday’s bombshell bid for Dow Jones by News Corp.

While News Corp.’s uninvited cash offer to buy Dow Jones & Co. might satisfy Rupert Murdoch’s long-standing desire to own the Wall Street Journal, the acquisition would immeasurably boost the future success of the Fox Business Channel.

The channel will launch this year in about 30 million homes through carriage deals with big MSOs, with lots of work going on behind the scenes to hire on-air talent and prepare studios and a newsroom in News Corp.’s headquarters in New York. But while Fox News Channel CEO Roger Ailes could bring his considerable talents to bear on the production and distribution of the business channel, his main rival — CNBC — still held at least one significant card: the long-term deal with Dow Jones & Co. that gives CNBC access to the financial news giant’s considerable data stream and on-air talents of journalists.
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A picture is worth a thousand words. And I’m sure there’ll be plenty of interesting comments on this one. All I’ll say is that B-roll can sometimes be a humorous thing…