Paris-mania definitely affected Friday’s numbers…

Cable News Ratings for June 8, 2007

P2+ Total Day
FNC – 1,203,000 viewers
CNN – 564,000 viewers
MSNBC – 403,000 viewers
CNBC – 183,000 viewers
HLN – 342,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 1,770,000 viewers
CNN – 931,000 viewers
MSNBC – 510,000 viewers
CNBC –181,000 viewers
HLN – 643,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC – 372,000 viewers
CNN – 219,000 viewers
MSNBC – 158,000 viewers
CNBC – 62,000 viewers
HLN – 160,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC – 435,000 viewers
CNN – 338,000 viewers
MSNBC – 194,000 viewers
CNBC – 56,000 viewers
HLN – 277,000 viewers

Morning programs P2+ (25-54)
FOX & Friends – 840,000 viewers (327,000)
American Morning –409,000 viewers (176,000)
MSNBC Live (7-9 AM) – 235,000 viewers (97,000)
Robin & Co. –178,000 viewers (94,000)
(more…)

Friday’s Paris Hilton wall to wall coverage generated big numbers for Studio B with Shepard Smith. ICN already highlighted Smith’s work during that hour courtesy of Johnny Dollar and it seems that translated well for viewer retention. The race for 2nd was unusually close between CNN and MSNBC. MSNBC beat CNN in Total Viewers and CNN narrowly edged out MSNBC in the Demo for the hour.

FNC/Studio B - 2,353,000 viewers (624,000 in 25-54)
CNN - 608,000 viewers (240,000 in 25-54)
MSNBC - 709,000 viewers (231,000 in 25-54)

Quotes from tonight’s Larry Birkhead interview with Greta Van Susteren…

On Life With the Baby:
“The big picture at the end of the day is when I can go into the nursery and pick up my child and that’s what’s important…. It’s great. It’s a lot of energy, a lot of time, a lot of patience and it’s very — it’s rewarding. It’s probably one of my bigger accomplishments.”

On Seeing the Baby for the First Time:
“Howard asked if I wanted to come over and see the baby and of course the answer was yes and she was
just kind of laying in the crib and she just immediately just — she just kind of — she grabbed on to me, she pinched my cheeks, she put her hands on my face and I thought that — one of my biggest fears, I think, was that she was going to reject me. You know, you take her back and you know — but she didn’t and it was kind of magical and that was like the delivery room for me because I never got to see her …”
(more…)

Brian Shachtman joins CNBC as a general assignment reporter, the network announced today…

CNBC, America’s Business Channel, today announced that Brian Shactman is joining the network as a general assignment reporter.

“CNBC welcomes Brian to the business news team,” said Jonathan Wald, Senior Vice President, Business News, CNBC. “His experience anchoring the morning news at WVIT-TV combined with his work at ESPN make him a solid addition to CNBC.”

Prior to joining CNBC, Shactman anchored “NBC 30 News Today” (5am-7am ET) at WVIT-TV NBC 30 in Hartford, CT. Before assuming full-time anchor duties, he was a reporter and sports anchor at the station.

From 1998-2002, Shactman held various positions at ESPN including analyst work on ESPNews, SportsCenter and ESPN Radio. He also wrote, edited and produced content for ESPN.com. For the past five years, Shactman has remained active at ESPN, hosting a variety of national radio programs at ESPNRadio.

After Greta gets him tonight in an interview taped late last week, Larry King gets Larry Birkhead for the “first live prime-time interview since he won the custody battle” tomorrow night. The ironic thing is, by my estimation, of the three networks MSNBC was the one that covered the Anna Nicole story the most and yet they aren’t airing a Larry Birkhead interview. Yet.

UPDATE: I thought this update had made it, but I see it didn’t (grumble, grumble). According to this study, MSNBC wasn’t the network that covered Anna Nicole the most, FNC was.

Following up on this, CNBC must be really high on “American Greed”. Today the network issued another release on the six part series…

In an unprecedented original primetime series, CNBC’s “American Greed: Scams, Scoundrels and Scandals” examines the dark side of the American Dream. Everyone wants to be rich, but some people will stop at nothing. And, beginning on Thursday, June 21st at 10 PM ET on CNBC, you won’t believe how far they’ll go. “American Greed,” CNBC’s six-part primetime series, focuses on how greed changes people’s lives; from Ponzi schemes to art heists to a stunning case of stolen identity.

“‘American Greed’ is a departure from the network’s traditional business coverage,” says Jonathan Wald, Senior Vice President of Business News, “revealing a new angle to business news that aligns with CNBC’s goal to provide unparalleled, dynamic programming to the influential business leaders who watch CNBC.”

In the first episode airing Thursday, June 21, “American Greed” exposes the story of Barry Hunt, a skilled fisherman and expert Ponzi scam artist angling for big money and reeling them in…hook, line and sucker. From a fishing town in coastal New Hampshire to Reno, Nevada, Hunt lured local investors into a promising start-up. Before long, more than 50 people had invested to the tune of about $2 million. In reality, Hunt was operating a classic Ponzi scheme, shifting money from one investor to the next. One small town cop launches a global manhunt for a con man and ultimately brings him to justice. Most of Hunt’s victims were unaware of his arrest and conviction until CNBC’s “American Greed” came calling.
(more…)

The AP’s David Bauder writes about a PEJ study on Iraq War coverage. The study isn’t that new. It’s been out for weeks and received a lot of play on the internet and in the media in general. What is new here are the comments from Jonathan Klein and Dan Abrams on FNC’s coverage of Iraq…

UPDATE: Alternate article version here which is a fuller version of the article…

The project‘s findings surprised MSNBC chief executive Dan Abrams, who has been pushing his network to concentrate on politics and inside-the-Beltway issues lately.

“I‘m not going to get on a high horse and judge our competition based on the numbers,” he said. “We are looking for the right balance.”

Jonathan Klein apparently has no such qualms however…

“It illustrates the danger of cheerleading for one particular point or another because they were obviously cheerleaders for the war,” said Jon Klein, CNN U.S. president. “When the war went badly they had to dial back coverage because it didn’t fit their preconceived story lines.”

Greta Van Susteren interviews Larry Birkhead tonight on FNC’s On the Record at 10pm ET. Birkhead appeared with his daughter Dannielynn throughout the interview. He discussed the controversy surrounding the paternity of Dannielynn, his new life with his child, and the ongoing feud with his ex-lawyer Debra Opri. There’s a video clip preview availabe here.

AdAge’s Andrew Hampp writes about CNN.com being a better model for 24 hour breaking news than the parent cable network which spawned it…

Fox News built its audience by realizing it didn’t need to rely solely on news, larding its shows with plenty of opinion and hiring hosts unshy about expressing their views, making for a more entertaining experience. In the new news landscape, an influential blogger’s opinion can carry as much weight as a New York Times editorial, and Fox News has become adept at adopting a strong point of view, much like talk radio has done for years. That’s led viewers to treat the cable channel more like radio, a companion throughout the day. CNN, with its roots firmly entrenched in a more traditional approach to journalism, built its reputation on its ability to deliver breaking news 24 hours a day and essentially trained its audience to tune in for headlines. The web has taken away that core mission, and CNN has since struggled to find a new approach that doesn’t feel like just the liberal version of Fox News.

“You’re right, Fox has higher ratings than CNN U.S., but … CNN U.S. has more individuals watching, every quarter, every year,” said Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide. “We don’t have as high ratings because the CNN viewer doesn’t spend as much time watching.”

Brad Adgate, senior VP-director of research at Horizon Media, said CNN’s ratings decline is “not entirely due to Fox News, just the ubiquity of news to consumers now on a variety of different platforms.”

And where the viewers go, so do the ad dollars. Since 2003, CNN’s cable revenue has dropped 11%, from $424.2 million to $378.5 million in 2006, while digital revenue has nearly doubled, from $34.8 million to $71.4 million, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

In New York Magazine, Jim Cramer writes about the News Corp. bid for Dow Jones…

No matter. While agitating, I had attracted Murdoch’s attention as someone who seemed to understand the worth of Dow Jones as a great brand. He summoned me, through the late Eric Breindel, the New York Post’s editorial-page editor and an old college pal, while I was vacationing with my family at Hershey Park. It was a Sunday morning. Breindel said Murdoch wanted to meet as soon as possible. I explained that I was with my family, but Breindel insisted I come as soon as I could. Murdoch was obviously serious.

When we met, the man asked me what I thought Dow Jones was worth. At the time, the stock was trading in the mid-30s. I said the franchise could be worth $73 to $74 a share. Before I could even present my backup, I remember him saying, “I’ll pay that.” No blinking—$40 more than the stock was trading at. He even talked about the possibility of getting a line of credit from Chase to do the deed.

I told him that the family had no desire to sell, and that the family’s law firm might not even show a bid from him to the Bancrofts. He sneered and informed me that one day they would. On May 1, Murdoch made a surprise bid for Dow Jones of $60 per share, or about $5 billion. Eleven years after our meeting, the hunter had come back for his prey. And from the looks of things, he might get it, and for much less than he was willing to pay back then.

The New York Times’ Steve Lohr writes about NBC and Microsoft looking at, and then rejecting, bidding for Dow Jones…

Representatives from NBC and Microsoft talked to advisers to the Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones. But after the preliminary discussions and a more detailed analysis by NBC and Microsoft executives, they decided against going further. “Mainly, the economics just didn’t make sense,” said the person, who had not been authorized to speak for companies.

NBC initiated the overture after the Bancroft family announced on May 31 that it would meet with Mr. Murdoch and opened the door to counteroffers to the bid from Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation.

NBC decided to explore a bid after being contacted by investment bankers on behalf the Bancroft family. Both the Bancrofts and Dow Jones have hired investment bankers that have been pursuing potential bidders since the News Corporation offer to buy Dow Jones for $60 a share was disclosed in early May. NBC then contacted Microsoft about the possibility of a joint move.

Adweek’s Wendy Melillo writes about a JWT survey that says Bill O’Reillly was more trusted than ABC News for political stories…

This may alarm people who prefer their news served without an opinion: More people agree that Bill O’Reilly is a better source of political information than ABC News, according to a JWT survey conducted on behalf of Adweek.

And while election 2008 has started earlier than ever with news outlets closely following every twist and turn, it seems to be too early for people to tune in, at least on the Web.

Those are just two of the findings from the random online survey of 1,118 Americans 18 years and older conducted during the week ending June 3, which examined which media people turn to for their political news. Ann Mack, director of trendspotting at JWT, provided the analysis of the survey results.

I missed this Saturday, but the New York Post’s Janet Whitman has some more information on the CNBC Portfolio Challenge investigation…

CNBC said it has tapped two information security consultants to investigate the computer programming scams.

At least one player also may have illegally manipulated the market to boost the price of stocks bet on in the individual’s portfolio. An independent securities expert is looking into the matter, CNBC said.

The 10-week contest ended May 25. CNBC was supposed to declare a winner - the player with the most valuable portfolio - by July 8.

“It is more important to ensure the individual awarded the Grand Prize is in compliance with the rules,” CNBC said in a statement yesterday.

Irate players have been firing off complaints about the contest on Internet chat rooms for weeks, with many angry that CNBC didn’t deal with the suspicious trading sooner.

“If someone trades once and makes 20 percent in a day that’s definitely possible,” said Jeff Graber, a Top 20 player who complained to CNBC about the cheating more than a week before the network took action, told The Post. “But when they do it day after day it becomes