A veteran takes Chris Matthews to task over the Coulter/Edwards bruhaha…

The day after Larry King interviewed Paris Hilton and CNN put up a big number (which didn’t seem to steal any FNC viewers away), things return to normal in the ratings race. FNC had a big night though and O’Reilly, H&C, and On The Record had big demos for a non-breaking news night.

Cable News Ratings for June 28, 2007

P2+ Total Day
FNC - 998,000 viewers
CNN - 511,000
MSNBC - 270,000 viewer
CNBC - 174,000 viewer
HLN - 327,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC - 2,266,000 viewers
CNN - 904,000 viewers
MSNBC - 478,000 viewers
CNBC -304,000 viewers
HLN - 666,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC - 312,000 viewers
CNN -172,000 viewers
MSNBC - 94,000 viewers
CNBC - 60,000 viewers
HLN - 145,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC - 610,000 viewers
CNN - 285,000 viewers
MSNBC - 179,000 viewers
CNBC -123,000 viewers
HLN - 272,000 viewers

Morning programs P2+ (25-54)
FOX & Friends - 915,000 viewers (370,000)
American Morning - 381,000 viewers (127,000)
MSNBC Live (7-9 AM) - 252,000 viewers (69,000)
Robin & Co. -261,000 viewers (132,000)
(more…)

Bad boys, bad boys, what ya gonna do?

FNC’s National Correspondent Catherine Herridge has been covering the London bombing bust up from Washington D.C. all day. Herridge’s significant role in FNC’s coverage today is due to the fact that she used to be based in London and, like any good reporter would do, has maintained her contacts and sources from when she lived there.

Rudolph Giuliani will be appearing on Hanntiy & Colmes tonight at 9pm ET in an exclusive interview where he’ll weigh in on the London bombing attempt bust up…

The Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rosenthal…

For all the hype — which included coverage of Hilton’s arrival and a countdown clock to the interview on CNN and Anderson Cooper’s grudging post-interview attempt to bring depth to King’s shallow exchange with analysis — Fox News Channel edged CNN over the three hours of prime time, averaging 1.858 million viewers to CNN’s 1.851 million in live viewing.

Imagine what the interview might have drawn had King defied expectations and asked even one question that wasn’t as empty and vacuous as the jailbird heiress across from him.

Ultimately, having exhausted the damage-control answers Hilton’s handlers had crafted for her, King was left to flail about for something — anything — to fill the hour. Hard to believe broadcast networks once were bidding for this.

The good news is King didn’t botch Hilton’s name. It was at least an even-money bet King might call her Zsa Zsa after he managed to bungle his interview the night before with surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr and the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison by referring to Ringo as George.

FNC broke in first at 3:30 with news of the terror plot. A few hours later, FNC’s London correspondent, Amy Kellogg, was down on the ground providing a first-hand account. She phoned in live from London at 5:59 am ET. By 6:28 am, Kellogg was reporting live from Piccadilly Circus.

This really is a very chilling wake up call for Gordon Brown in his first days as prime minister. It’s a reminder of what danger this country is in and the threat Great Britain faces from terrorism.

I think what will be frightening to many, as this news develops throughout the course of the morning, is that there was no warning on this one. No warning whatsoever.

FNC’s Laura Ingle was doing a live remote on the IPhone around 9:50 am ET when someone came up and yanked her microphone away. He then tried to run off with it. Johnny Dollar has the video.

The Press Gazette’s Martin Stabe writes about CNN.com’s website relaunch…

Nick Wrenn, CNN International’s managing editor for Europe, the Middle East and Africa said demand for online video clips had increased, particularly over the last three years.

“We’ve got some terrific video — it’s what CNN does,” said Wrenn.

“We want to show off as much of that as possible, and the changes we’re making will allow people to watch more video in a bigger screen,” he added.

CNN describes its new design as “story centric”, allowing the user to select whether to access each story using text, video or multimedia slideshow formats from a set of tabs on each story page. In the existing “flat” site, users have to open pop-up windows to see videos on text-centric story pages. Each story will also include posts obtained by the Sphere blog search engine.

”We’re encouraging the journalists to think very creatively about how people are — for want of a better word — consuming the story. Do they necessarily need to write 800 words when we’ve got some really compelling video which loads straight into the page and really tells that story? Or is there a really good blog that they can link to?”

The Washington Post’s Lisa DeMoraes writes about profound social issues on TV CNN’s Paris Hilton coverage…

Larry King tripled his audience by lobbing softball questions at a vacant-looking Paris Hilton in her first TV chat since her release from jail early Tuesday.

After which, the son of Gloria Vanderbilt more than doubled his usual “Anderson Cooper 360°” crowd with his neo-ironic performance of a journalist holding his nose and whining about having to analyze King’s interview with the privileged child of a gillionaire. In so doing, Cooper joined all those media columnists who for weeks had been sniffing about journalism embracing tabloid instincts in re the Paris story, only to stick their own greedy snouts into the trough holding the juiciest pop-culture gruel served up in ages.

And Barbara Walters sat bolt upright on her Disney Throne of Principles, mumbling “tawdry” while dialing Lionel Richie on his private line to say “Hi!”

The New York Post’s Michael Starr writes about where on the rankings Wednesday’s Larry King Live Paris Hilton interview winds up…

Hilton’s first post-jailhouse interview Wednesday night was easily CNN’s best night this year in terms of viewers - but ranked as only the 52nd-highest audience in “LKL” history.

And it didn’t even come close to the nearly 17 million people who watched the 1993 NAFTA debate on “LKL” between Ross Perot and Al Gore - still a basic cable record for total viewers.

(CNN competitors Fox News Channel and MSNBC didn’t exist back then.)

The King-Hilton interview also didn’t draw viewers away from FNC’s “Hannity & Colmes,” which averaged 1.6 million viewers Wednesday in the same timeslot (9-10 p.m.) - on par with its June average.

Ouch…

FNC will be airing a special on Princess Diana this Saturday at 9pm ET and Sunday at 1pm ET. Hosted by Martha MacCallum, the special is airing as we mark the 10th anniversary of her untimely death.

In life, Diana seemed shy and submissive one moment then shaking the core of the monarchy the next. And with death, the world seemed to stand still — her funeral watched by millions.

But what does the future hold for this kingdom?

Her sons are now young men. Charles is married to Camilla. Elizabeth is still queen.

Ten years after the death of Diana, join host Martha MacCallum as FOX News looks back at Princess Diana’s legacy and examines who will be king and when.

Starting this weekend, MSNBC will drop its 12-4 newscast on Saturdays in favor of taped programming. There was a rumor circulating that was just a test run but that is apparently not the case. I hear it’s long term.

The network had originally added the 12-4pm shift with Contessa Brewer back at the end of 2005. The network dropped its Sunday 12-4 newscast due to ratings last December. When Norah O’Donnell went on maternity leave and Alison Stewart left the network and The Most was cancelled, Brewer was moved to M-Fr daytime and a group of subs anchored the Saturday afternoon newscast. Now that too is going away. Again, apparently, ratings are the issue.

MSNBC would point out that it is ready to handle any breaking news that should happen and cut in if necessary as they did last Saturday when it reported the discovery of Jessie Davis’ body. But the fact remains that MSNBC’s competition will have regularly scheduled live newscasts throughout various periods in the afternoon and evening and MSNBC won’t.