At 11pm all three cable news channels are still live covering the developing story. Anderson Cooper continues to anchor coverage for CNN. Keith Olbermann is still live on MSNBC. Trace Gallagher has taken over coverage on FNC.

UPDATE: At Midnight, Dan Abrams took over for Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, Jamie Colby and David Asman took over for Trace Gallagher on FNC, and Anderson Cooper stayed on the air at CNN…

As noted earlier, CNN’s early coverage of the collapse was highlighted by CNN’s I-Report. During The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Blitzer interviewed Mark Lacroix who submitted the photos that went out on CNN’s air. Video of the interview is here. Ironically, tomorrow is the one year anniversary of CNN’s I-Report…

The bridge collapse news broke in the 7pm hour during The FOX Report. Shep broke the news and continued anchoring through the following hour, pre-empting The O’Reilly Factor. Hannity & Colmes and On the Record with Greta will be live and in their usual time slots this evening. Smith will be back on air at 11pm tonight and will continue until midnight. FNC will continue with its live coverage of the devestation until 2am/et. FOX & Friends will start at 5am/et Thursday morning. F&F Co-host Gretchen Carlson is actually a MN native and she called into H&C tonight. Tomorrow, Bill Hemmer, Shepard Smith and Greta Van Susteren will all anchor from the area of the collapse, while about seven FNC correspondents will be live on the scene to cover the tragedy as well.

UPDATE: Trace Gallagher will be on at 11 and not Shepard Smith. Smith is preparing to leave for Minnesota to report from the scene tomorrow…

FNC was owning the early coverage of the breaking story of a bridge collapse in Minneapolis. FNC is relying heavily on an exclusive live chopper shot from KMSP and WCCO that shows the carnage in detail with Shepard Smith and Trace Gallagher report on the details. CNN is stuck with a distant shot from KARE that really can’t show the worst damage. MSNBC broke in late from Hardball with Milissa Rehberger and is also relying on KARE’s distant shot…

UPDATE: CNN and MSNBC started broadcasting KARE’s newscast of the coverage around 7:40 ET…

UPDATE @ 7:46: CNN is now showing I-Report still shots of the damage and Wolf Blitzer is interviewing Mark LaCroix who is on the scene and supplied the pictures I believe.

UPDATE @ 7:54: FNC is broadcasting audio from a reporter on the scene…

UPDATE @ 8:07: KARE now has a chopper in the air and MSNBC and CNN are broadcasting that footage. Odd but MSNBC is on a delay of some sort as their footage is about five seconds later than CNN’s feed of the same shot.

UPDATE @ 8:11: FNC started showing its first uReport images of the scene. Shepard Smith brought in Gretchen Carlson to talk about the story as Carlson was from the area.

UPDATE @ 8:20: FNC is now airing a live video feed from a KMSP reporter who is on the scene at the bridge…

UPDATE @ 9:55: Hannity & Colmes continued FNC’s coverage. Wolf Blitzer was on for Larry King. Dan Abrams was on for MSNBC. HLN extended Nancy Grace for another hour.
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It appears that CNN’s Dick Cheney interview exclusive on Larry King Live was a non-event as far as the ratings are concerned. There doesn’t appear to be any discernable change from King’s usual ratings “trading range”.

Cable News Daily Ratings for July 31, 2007

P2+ Total Day
FNC – 833,000 viewers
CNN – 440,000 viewers
MSNBC – 257,000 viewers
CNBC – 199,000 viewers
HLN – 257,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 1,615,000 viewers
CNN – 793,000 viewers
MSNBC – 482,000 viewers
CNBC – 133,000 viewers
HLN – 472,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC – 219,000 viewers
CNN –132,000 viewers
MSNBC – 102,000 viewers
CNBC – 73,000 viewers
HLN – 117,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC – 358,000 viewers
CNN – 212,000 viewers
MSNBC – 141,000 viewers
CNBC – 78,000 viewers
HLN – 183,000 viewers

Morning programs P2+ (25-54)
FOX & Friends – 839,000 viewers (288,000)
American Morning – 315,000 viewers (95,000)
MSNBC Live (7-9am) – 190,000 viewers (75,000)
Robin & Co. – 197,000 viewers (116,000)
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Mutlichannel News’ Steve Donohue writes about the July numbers…

Fox News Channel dominated the all-news ratings race in July, while MSNBC posted the best growth in the category and narrowed the gap on CNN.

Fox News averaged a 1.2 primetime rating in July, down 14% from the same month last year. CNN averaged a 0.6, down 25% from 0.8, and MSNBC posted a 0.5 rating, up 67% from July 2006.

CNN’s release on Jessica Yellin joining the network’s D.C. Bureau…

Jessica Yellin, a Washington-based correspondent for ABC News, has joined CNN’s Washington, D.C. bureau, it was announced today by Jon Klein, president of CNN/U.S. Yellin, who has covered the White House for ABC since November 2004, will become a Capitol Hill correspondent for CNN.

“We’re fortunate to have someone as plugged-in and passionate as Jessica about political reporting,” Klein said. “She’s skilled at finding and telling those stories emanating from Washington that also matter to people across the nation.”

“It is an honor to be able to contribute to CNN’s first-rate political coverage and an opportunity I couldn’t miss,” Yellin said. “I am thrilled to be joining the network as it prepares coverage of what promises to be one of the most intense election seasons in recent history.”
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USA Today’s David Lieberman writes about how business news has become big business…

“Business is growing again,” says Christopher Poleway, former president of The Time Inc. Business and Financial Network, which includes Fortune, Money and CNNMoney.com. “Earnings are strong. Innovation is strong. There are a lot of start-ups. There is a lot of venture capital again supporting new ideas. So it’s become exciting again.”

Leaders in the field say that many people likely will stay focused on business news even when the market cools. That’s because the median age of the population is rising, swelling the ranks of people who must save and invest for major expenses, including their kids’ education and retirement.

“The big bang (for business news), if there was one, was the realization by people like me that the Social Security system is not going to be around for us when we get ready to retire,” Roush says. “We have to take care of our retirement by putting together an IRA or 401(k) plan.”

CNBC Business News Senior Vice President Jonathan Wald has a similar view

“There’s a nation of investors hungry for this information,” he says. “Today’s business news is different than it was 10 years ago. It has changed as the markets have, as real estate has, as equities have and as options trading has. Equities trading is up something like 8% this year. Options trading is up 30%. That tells you people are trying to make money in different ways.”

Here are the July program rankers. FNC had 13 of the top 15 programs in cable news for the month, and 11 out of the top 12 in the coveted 25-54 Demo.
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Daryn Kagan’s website has won the Interactive Media Council’s 2007 award Interactive Media Award for Outstanding Achievement under the category ‘Personal’…

Daryn Kagan’s inspirational news website, DarynKagan.com, was awarded the 2007 Interactive Media Award for Outstanding Achievement under the category ‘Personal’, announced the Interactive Media Council, Inc. (IMC) last week. This award recognizes “the highest standards of excellence in website design and development, and honors individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievement.”

“We, at DarynKagan.com, are so honored to receive this prestigious award,” said Daryn Kagan, creator and host of DarynKagan.com. “It reinforces what visitors are telling us everyday — there is a hunger for a place where people can experience inspirational stories 24 hours a day, and share their stories, as well. It’s an honor to create that space and receive these accolades.”
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Looks like the Kos folks aren’t the only ones on O’Reilly’s hit list. The Freepers are in his sights too. And they don’t seem too happy about it.

There were actually two thoughts that popped into my head on Monday when the NYT/NBC deal was announced. One was about The Post which I’ve already discussed. The other was, “Will O’Reilly see this deal as proof of his overhyped and overplayed talking point that NBC has gone left?”

The answer to that came last night on O’Reilly’s talking points memo…

As we’ve been telling you for months, NBC News taking a dramatic turn to the left, believing weakness in the Bush administration would translate into more liberal viewers for their news programs.

Well, it hasn’t turned out that way.

Yesterday, NBC News and the liberal New York Times announced a partnership in covering the 2008 presidential election. Now there’s nothing wrong with that, sharing resources can get you publicity, save money. But obviously, NBC News and The Times are a good fit. Both organizations are run by liberals and their marching orders are quite clear, promote the left.

TVNewser writes about the question of the Washington Post’s situation in the wake of the NYT/NBC deal…a question I asked yesterday…

The Campaign 2008 partnership announced Monday by NBC News and The New York Times, is raising a lot of questions about media collaborations. What does it mean for the NBC News/MSNBC relationship with The Washington Post? (Although, ABC’s polling deal with The Post seems to have weathered the NBC partnership)

There’s a big diffference between having a poll collaboration as in the ABC case and having your talent featured on the network pominently and regularly as in the MSNBC/NBC case. If we look at what happened yesterday, with a New York Times reporter getting prominent feature throughout the day on MSNBC with a nice little “Campaign 2008″ lower third with her hame on it, one wonders what that means for The Post’s reporters who used to be regularly featured on the network.

How does this really play out? The New York Times gets preferential treatment by NBC for Campaign 2008 stories. But what happens the next time Post reporter Dana Priest gets a big scoop? Will she still get on the air on MSNBC as she has in the past? What happens with MSNBC fixture Dana Milbank? And so on.

None of this is clear. We will have to watch how this shakes out over the coming weeks to get an idea of what the new lay of the land is at MSNBC vis a vis The Post.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Steve Brennan writes about an attempt to get BBC World News on U.S. cable and satellite. Good luck. As I’ve said before, if CNN International can’t get deep market penetration, and that’s a Turner network, there’s no chance BBC World will do better…

Who would have thought that the cynical adage “no news is good news” could in fact be the best calling card Britain’s BBC might have when knocking on the door of the potentially gigantic U.S. market for its storied news operations?

But the fact is that the perceived dearth of international news and analysis on U.S. mainstream broadcasters is one of the big marketing ploys the BBC is using to create a bigger footprint in the U.S. for its global TV news. BBC World News’ slogan is “See the world you’ve been missing.”

The campaign approach follows a recent research study carried out by U.S. pollster Frank Luntz for BBC World News, which outlines viewers’ dissatisfaction with stateside news outlets’ provision of international news and sees them as “sensationalist,” “superficial” and offering only a “narrow news agenda,” according to executives at “the Beeb.”

A spokeswoman says that the availability of BBC World News as a 24-hour service is being hyped on the popular BBC America as well as on the Internet. The general idea is to get Americans to flood their local cable and satellite providers with demands for serious international coverage in the form of BBC World News.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Tim Cuprisin writes about the July ratings…

There’s an interesting second-place battle among the three cable all-news channels.

July numbers out this week from Nielsen Media Research show CNN and MSNBC are neck and neck, with both of them well behind longtime first-place finisher Fox News Channel.

Variety’s Steven Zeitchek writes about strategy in a News Corp. owned Dow Jones world…

CNBC’s public position is that it’s happy with its Dow relationship deal and will see it through to its completion.

The business news cabler said Tuesday in a statement that “CNBC and Dow Jones have an exclusive news-content-sharing contract, which has been in effect since 1997 and which will expire in 2012. CNBC expects the contract to be honored no matter who owns Dow Jones.”

But a situation where the cable net remains in business with the company that is launching its chief competitor is seen as highly untenable.

And it’s unlikely Murdoch would spend $5 billion on a news operation only to have it feed the cable net he is trying to take on.

More likely, observers say, Murdoch will try to buy out the deal.

There have already been some sparks between News Corp. and CNBC; in its statement, CNBC noted that the net “remains a global leader in business news, providing information that is fast, accurate, actionable and unbiased,” a possible knock on Fox News Channel.

The New York Times’ Richard Siklos writes about strategy in a world where News Corp. owns Dow Jones…

The paper has already tried this with softer service features and its Saturday edition. Reorienting the newspaper further for consumers would fit with two other aspirations Mr. Murdoch has. One is to build his nascent Fox Business Network, which begins in 30 million United States homes this October, into a viable contender with Bloomberg Television and CNBC, which have much larger subscriber bases both at home and abroad.

The Journal already has a deal to provide news content exclusively to CNBC, an agreement that the News Corporation discovered is ironclad until 2012. Any move to tie The Journal to the new Fox business channel will require disentanglement. In the meantime, the business channel, which is scheduled to begin operation on Oct. 15 under the direction of the Fox News chief executive and chairman, Roger Ailes, is being readied on the presumption that it is a stand-alone business.

Variety’s John Dempsey writes about the July ratings…

MSNBC was the big July story in 24-hour news, with total viewers in primetime shooting up 54%, a bigger jump than that of any other net in the top 50 thanks to shows hosted by Keith Olbermann and Dan Abrams plus documentaries in the 10 o’clock hour. But MSNBC is still behind Fox News, which finished in sixth place overall in primetime (although down by 14%) and behind CNN (in 25th place, down by 17%).

It seems that some of the Kos folks are fighting back against Bill O’Reilly after O’Reilly led the way in getting Jet Blue to drop its name from the YearlyKos convention. Mike Stark, the guy who ambushed George Allen with the “Macaca” incident, has started paying visits to O’Reilly’s neighborhood. And it seems from some of the comments that not everyone is supportive of Stark’s efforts in this matter…