Big Head DC beats up TVNewser for this entry…

Eat The Press’ Sklar goes to town on Brian Williams squid-a-thon on Sesame Street. With video…

“NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams had a cameo on “Sesame Street” today, introducing the word of the day, which was “squid.” Just in case there was any confusion, he said the word “squid” 19 times. Squid squid squid squid squid!

See for yourself…

This is the test blog…the test with our new software…and I spent several hours this weekend struggling to master it. The people who taught me to use it two weeks ago made it look so easy…but when left alone, suddenly I am struggling….and yes, I have thought a million times that I like the “old way” better. I am setting daily goals for myself. Tomorrow’s is to figure out where and how to do spell check.

Once I have mastered this new software, I think it will be much better than the old way I used to do the blogs. The new software enables me to update the blog often during the day. This will be useful when I am on the road and I want to update you with news we are learning or just details about what is like on the road for a cable news show (the behind the scenes stuff.)

I am told that this new software enables you to respond to me easily ….but even if you do, I am not sure if at this point I can figure out where to find your responses…or how to answer them. I can only hope it is obvious. Yes….the learning curve (which right now feels like the learning cliff.) I am very interested in your comments.

I am going to be posting video and pics as usual on the blog. Today I posting some video to see if I can actually do it. So check out the video posted. It was taken almost 2 years ago - during our Katrina coverage.

USA Today has a preview of tomorrow night’s Factor interview with Rudolph Giuliani…

It would take anywhere from, I’d say, 18 months to three years to complete all this. And once we get control of it, we figure out our long-term (immigration) solution.”

That’s what Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has told Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly about his plan for getting the border with Mexico under control, according to excerpts that the cable news network has sent us.

Pretty soft Friday all around in general with the possible exception of Rick Sanchez’s Out In The Open special which turned in a decent number under the circumstances of the timeslot it aired in.

Cable News Daily Ratings for August 10, 2007

P2+ Total Day
FNC – 817,000 viewers
CNN – 568,000 viewers
MSNBC – 256,000 viewers
CNBC – 227,000 viewers
HLN – 248,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 1,341,000 viewers
CNN – 864,000 viewers
MSNBC – 337,000 viewers
CNBC – 150,000 viewers
HLN – 387,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC – 227,000 viewers
CNN –195,000 viewers
MSNBC – 106,000 viewers
CNBC – 92,000 viewers
HLN – 90,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC – 333,000 viewers
CNN – 256,000 viewers
MSNBC – 146,000 viewers
CNBC – 62,000 viewers
HLN – 120,000 viewers

Morning programs P2+ (25-54)
FOX & Friends –894,000 viewers (288,000)
American Morning – 429,000 viewers (162,000)
MSNBC Live (7-9am) – 153,000 viewers (54,000)
Robin & Co. – 254,000 viewers (107,000)
(more…)

TV News Review mourns the loss of overnight news updates on Headline News and notes the increasing number of non-news hours on a channel still called “Headline News”.

In all seriousness, there’s no need to get rid of Nancy, Brooke, A. J., and Glenn. They are a nice change of pace. While I don’t really like Larry King, I can even live with that. But, would it be too much to ask to give us headline news at least every other hour overnight?

Cal Ripken, Jr. appeared on America’s Newsroom with Bell Hemmer this morning. Ripken was just named Special Sports Envoy by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In this capacity, Ripken will serve as a ambassador of baseball and America when traveling overseas. He talked about what his job would entail…

My first assignment is China so I’m going over there at the end of October, early November. And basically it’s to get the young people; we’re dealing with the grassroots of baseball so we’ll plant some seeds. I’ll go to some schools; I’ll go do some clinics. We trained twelve Chinese baseball coaches over here in our academy. They’re going to go over there and I’m going to assist them in spreading the word of baseball.

John McCain and Rudolph Giuliani will be appearing on The O’Reilly Factor tonight and tomorrow night respectively. Bill was talking about it all through his Radio Factor show today…

MSNBC announced that it will premiere a new three part crime series called “Dead Men Talking” on August 21st at 11pm ET…

MSNBC joins a team of Louisville, Kentucky investigators and medical examiners as they use forensics to uncover the truth behind several crime and death scenes in “Dead Men Talking.” Following and expanding on the August 20th “Dateline” broadcast on this team of medical examiners, the three-part series takes viewers inside this rarely reported-on part of the criminal justice system. The MSNBC series will air on consecutive Tuesday evenings at 11 p.m. ET/PT beginning August 21st and is narrated by NBC News’ Victoria Corderi.

MSNBC cameras are granted extremely rare access for a real-life look at death scene investigations. In “Dead Men Talking,” MSNBC follows homicide detectives, coroners, and medical examiners as they pursue leads in an effort to solve criminal cases and unexplained deaths. The three, one-hour episodes offer a fly-on-the-wall look at the entire investigative process – from initial examination of the death scene, to autopsy, to a final determination of death, to, in one case so far, a conviction.
(more…)

TVWeek’s Michele Greppi writes about the double standard of male anchors not getting the same detailed examination of their wardrobes the way female anchors do. But Greppi writes her must-read/bound-to-be-controversial story with a twist…

The Insider’s rant today is a long-overdue list of some of the main reasons male anchors largely don’t get the same fashion questions and scrutiny. They’re not getting a pass, they’re getting a passing grade.

No. 1. There’s no guessing game about what/whom male anchors are going to look like when they show up on the air each day. Or whether they will be appropriately dressed. They will look like themselves. Like themselves going to work. They will look like they did the day before and the week before, like they will look tomorrow and next week.

When they depart from their norm—Dan Rather and his sudden affectation of a sweater vest, or Willard Scott and his on-again, off-again toupee being two examples that quickly come to mind—they will get gleefully, brutally and endlessly written about.

The women, on the other hand, increasingly seem to regard a closet as a costume warehouse and an invitation to role-play. Ummmm, what shall we be today? Someone headed for lunch at Le Cirque? Apres duty cocktails? A picnic? The front row at a cutting-edge fashion show? Or Laura Ingalls headed for her little house on the prairie?

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz writes about presidential candidates being very picky about what news shows they will go on…

The Democratic candidates, meanwhile, have refused to debate on Fox News, even for an event co-sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus. In the last nine days, however, they were happy to face off before liberal bloggers at a convention staged by the Web site Daily Kos; at an event co-sponsored by Logo, a gay-themed network operated by MTV; and at an MSNBC debate moderated by Keith Olbermann, one of President Bush’s fiercest critics.

“Republicans like Fox because it plays to their primary voting constituency, and Democrats like to boycott Fox because it brings cheap applause from their primary voting constituency,” says Mike Murphy, a GOP strategist and occasional panelist on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The Democrats make a mistake by boycotting Fox, because they’re going to need red states to win. And Fred Thompson makes a mistake by communicating only through the medium of Sean Hannity.”

Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist, says the rise of the Internet means that “there is much less of a premium on traditional outlets. In the past, Sunday shows were a great way to connect with the activist crowd and show that you’re a credible candidate. Now you can do it through a blog, a Web chat, putting up your own YouTube ad.”

NBC News President Steve Capus commented on Don Imus last Friday (via Journalisms)

“Whether he deserves another shot on somebody else’s airwaves, someone else will decide,” Capus said. “I’m not going to bring him back to MSNBC.” He was responding to a question about a comment by “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert that he would return to Imus’ show should it be reinstated.

Hopefully this puts and end, once and for all, to the silly speculation by some people, which has been going on for weeks, that Imus is coming back to MSNBC.

Page Six speculates about who is going to fill in for Nancy Grace on her HLN show when she’s out for maternity leave…

A BATTLE is brewing over Nancy Grace’s chair when the “Headline News” host goes on maternity leave. Grace, 48, is carrying twins. A source hinted that her normal fill-ins - Jane Velez Mitchell, Pat Lalama and Diane Dimond - are duking it out for the high-profile position. “They are screen-testing people to fill in for her, and competition is fierce,” said the insider. “But Jane is the front-runner.” A spokesperson for “Headline News” told Page Six, “No decisions have been made at this point.”

CNN’s release on the Republican YouTube debate…

CNN, YouTube, and the Republican Party of Florida today announced that they will hold their Republican primary debate on Wednesday, Nov. 28. Like the Democratic CNN/YouTube debate, this live two-hour forum will feature video questions submitted to YouTube that will be broadcast and answered by the candidates on CNN. CNN’s Anderson Cooper will moderate.

This debate will be held at the Mahaffey Theatre in St. Petersburg. Online users are currently able to submit their questions at www.youtube.com/debates.

Uh oh. I had thought the MSNBC/CNN/Sales Prime thing had run its course. But then I was tipped to this very sharp barb from Dan Abrams’ Beat the Press Segment last Wednesday. Abrams brought up the MSNBC Sales Prime win and CNN calling up Nielsen to complain about MSNBC’s ad. MSNBC.com has the video…

We didn’t beat them in the key demographic for three hours from 8pm to 11pm for the month of July. No. We beat them for seven hours from 7pm to 2am. So that includes all of primetime on the West Coast as well. We apologize to anyone who thought our victory was only a three hour win. And thanks to CNN. They say our victory is old news and yet they just keep making it new again.

Ouch.

The New York Times writes about a date being set for the Republican CNN/YouTube debate…

It looks as if the Republican presidential candidates, at least most of them, will be participating in a YouTube debate after all. The forum is now set for Nov. 28, the Wednesday after Thanksgiving.

The campaigns of Rudolph W. Giuliani and Senator John McCain have signed on, according to CNN, which will broadcast the event. CNN said it had not heard from Mitt Romney, who has been critical of the format, in which the public poses questions via video sent to YouTube. Mr. Romney’s spokesman could not be reached last night.