Cable World Magazine has put out its annual list of the 50 Most Influential Minorities in Cable…

Rita Tuzon, the Executive Vice President, Business and Legal Affairs, and General Counsel of Fox Cable Networks was the highest ranking person associated with cable news coming in 34th.

Pull out the football metaphors for Tuzon, quarterback of Fox’s legal strategies. They are especially appropriate this second half of 2007. She’s already helped complete a big first down on the linear channel playing field, with the launch of The Big Ten Network despite distribution resistance from some key MSOs. Now it’s on to the next marker: next month’s premiere of Fox Business Channel.

Doug Holloway, the President of Cable Investments for NBC Universal Cable ranked 40th.

Where would a NAMIC conference or Diversity Week be without Holloway’s presence on a panel or behind the scenes? That’s just some of the work this NBC Universal vet does to promote diversity in cable, when he’s not helping steer the course of channels NBC holds equity positions in, such as A&E and Shop NBC/ValueVision.

Cable World went on to add another 50…
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Following up on last night’s random thoughts on the Michelle Malkin-less Factor segment last night, I have nothing to report.

A whole lot of nothing in fact.

I contacted FNC and there was no response. I contacted Michelle Malkin and there was no response. The silence is deafening. And that in itself is noteworthy because you’d think if nothing is going on, this should have or would have been shot down or explained by now.

So, confronted with an information vacuum, let’s speculate on what could be going on. The one thing that pops immediately to mind is the Malkin/Rivera war that had been going on for a while. However, that issue was apparently put to rest on Friday when Geraldo Rivera issued an apology on Friday’s Factor for some caustic comments that he made regarding her in the Boston Globe.
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Today on Your World, Neil Cavuto had the first interview with former Federal Reserve Chairman after the Federal Reserve met to cut interest rates by half a percentage point. FNC’s Bret Baier also had an interview with President Bush, which will run at a later date. However, a clip from the Bush interview was played and Greenspan responded to that. Transcript highlights follow…

President Bush on FOX News Regarding Alan Greenspan’s Recent Assertions:

Bush: “I would say that the record, our fiscal record is admirable and good. After all, the deficit percentage to GDP is low, relative to the 30-year average. It’s about 1.5 percent of GDP, which is — which is good. And we submitted a budget that shows that we can get it balanced. I would also argue that cutting taxes made a significant difference, not only in dealing with the recession and the attack in our country, but it made a significant difference in dealing with the deficit, because a growing economy yielded more tax revenues, which allowed us to shrink the deficit. And so I would respectfully disagree with the characterizations of Chairman Greenspan.

Greenspan’s response to the above Bush statement:
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CNBC’s release on CNBC HD…

Viewers turn to CNBC, First in Business Worldwide, for fast, accurate, actionable and unbiased business news. Now with CNBC HD+, viewers will get more of it.

CNBC will launch CNBC HD+, a high-definition simulcast service of CNBC, in October. At launch, CNBC HD+ will be available to DIRECTV customers.

CNBC HD+ is the essential service for the investor, providing all the elements of CNBC with greater levels of information equipping the viewer with more tools necessary to make decisions.

CNBC HD+ takes full advantage of the wider screen format and finer resolution offered by high definition to deliver an unprecedented mix of value added information, packaged with the current program service. Long the leader in the delivery of breakthrough graphics and real-time data, CNBC HD+ ushers in a new generation of content. Among the features available: lists of market performers by category, index charts and statistics, and detailed information regarding companies - including a revolutionary new charting tool and deep drill-downs on company fundamentals, price performance, earnings, competitors - and more. The HD+ content will also be specially programmed and linked to on-air discussions.
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Eat The Press’ Rachel Sklar writes about last week’s Iraq War coverage. My, how things can change in a week…

New York Magazine’s Lloyd Grove writes about Rupert Murdoch’s comments at the Communicopia Conference…

Murdoch said that even though CNBC has a cross-branding agreement with the Journal for another four years, “it only applies to business journalism,” and the Fox Business Channel, scheduled to launch October 15, will make ample use of the WSJ brand “in politics, international affairs, and lifestyle” journalism. “The Fox Business Channel will be as different from CNBC as the Fox News Channel is from CNN,” Murdoch predicted. “CNBC is a business channel for Wall Street. We will be a business channel for Main Street.” CNBC was launched by News Corp. exec Roger Ailes, who’s overseeing the start of the new Fox channel, “and it’s the same as when Roger Ailes left it and he came to me” a decade ago.

ICN has learned that FOX Business Network is expected to announce this afternoon that they have named Peter Barnes, Jenna Lee, Nicole Petallides and Cody Willard as Anchors.

Update: Official release…

FOX Business Network (FBN) has named Peter Barnes, Jenna Lee, Nicole Petallides and Cody Willard as anchors, announced Kevin Magee, Executive Vice President, FOX News.

In making the announcement, Magee said, “We are pleased to welcome a line-up of new dynamic business anchors to FBN.” Barnes, Lee, Petallides and Willard will serve alongside David Asman, Dagen McDowell, Cheryl Casone, Stuart Varney and Rebecca Gomez, who were named as anchors last week.
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Here is the primetime basic cable ranker for last week. FNC came in fifth in Primetime and 9th in Total Day.

This is the classic example of the media not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Yesterday morning, Bush comes out to the podium with his nominee for Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, who nobody knows anything about, retired Federal judge, and about 12 seconds after they’re done, it’s O.J., O.J., O.J. So, it does seem that there’s a little bit of a lack of balance. Again, a lot of public interest in this story, a lot of ratings in this story. But Attorney General, Hillary health care plan, Iraq, I haven’t seen mentioned in about two days. They shouldn’t get completely and totally blown off the radar screen while we all marinate ourselves in the juice.

Howard Kurtz on Morning Joe talking about you know what. (via TVNewser)

There’s a rumor running around that MSNBC killed Super Tuesday coverage today so that they could do OJ instead. I know it was scheduled. I saw the ads Friday. I was prepared to give MSNBC major props for sticking with the political coverage in the face of the OJ flood. Alas, so much for branding. Chuck Todd must be wondering what he got himself into…

Update: I am in error. MSNBC rescheduled Super Tuesday to preview the debate Tim Russert is hosting next Wednesday (in my defense I will say nobody told me it was rescheduled and this was after it was mentioned on MSNBC’s air Friday). Apologies to MSNBC. Also it should be pointed out that MSNBC did cover Hillary Clinton’s Health Care proposal yesterday with Alison Kartevold on the scene throuhgout the day so Kurtz doesn’t have his facts straight either.

Business Week’s Burt Helm writes about the new ratings system…

But the new ratings weren’t so nice for many cable networks. While broadcast networks typically see 6% to 7% of the audience leave during commercials, channels like MTV with younger, more impatient viewers can see a channel-surfing dropoff of as much as 16%. News networks also suffered. Meanwhile, far fewer viewers TiVo cable shows because many of the offerings are reruns, news, and old movies. That’s why the extra three days of eyeballs is cold comfort. In May, a test of the new Nielsen ratings left MTV 15% below where it would have been. All told, Viacom’s channels, which include MTV and VH1, would have seen a 9% drop in that month. (The company has negotiated with most advertisers to wait until the first quarter of 2008 to begin using commercial ratings.) One analyst, Sanford C. Bernstein’s Michael Nathanson, lowered his 2008 Viacom earnings projection by 5 cents a share based on the rating change.

Cable channels are hiking ad rates to offset revenue declines, but that’s not sustainable. The key will be getting more people to watch the ads. That’s why they are creating more short breaks and putting ads deeper in a show when viewers are more engaged. They’re also testing more novel techniques. For instance, spots that run with AMC’s hit show Mad Men include a short setup about the advertiser’s history. On Everybody Loves Raymond reruns, TBS reserves the first commercial break for funny ads only. The company says viewership holds steady.

Cable News Ratings September 15, 2007

P2+ Total Day

FNC – 591,000 viewers
CNN – 443,000 viewers
MSNBC – 303,000 viewers
CNBC – 190,000 viewers
HLN – 230,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 751,000 viewers
CNN – 510,000 viewers
MSNBC – 327,000 viewers
CNBC – 234,000 viewers
HLN – 213,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC – 165,000 viewers
CNN – 137,000 viewers
MSNBC –132,000 viewers
CNBC – 71,000 viewers
HLN –100,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC – 147,000 viewers
CNN – 194,000 viewers
MSNBC – 155,000 viewers
CNBC – 95,000 viewers
HLN – 83,000 viewers

Cable News Ratings for September 16, 2007
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I wonder how much circulation this FishbowlDC reader submitted Photoshop job is getting around MSNBC and NBC today…

Update: Whoops. Bad link. Fixed.