TVNewser notes that Fox and Friends beat some telecasts of CBS’ The Early Show in some markets…

Recently, I’ve been getting some email complaints about all the pop-ups. Some emails have said as many as four…others as many as eight. It’s a Blogsome thing. I don’t like it any more than you do. I have a nasty feeling its tied to hit count because it used to be just one pop-up and now it’s multiple pop-ups. The higher the hits the more pop-ups. In which case it means ICN is a victim of its own success. But I feel your pain…

Jobacle.com has a story from a former FNC employee about a “secret apartment” in the middle of FNC’s office space and how it was eventually converted over to workspace with one notable exception…a toilet.

The day started just like any other. I navigated my way past the smokers and proceeded through the revolving door at 1211 Avenue of the Americas. I touched down my ID and the glass security doors parted. I journeyed upstairs and walked down the long corridor that I traversed several times a day.

But this time, something was different. A door was ajar.

Not just any door, but one of those that I had passed a million times before and never questioned. Maybe, because it was always shut. Or maybe I was too busy worrying about elections, political conspiracies, and other things I frankly couldn’t give a crap about. The reality is, early on, I probably sized the door up as a generic utility closet housing cable wires and electrical circuits.

The last thing I expected to find in the middle of our floor in the middle of a corporate building was…a secret apartment. That’s right friends, someone was calling my workplace home.

Update: ICN hears that the apartment was built under the supervision of Warren Vandeveer, Senior Vice President, Engineering and Operations. It was for a News Corp. facilities manager who is no longer with the company.

CNN is noting its Q3 ratings…

CNN’s The Situation Room dominated at 4p for the second time this year ranking first among all cable news nets for the month of September in the P25-54 demo. The Situation Room beat the long-running Your World with Neil Cavuto on FNC and continues to out rank MSNBC in both demos.

CNN’s The Situation Room - 661,000 viewers (206,000)
FNC’s Your World w/Cavuto - 870,000 viewers (189,000)
CNBC’s Closing Bell - 325,000 viewers (101,000)
MSNBC Live - 281,000 viewers (101,000)
Headline News - 226,000 viewers (77,000)

In Q3 CNN Ratings Highlights
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Multichannel News’ Steve Donahue…

Fox News Channel was the top-rated all-news channel during the third quarter, marking the 23rd consecutive quarter that Fox topped rivals CNN and MSNBC.

The third quarter also marked six years that The O’Reilly Factor was the No. 1 news program in primetime, averaging 2.03 million viewers.

Also in the top five were Fox News Channel’s Hannity & Colmes (1.45 million viewers), The Fox Report with Shepard Smith (1.3 million); and Special Report with Brit Hume (1.2 million).

Morning Joe scratched in the Demo. Incredibly, Nancy Grace had no DVR bump at 8pm as her Live+SD numbers matched the Live numbers…

Cable News Daily Live Ratings for October 1, 2007

P2+ Total Day
FNC – 869,000 viewers
CNN – 429,000 viewers
MSNBC – 264,000 viewers
CNBC – 238,000 viewers
HLN – 237,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 1,795,000 viewers
CNN – 666,000 viewers
MSNBC – 436,000 viewers
CNBC – 188,000 viewers
HLN – 414,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC – 258,000 viewers
CNN – 148,000 viewers
MSNBC – 96,000 viewers
CNBC – 73,000 viewers
HLN- 99,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC – 410,000 viewers
CNN – 194,000 viewers
MSNBC – 151,000 viewers
CNBC – 80,000 viewers
HLN – 151,000 viewers

Morning programs P2+ (25-54)
FOX & Friends – 848,000 viewers (295,000)
American Morning- 322,000 viewers (123,000)
Morning Joe – 212,000 viewers (a scratch with 45,000)
Robin & Co. – 192,000 viewers (90,000)
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Candy Crowley interviewed Senator Barack Obama for The Situation Room today. Transcript follows…

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Senator Barack Obama is accusing some of his Democratic presidential rivals of trying to rewrite history on Iraq. He’s very publicly trying to remind voters today he opposed the war from day one while Senator Hillary Clinton and others did not.

Let’s go to our senior political correspondent, Candy Crowley. She’s in Chicago. You had an interview, Candy, earlier today with Senator Barack Obama. Give us some of the headlines.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, I did ask him about some of the criticism from rival camps and from other critics of Obama who say, yes, he was out there early, before the war began, criticizing the war. But since then, they say his record has not been quite so anti-war as he would have you believe.
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CNN put out a release today outlining the special primtime and online coverage it is doing regarding Hispanic Heritage this week…

CNN’s Uncovering America programming initiative continues this week across the network’s multiple broadcast platforms and digital services with dynamic, original reporting on the challenges faced by Hispanic communities in the United States and the growing influence of Hispanic culture upon politics, daily life and business in America. This latest installment – The Hispanic Experience Today – coincides with events across the nation for Hispanic Heritage Month.

Online, CNN.com offers in-depth coverage and users’ reflections on being Hispanic in America. Through i-Reports, users can submit videos, still photos and text of their experiences. Many viewers’ personal reflections are posted at www.CNN.com/UncoveringAmerica.

On television, CNN’s American Morning on Wednesday, Oct. 3, will feature Cuban-American actor Oscar Nuñez from NBC’s The Office, who will talk about the changing images of Hispanics in media. American Morning is anchored by Kiran Chetry and John Roberts and airs Mondays through Fridays from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. (ET).
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Broadcasting & Cable’s Marissa Guthrie…

But more interestingly, since Paula Zahn vacated her 8 p.m. time slot this summer, CNN has lost 3% of the cable news pie at 8 p.m. while MSNBC has gained 5%.

FishbowlDC has the internal NPR email from NPR News Vice President Ellen Weiss on the Juan Williams interview…

I cannot imagine a newsroom where everyone agrees with every assignment, booking, angle or other decision made by management — it would be a pretty dull and probably unproductive place to work. Every NPR employee has the right to disagree with our decision-making, and the right to express those opinions to management directly; an open door policy on all issues exists throughout the organization. But those disagreements are to remain where they are taken up, internally. I appreciate your interest and thoughts on this.

So much for “internally”…

Eat The Press’ Rachel Sklar notes Hardball’s 10th Anniversary last night…

Happy Anniversary, Hardball! Chris Matthews looked pleased as punch last night talking about the show’s last decade and introducing the memory-lane clip reel. Aw! In spite of the fact that he told the ladies on The View that he thinks the biggest election issue is the fact that a woman is running (really? Not, say, the Iraq war?), I couldn’t help but feel myself come around to him a bit, just as he said he couldn’t help finally coming around to respecting Hillary after all these years (hey, Leon Weiseltier, that nagging housewife thing DOES work!).

Following up on this from Sunday, TVNewser notes that FNC has continued on Fox and Friends to do segments on CNN’s God’s Warriors. TVNewser postulates that this could be payback for all the jabs Out in the Open took at Bill O’Reilly. I don’t know if that’s the case but I will say that the timing of these segments is…”interesting”…considering the series aired a while ago and other people, particularly MSNBC’s Dan Abrams, didn’t wait for weeks to take aim at the specials.

CNBC, MSNBC, and The Wall Street Journal announced…actually they announced it once before…this is a reminder…that Maria Bartiromo and Chris Matthews will co-moderate a Republican presidential candidate debate focusing on economic issues on October 9th…

CNBC/MSNBC/The Wall Street Journal announced today that CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews will moderate the first Republican Presidential debate of the 2008 campaign focusing on economic issues. The two-hour debate is scheduled to be held on October 9 in Dearborn, Mich. and will be broadcast live on CNBC, First in Business Worldwide, at 4 PM ET and re-broadcast later that evening on MSNBC at 9 PM ET.
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Here is last week’s Primetime Basic Cable Ranker (based on P2+). FNC came in 5th. CNN came in 26th. MSNBC came in 29th.

MSNBC put out a release noting its Q3 numbers. Note the headline though: “3Q Cable News Ratings: MSNBC UP, CNN and FNC DOWN”

MSNBC completed yet another quarter with spectacular ratings increases. While the other cable news networks lost viewers, MSNBC maintained its position as the fastest growing cable news channel for the fourth consecutive quarter. In 3Q07 total day, MSNBC was up +22% in total viewers over third quarter 2006 (321,000 v. 264,000) and up +15% in the key adult 25-54 demographic (135,000 v. 117,000), according to Nielsen Media Research data. In total viewers, CNN was down -9% (501,000 v. 549,000) and Fox News Channel was down -10% (805,000 v. 896,000).

In primetime (M-F 8:00-11:00 p.m., ET), MSNBC was up a substantial +53% in total viewers (571,000 v. 373,000) and +49% in the adult demo (227,000 v. 152,000), while CNN was down –6% (901,000 v. 960,000), and Fox News Channel was also down -6% in total viewers (1,601,000 v. 1,711,000).

At 7:00 p.m. “Hardball with Chris Matthews” was up a strong +18% in total viewers (414,000 v. 350,000) and +7% in the adult demo (141,000 v. 132,000). In total viewers, CNN was down –4% and Fox News declined -3% at 7:00 p.m.
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In a move which ICN predicted just last week, NBC announced that CNBC’s “Tim Russert” is moving to MSNBC. I can’t say enough about how overdue this move was as MSNBC always was the better fit for Russert’s show once MSNBC started airing Meet The Press repeats. Now if they can just move CNBC’s “Chris Matthews” syndicated show repeats over to MSNBC where they belong…

MSNBC continues to establish itself as the place for politics, adding the popular weekend talk program “Tim Russert” beginning Saturday, Oct. 5. “Tim Russert” will premiere at Noon ET Saturdays, repeating 6 p.m. ET and 2 a.m. ET and Sundays at Noon ET. The program previously aired weekends on CNBC.

“Tim Russert” features interviews with the country’s most intriguing policymakers, authors, journalists and others, and provides in-depth discussions on politics, entertainment and the media. Guests have included George and Laura Bush, Jimmy Carter, Brian Williams, Rush Limbaugh, Katie Couric, Bill O’Reilly, Kevin Costner, Tom Hanks, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Caroline Kennedy, Jay Leno, Michael Jordan, Derek Jeter, Barack Obama and more.

“As we head into the 2008 election season, the addition of ‘Tim Russert’ to our weekend lineup solidifies MSNBC as the place for politics,” said Phil Griffin, Senior Vice President, NBC News and Executive in Charge of MSNBC.
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Beth Holloway will be On The Record tomorrow night at 10pm with Greta Van Susteren. GretaWire has more…

Tomorrow night - Wednesday - Beth Holloway joins us for the full hour (assuming no breaking news.) Beth traveled to Aruba with our show this past weekend — our idea - and we shot lots of video which we intend to show tomorrow night when Beth joins the show. The video will look like I shot it - meaning not professional - since the Aruban government seized our crew’s cameras as they entered the country (and frankly did not help solve the problem in the least and even used an expletive to our producer when we asked to try and fix the problem.) We used our own personal handy cams to shoot the video. (Actually it will look a lot better than if I shot it since while the cameras and audio are not great, I did have great and professional cameramen!) I have no idea what the show will look like - I don’t even know what the video looks like since the tapes went directly to NYC from Aruba (and I returned to DC.)

From an emailer…

FNC is breaking news at 11:16am ET all the verdicts are in, in the Isiah Thomas case and they should be read shortly. Laura Ingle is reporting from outside the court house.

11:18am, The verdict is out and FNC is reading it now. A producer is in the court room and feeding out the info. CNN reported on it at 11:20am.

The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer beat Your World with Neil Cavuto in the Demo in September according to the Live+SD ratings. This was the second time this year that CNN edged out FNC for the hour in the Demo. (Demo numbers in parentheses)

Update: I found out that the ratings for this were based as follows: Final averages for the month using “Live + 7 Day” data for the first three weeks of the month and “Live + Same Day” data for the final two weeks of the month 4pm M-F. This is a pretty big asterisk for me.

4pm
The Situation Room (4pm) - 661,000 (206,000)
Your World w/Cavuto - 870,000 viewers (189,000)
MSNBC Live - 281,000 viewers (101,000)
Closing Bell - 325,000 viewres (101,000)
Headline News - 226,ooo viewers (77,000)

New York Magazine’s Daily Intelligencer thinks it sees something about the new Fox Business Network…

Almost all of the on-air talent that’s plugged on the site are skinny, youthful beauties like Shibani Joshi (a former model in India), Cheryl Casone (a former flight attendant), Jenna Lee (she played Division One softball in college), and Nicole Petillades (she loves slalom waterskiing!). And the best part is some of the foxy young broads are dudes! Reporter Colin McShane (he has 45 first cousins!) is a total DILF, and Cody Willard (he writes songs for a band called Museum of the Horse) has the glorious eyes and hair of a young Jennifer Connelly. Needless to say, we cannot wait until this network debuts. We want to see how long it will take them to fire Neil Cavuto for not being “leggy” enough.

Cable News Ratings September 29, 2007

P2+ Total Day
FNC – 532,000 viewers
CNN – 450,000 viewers
MSNBC – 289,000 viewers
CNBC – 215,000 viewers
HLN – 220,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 697,000 viewers
CNN – 470,000 viewers
MSNBC – 344,000 viewers
CNBC – 277,000 viewers
HLN – 278,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC – 141,000 viewers
CNN – 161,000 viewers
MSNBC – 139,000 viewers
CNBC – 78,000 viewers
HLN – 89,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC – 171,000 viewers
CNN – 188,000 viewers
MSNBC – 152,000 viewers
CNBC – 103,000 viewers
HLN – 96,000 viewers

Cable News Ratings for September 30, 2007
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(via Radar)

Yesterday, MSNBC broke with a pattern it had been operating with for several months now. At 9 am, the daily political segment, “First Read” with Chuck Todd was not the first segment of the day before any news aired. It was the third. I had thought maybe a technical problem had forced the segment back, but this morning Contessa Brewer opened 9am with Britney Spears losing custody of her kids. So it appears MSNBC is abandoning putting First Read on first and the segment will now air a bit deeper into the 9am hour.

TVNewser reported yesterday that Norah O’Donnell’s producer Jennifer Yuille is now working at CBS. But there’s more to the story than a simple job change.

MSNBC’s D.C. Bureau is buzzing about the fast one she pulled, telling O’Donnell and her colleagues that she was moving overseas to be closer to a boyfriend. Now, peacock lawyers are considering legal action. At the very least she’s given a new name to bridge-burning…