Yeas & Nays Patrick Gavin blogs about the Hardball 10th Anniversary Party…

In front of an audience that included such notables as Alan Greenspan, Rep. Patrick Kennedy and Sens. Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, and NBC/MSNBC brass including NBC Senior Vice President Phil Griffin, “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert, “Today” show executive producer Jim Bell, NBC News Specials Executive Producer Phil Alongi, “Meet the Press” Executive Producer Betsy Fischer, MSNBC Vice President Tammy Haddad, “Hardball” correspondent David Shuster and Vice President for MSNBC Prime-Time Programming Bill Wolff. Matthews began his remarks by declaring that he hoped to make some news and he certainly didn’t disappoint. After praising the drafters of the First Amendment for allowing him to make a living, he outlined what he said was the fundamental difference between the Bush and Clinton administrations.

The Clinton camp, he said, never put pressure on his bosses to silence him.

“Not so this crowd,” he added, explaining that Bush White House officials — especially those from Vice President Cheney’s office — called MSNBC brass to complain about the content of his show and attempted to influence its editorial content.

Today on CNN’s Newsroom, Kyra Phillips interviewed Admiral Thad Allen regarding the criminal investigation of two racial incidents involving Coast Guard personnel. Transcript follows…

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The man in charge of the Coast Guard tells me he’s disappointed. Knowing him as I do, that’s a bit of an understatement. He’s Admiral Thad Allen, U.S. Coast Guard commandant, and he joins me now live from Washington, D.C.

Admiral, thanks for being with me.

ADM. THAD ALLEN, U.S. COAST GUARD COMMANDANT: Good afternoon, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: I want to go back to that e-mail that you sent out to the entire U.S. Coast Guard. We heard a little bit about it in the piece that I just did to set you up, but you made it very clear that this is behavior that you are not going to tolerate at all.

Tell me what you’re going to say to the cadets today as you travel to the academy.

ALLEN: Well, Kyra, the events that occurred are absolutely against our core values, as you stated. But they’re very inconsistent with the mission of the Coast Guard, a real humanitarian service. We save people’s lives.
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Big Demo day for FNC. Fox and Friends had a huge Demo Wednesday…nearly 50% of their viewers were in the Demo. It had more Demo viewers than the other nets’ shows had total viewers. Impressive. It was the beginning of a trend that ocurred again and again throughout the day. Special Report had more Demo viewers than Tucker had Total Viewers. The Fox Report had more Demo viewers than Hardball had Total Viewers. O’Reilly had more Demo viewers than Out in The Open had viewers. Hannity & Colmes had more Demo viewers than Abrams had Total Viewers.

P2+ Total Day
FNC – 846,000 viewers
CNN – 459,000 viewers
MSNBC – 229,000 viewers
CNBC – 201,000 viewers
HLN – 234,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 1,689,000 viewers
CNN – 793,000 viewers
MSNBC – 410,000 viewers
CNBC – 195,000 viewers
HLN – 438,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC – 271,000 viewers
CNN – 163,000 viewers
MSNBC – 81,000 viewers
CNBC – 63,000 viewers
HLN- 106,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC – 416,000 viewers
CNN – 227,000 viewers
MSNBC – 157,000 viewers
CNBC – 62,000 viewers
HLN – 189,000 viewers

Morning programs P2+ (25-54)
FOX & Friends – 886,000 viewers (411,000)
American Morning- 345,000 viewers (145,000)
Morning Joe – 255,000 viewers (64,000)
Robin & Co. – 270,000 viewers (141,000)
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace for a half hour. The other segment will feature Hillary Clinton’s Campaing Manager, Patty Doyle.

The CBC Institute and CNN announced the date for the upcoming debate they will be carrying. It will be on January 17, 2008…

The Congressional Black Caucus Political Education and Leadership Institute (CBC Institute) announced today that a date has been set for a Democratic presidential debate in Myrtle Beach, SC. The debate will be held on the evening of January 17, 2008 and will be produced and broadcast by CNN.

In making the announcement, CBC Institute Board Chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson, said “We are excited about this debate and look forward to hosting the Democratic candidates in South Carolina.”
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Eat The Press’ Rachel Sklar has a TV ad for FBN airing in the NY Market. Note: Don’t give too much emphasis to the ad being on MSNBC. The networks have no control over local operator ads…

Update: What I wrote earlier was not entirely accurate. The issue of one network’s ads airing locally on another network’s channel is called local avail. The issue is that the money didn’t go to MSNBC — the money went to the cable operator — Time Warner in this case.

Portfolio’s Jeff Bercovici blogs about FBN’s Microsite and what the focus of the network may be…

It was hard to know exactly what Rupert Murdoch meant when he said the new Fox Business Network would be for “Main Street” rather than “Wall Street.”

But a look at the network’s website offers a clue: It will be folksy. Just how folksy? Why, as folksy as all get-out! (If CNBC starts dressing its talent in overalls and gingham, you’ll know why.)

Big Head D.C. pounds on TVNewser for devoting a blog entry to CUME…

GretaWire has been blogging today about tonight’s interview with Jenna Bush…

Last night on Live with Dan Abrams, during the Beat the Press segment, Abrams took the photos of three FBN talents and compared them to Joey Lawrence. Or something like that. I still can’t see the video yet..

(via Fishbowl DC)

Senator Barack Obama appeared on Morning Joe this morning to talk about his Presidential campaign, The war in Iraq, and today’s New York Times’ story on the Justice Department secretly endorsing harsh interrogation techniques. Transcript follows…

JOE SCARBOROUGH, HOST: Senator Obama, how you doing today?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-ILL.): I’m doing great, Joe. How are you?

SCARBOROUGH: I’m doing well.

I hate to ask you the tough question right off the top, but it has to be asked. What the hell is wrong with the Chicago Bears?

OBAMA: We’ve got a quarterback problem.
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The Daily Orange’s Melissa Daniels interviews Boyce Watkins about the “Happy Negro” crack… (via Journal-isms)

DO: Tell us about the kind of responses that you’ve received in the past couple weeks.

Most of the response that I get from Fox viewers and Fox listeners have a very angry, nasty tone. Some of them are ‘how dare you do this to Juan Williams, he’s such as sweet guy,’ and then there are those that are like ‘You’re an idiot, how can a prestigious university like Syracuse have someone like you on the faculty, I can’t believe you’re a professor.’

When people say that, that tone is interesting because that’s almost an acknowledgement that I have credentials. When people say something like that, ‘I can’t believe you’re a professor at Syracuse, I can’t believe you have a Ph.D., I can’t believe you’re a doctor,’ that’s interesting to me because that’s saying, ‘I’m really angry about what you said, but I have to acknowledge what you’re saying because your credentials are so strong.’ I think if I were a bus driver and I said this, people would just ignore it. Really, I think when an educated African American makes strong statements like that, it causes people to kind of have a moment of pause and they respond.

Some of the e-mails have been angry, but then I’ve gotten a lot of e-mails that are full of ‘thank you very much.’ I even joked in the article that I was going to make ‘happy negro’ T-shirts, and I’ve had people e-mailing me back and say, ‘Yeah, make those T-shirts, I’ll buy one.’ There are a lot of people who have been angry at Juan Williams for a long time.

(via Radar)

MSNBC announced this morning that it will be airing a Republican presidential candidate debate from the University of Northern Iowa on November 6th…

MSNBC will telecast a Republican presidential candidates debate live from the University of Northern Iowa on Nov. 6, 2007, university and network officials announced today. The debate will air from 9-11 p.m. ET from the university’s Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center. MSNBC.com will also stream the debate live. This debate, which was originally announced last February, was originally slated to take place at Iowa State University.

“As the political season heats up, Iowa is the place to be and we’re excited to partner with UNI to provide this important forum for the candidates,” said Phil Griffin, Senior Vice President, NBC News, and Executive in Charge of MSNBC.
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MSNBC put out a release noting the 10th Anniversary of Hardball with Chris Matthews…

MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews” celebrates ten years of political debate and take-no-prisoners interviews. “Hardball with Chris Matthews” premiered on CNBC in 1997, and on MSNBC in 1999. It was telecast on both CNBC and MSNBC through July 2002.

As the 2008 presidential election season heats up, “Hardball” continues to show terrific growth; at 5 p.m., “Hardball” is up 26% in total viewers (463,000 vs. 368,000) and up 20% in A25-54 (153,000 vs. 128,000) in September versus August 07. At 7 p.m. “Hardball” is up 13% versus August 07 (449,000 vs. 399,000) in viewers, and up 15% in the A25-54 demo (155,000 vs. 135,000).
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MediaNews Daily’s David Goetzl writes about dissension amongst the media buyers over the new ratings sytem…

GROUPM’S RINO SCANZONI MAY HAVE served as the pied piper for ushering in the era of “C3″ ratings, but at least one agency that felt he moved too aggressively while the upfront was in progress stands firm.

Horizon Media CEO Bill Koenigsberg, whose agency handles the immense Geico account, said Wednesday the “C3″ shift has “backfired”–benefiting networks by “creating an artificial tightening of the marketplace” that’s sent scatter prices soaring. Furthermore, he reiterated the oft-cited issue that the new ratings are not accredited by the Media Rating Council, leaving their reliability in doubt.

“My competitors forced the “C3″ position on the networks,” Koenigsberg said at a panel discussion. “I don’t think that it was the intelligent thing to do this year.”

Scanzoni did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Horizon had pushed to continue using “live only” ratings again this season–and had some success in negotiations. But with GroupM leading the charge, the domino effect to make “C3″ the dominant currency in the marketplace was difficult to halt. “C3″ refers to the new ratings covering commercial viewing during the “live” broadcast and three days of DVR-aided viewing.