CNN announced today that Ali Velshi will host a special for CNN Radio affiliate called “Your Money At Risk” on Friday November 2nd…

CNN’s senior business correspondent Ali Velshi and CNN Radio offer affiliates “Your Money At Risk,” an in-depth, candid dialogue covering the state of the economy, the possibility of a recession, sky-rocketing oil prices, fluctuating interest rates, and the uncertainty of the job market.

“Your Money At Risk” will focus on the economy and examine circumstances that cause a recession and what that means for the consumer. This hour-long program, produced by CNN Radio supervising producer Sherri Maksin, will be available to affiliates beginning Friday, Nov.2.

Guests will include CNN’s consumer affairs and investigative correspondent, Greg Hunter; chief economist with Moody’s Economy.com, Mark Zandi, and portfolio manager of the Permanent Portfolio Family of Funds, Michael Cuggino.
(more…)

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appeared on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer today. Transcript highlights follow…

BLITZER: Should illegal immigrants — maybe a million of them in New York State, have driver’s licenses, New York State driver’s licenses?

BLOOMBERG: I do not believe they should. I think and I have expressed to the governor an objection I had to do it and my police commissioner have had to this for a long time when I’ve been asked this question. The governor’s first proposal, I thought, was inappropriate. And should not have been enacted. And I told him so privately which is the way I should deal with him.

His second proposal of three different kinds of licenses are something that I have — I think a step in the right direction. But I still don’t think that it is where we should be. The bottom line is we should be giving driver’s licenses to people knowing who they are and making sure that they have a right to have them and we should make sure particularly when it comes to guns that you can only use a secure driver’s license to buy guns…
(more…)

NBC’s Jim Gray will interview Barry Bonds in an exclusive interview airing on Countdown with Keith Olbermann tonight at 8pm ET. Transcript highlights follow…

BONDS ON THE RECORD-SETTING HOME-RUN BALL AND THE HALL OF FAME: I don’t think you can put an asterisk in the game of baseball and I don’t think that the Hall of Fame can accept an asterisk in their Hall of Fame. You can’t, you cannot give people the freedom, the right to alter history, you can’t do it. There’s no such thing as an asterisk in baseball.

GRAY: And if the Hall of Fame does accept that ball and display it?

BONDS: I will never be in the Hall of Fame. Never. I will never be in the Hall of Fame.

GRAY: You mean you personally-

BONDS: Me personally.

GRAY:… or as a visitor or your artifacts or your enshrinement?

BONDS: I won’t go. I won’t be part of it, I won’t be there, you can call me but I won’t be there.
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Tonight on Hardball Chris Matthews offered his opinion on how Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton shoud respond to the aftermath of Tuesday night’s presidential debate. Transcript follows…

“Hardball” host Chris Matthews tonight offered his opinion on how Sen. Hillary Clinton should respond in the aftermath of Tuesday night’s presidential debate.

“Earlier this week I wrote what I thought Senator Barack Obama should say in the debate. I did the same on Tuesday for Senator Joe Biden. Now, tonight, in the aftermath of the debate, I offer this draft for Senator Hillary Clinton:

‘Taking the heat is what leadership is all about. As Harry Truman said, “If you don’t like the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” Taking heat is all part of the process of proving yourself for the world’s most important democratic office.

The fact that I am the first woman has nothing to do with the heat on me in this week’s presidential debate. I was the target because, quite simply, I am running well in the national polls. I have gotten nothing but respect from my rivals for the nomination and have no complaints, certainly none to do with our difference in gender.
(more…)

Cable News Daily Ratings for October 31, 2007

P2+ Total Day
FNC – 893,000 viewers
CNN – 470,000 viewers
MSNBC – 302,000 viewers
CNBC – 235,000 viewers
HLN – 262,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 2,101,000 viewers
CNN – 742,000 viewers
MSNBC- 514,000 viewers
CNBC –225,000 viewers
HLN – 107,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC – 258,000 viewers
CNN – 154,000 viewers
MSNBC – 102,000 viewers
CNBC – 67,000 viewers
HLN- 92,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC – 510,000 viewers
CNN – 198,000 viewers
MSNBC – 159,000 viewers
CNBC – 86,000 viewers
HLN – 197,000 viewers

Morning programs P2+ (25-54)
FOX & Friends – 915,000 viewers (355,000)
American Morning- 365,000 viewers (143,000)
Morning Joe – 227,000 viewers (62,000)
Robin & Co. – 205,000 viewers (96,000)
(more…)

Fox News Sunday will begin a new series “American Leaders” beginning this Sunday November 4th with an interview with President George H.W. Bush…

FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace marks the launch of a new series, “American Leaders,” with an exclusive interview with George H. W. Bush from his library in College Station, Texas this Sunday, November 4th.

The new series aims to expand the typical Sunday morning talk show conversation beyond the beltway – by engaging prominent business, cultural and social figures in candid discussion about a wide range of issues important to Americans.

In addition to former President Bush, future guests include General Electric Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt; Federal Express CEO Fred Smith; eBay President Meg Whitman and one of America’s leading evangelists, Pastor Joel Osteen.

Update: Broadcasting & Cable’s John Eggerton has more…

Former President George Bush said he isn’t ready to say Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) is a lock for the nomination just yet, despite a double-digit lead in all the polls.

That’s according to the first President Bush’s interview with Chris Wallace for a new Fox News Sunday segment on “American Leaders” that launches Nov. 4.
(more…)

HotAir.com writes about how the AP got a Rudy Giuliani quote wrong and how that wrong quote spread like wildfire to various locations including Countdown with Keith Olbermann. The AP subsequently corrected its quote. But not before Arianna Huffington appeared on Countdown to repeat the misquote, which Keith Olbermann also did several times in the run up to the actual segment.

At first I thought this was a case of Olbermann and Huffington just repeating what the AP wrote without knowing the true quote. But when I saw the video of the segment they showed the actual video of Giuliani’s speech including the correct quote that mentions Assad and not Bin Laden. And apparently nobody on Countdown’s production staff caught that discrepency and flagged Olbermann in advance of the show’s air. See for yourself…

Someone really dropped the ball here. Under the circumstances, a correction is in order.

Update: Changed some of the wording around to make my point more clear.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Christopher Quinn writes about CNN’s Betty Nguyen’s Non-profit organization Help the Hungry which helps the impoverished of Vietnam…(via TVNewser)

When they returned home to the United States — she was living in Texas at the time where she worked on local TV — she and Kim started their own nonprofit organization, Help the Hungry

They got donations of goods and money from family, friends and contacts.

A Texas dentist gave toothbrushes and toothpaste. A friend at a vitamin store gave bottles of peroxide, which is critical to keep cuts or wounds from turning septic during the monsoon season. Others give money, not a lot, less than $25,000 a year total.

But Betty takes the donations each year and travels back to buy five or six tons of food, medicines and clothes on the local market, which is cheaper than buying here and shipping it over.

Public Eye’s Matthew Felling takes CNN to task for emphasizing noose related stories in the run up to its “The Noose: An American Nightmare” doc…

In the wake of the Jena 6 story, all of America has seen a resurgence in images that connote intolerance – be they swastikas at George Washington University or swastikas and nooses at Columbia University. And it’s a trend that’s worth keeping an eye on, to be sure.

But when one network makes it a priority item – while it doesn’t merit a mere mention on the competition, mind you – in the day before it airs a special on the issue, that’s when you start to wonder who is making the news decisions.

If CNN wants to make sure viewers know about the special tonight, more power to them and I hope people watch. But isn’t that what commercials are for?

(Particularly when CNN mentioned its July YouTube Debate on-air 117 times in the day leading up to it.)

If you’ve been following the story of Fox News Radio’s Todd Starnes on ICN, then you’ll be interested in knowing that Starnes has entered the New York City Marathon this weekend. The Sacramento Bee’s Sam McManis has more…

On Sunday, Starnes, 40, will run in the ING New York City Marathon – thus fulfilling the prophesy of the physical therapist whose name Starnes cannot remember but whose advice proved prescient.

At the time, Starnes admits his marathon vow “was just the drugs talking.” Turns out, though, that he wholeheartedly embarked on a journey to transform his body.

The Next Great Thing blogs about cashing in on user generated content like CNN’s iReport and Voxant’s influence and cites Daryn Kagan’s website as an example…

But with all the hype centering around mainstream websites and their ad revenue potential, little attention is given to monetization opportunities available among the thousands of smaller, niche sites that populate the internet. On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that while the top-100 websites receive half of online traffic, the other half goes to lesser-known sites that cater to specific demographics and interests. Now, companies such as Voxant.com are working to integrate this relatively untapped market into the growing sphere of online news content and ad revenue. The company seeds news from small sites to large ones (like AP in reverse). This automated crowdsourcing is raising the prospects—as well as profits—of some of the web’s up-and-coming news websites.

DarynKagan.com, a year-old website dedicated to users seeking “hopeful” news, is already reaping the benefits of its Voxant relationship. The site’s founder, former CNN anchor Daryn Kagan, tells NGT that her Voxant agreement enables her to contribute material to news organizations much larger than her own, including Associated Press and CBS News. “I post a DarynKagan.com story to my site and hundreds of websites embed that content,” Kagan says. And that’s precisely what Kagan wants: exposure. “Content on the internet is the exact opposite of old media – TV and radio – where it appears to be all about exclusivity,” she says. Kagan’s hope is that her work appears, “on as many websites as possible.”

Update: I didn’t key in on the significance of the placement because my set-top DirecTV box is too old to take advantage of the more advanced functions of NewsMix. But the first NewsMix channel is the default channel selected which means it’s also the channel that has its audio piped through. So FBN’s placement in the first slot is a big deal…

As it is a slow news day and since I haven’t done anything on the Olbermann/O’Reilly feud in quite a while, TVByTheNumbers.com is keeping a running scorecard for the ratings for the two programs…

It generally takes me an hour and a half, minimum, to do the morning blog rounds and get everything posted. Today, it was done in 45. Gonna be a long day…

The New York Post’s Michael Starr notes that former CNN’er Bobbie Batista is now a co-host on the Retirement Living Channel…