Open mic time…(video courtesy of an ICN commentor)

CNN is trying a new gimmick during commercial breaks; a countdown clock with a progress bar that keeps track of how long until a program resumes…

Vince Vaughn will be appearing on The O’Reilly Factor tonight at 8pm ET. Vaughn will discusse his new movie “Fred Claus”, Christmas, movie-making ,and Owen Wilson…

Presidential candidate Ron Paul appeared on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer this afternoon. Transcript highlights follow…

On his support

PAUL: I think it’s much more intense than anybody realized. Probably more intense than I had expected…

The money was sent to us to be spent, and we will be spending it. We’ve started to do that. We’re buying television in the early primaries, we’re doing a lot of direct mail. We’re on the radio. And we’re hiring a few more people.

I know the other campaigns have had huge staffs, but I think they waste a lot of their money. But now we are getting more reasonable staffing positions. And we’re spending the money in many ways in an ordinary way, but we will continue with this grassroots effort that has been going on, that’s been ongoing here on the Internet.

On Iraq funding
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Cable News Daily Ratings for November 7, 2007

P2+ Total Day
FNC – 985,000 viewers
CNN – 549,000 viewers
MSNBC – 297,000 viewers
CNBC – 256,000 viewers
HLN – 257,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 1,946,000 viewers
CNN – 867,000 viewers
MSNBC- 681,000 viewers
CNBC –204,000 viewers
HLN – 430,000 viewers

25-54 Total Day
FNC – 279,000 viewers
CNN – 209,000 viewers
MSNBC – 121,000 viewers
CNBC – 70,000 viewers
HLN- 120,000 viewers

25-54 Prime Time
FNC – 485,000 viewers
CNN – 357,000 viewers
MSNBC – 285,000 viewers
CNBC – 85,000 viewers
HLN – 187,000 viewers

Morning programs P2+ (25-54)
FOX & Friends – 1,013,000 viewers (341,000)
American Morning- 440,000 viewers (139,000)
Morning Joe – 273,000 viewers (91,000)
Morning Express w/ Meade. – 238,000 viewers (128,000)
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The City Room’s Danny Hakim blogs about Jim Cramer inecting himself into a spat between Elliot Spitzer and Andrew Cuomo…

On Wednesday night, Mr. Cramer called Mr. Cuomo a “communist” who “wants to shut down the mortgage market” after the attorney general revealed subpoenas for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as Mr. Cuomo investigates potential collusion between lenders and appraisers to inflate home values. He also said that he was “getting tired of the New York State attorney general being the most important man in America.”

“Cuomo said let’s make it harder to get a mortgage, let’s make it harder to lend,” Cramer said. “Who is this guy? I didn’t know he was president of the universe.”

Neither Spitzer nor Cuomo appeared to have heard about the comments.

The governor, when asked about it, said: “Jim said this? I’ll call him. I’ll straighten him out.”

TVByTheNumbers has the first comprehensive Demo graph of CNBC’s Total Day since FBN launched…

MSNBC announced the debut of the Hardball “Power Rankings” today. Though, technically, MSNBC TV has been talking about them all week.

“Hardball with Chris Matthews” launched the “Hardball Power Rankings” this week, rating the chances of all the top presidential candidates to win the nomination and to win the White House in 2008. MSNBC, which has established itself as the place for politics, will feature updated “Hardball Power Rankings” every Monday night, gauging the effectiveness of the candidates’ campaigns and rating who has the best chance of capturing the presidency next year.

Each week, Matthews will reveal the latest “Power Rankings,” which Matthews will determine every week leading up to the 2008 presidential election. Criteria for the rankings include national poll numbers, early primary state polling, endorsements, debate performances, betting odds, perceived weaknesses and strengths, and positive and negative stories for the campaigns. This week, “Hardball” will reveal the “Power Rankings” Friday night, with the “Rankings” to be updated every Monday thereafter.

Update: Big Head D.C. rips Hardball for ripping off the idea from FBN’s America’s Nightly Scorecard. I’m going to have to defend Hardball here on this one. First of all America’s Nightly Scorecard isn’t the first media entity to start doing Power Rankings. I think the Sports entities, particularly on the internet, beat them to it by quite a few years. Second of all, the Power Rankings that I’ve seen on America’s Nightly Scorecard have not been solely on politics. Hardball’s are.

Republican Senator Judd Gregg gave CNBC a plug of sorts in comments he made on the Senate Floor this morning regarding an appearance Chuck Schumer made on the network…

Sen. Gregg: Mr. President, this morning, while I was working out in the gym, on the air came one of my friends and a gentleman who I enjoy serving with and who has a great sense of humor, Senator Schumer from New York. And he was being interviewed by the CNBC team, which is a great, enjoyable team to watch — Mark Haines and Becky Quick and others like David Faber. And Senator Schumer said that the Democratic Party had been disciplined because they had used Pay-Go as a way to control spending here in the Congress.

Well, I almost fell off the treadmill because that statement is so outrageous that it could only be made by somebody from New York who sees things in big pictures but misses the trees. The statement represents or implies that Pay-Go is a fiscally disciplining event around here, when just the opposite is what has occurred. Pay-Go has become a term of art, which has got a nice name and is thrown out by some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle as their representation of fiscal discipline, but in fact it has become a mechanism for spending money at an outrageous rate in entitlement and mandatory accounts.

CNN announced that Mitch Semel has been tapped as EP of Campbell Brown’s new show…

Broadcast and media technology veteran Mitch Semel joins CNN as senior executive producer for CNN’s new prime time program anchored by Campbell Brown, it was announced today by CNN/U.S. president Jon Klein. Semel will be drawing upon more than 30-years of experience in broadcasting and new media as he leads the development and production of the new program which is slated to debut in early 2008 and will air weeknights at 8 p.m. (ET) on CNN.

Semel begins Monday, Nov. 12, and will be based at CNN’s New York bureau.

“Mitch’s breadth of experience and passion for news makes him the perfect choice for this position,” Klein said. “No matter the medium, he has always shown a knack for bringing edgy ideas into the mainstream and has helped nurture the kinds of thought-provoking, freewheeling and fun shows that are right up Campbell Brown’s alley.”
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MSNBC announced that Senator John Kerry will be appearing on Your Business this Saturday’s Sunday’s edition of “Your Business” airing at 10:30 am ET…

Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) joins JJ Ramberg this Sunday, Nov. 11, on MSNBC’s “Your Business,” 7:30 a.m. (ET). As Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Sen. Kerry discusses several issues small business owners who are also military reservists and veterans face both when they are called for deployment and when they return from service. Many veterans are finding it difficult to keep their businesses alive when they are deployed and, when they return, are finding it hard to borrow money because of their poor credit ratings.

Sen. Kerry: “We really have a special obligation to try to help those folks get back, particularly when they had a viable business, they had customers, they had income, they’d existed for a number of years, and the only reason they’ve had trouble is because they’ve had to deploy 2 or 3 times to Iraq or Afghanistan.”
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TVWeek’s Michele Greppi writes about News Corp.’s Q3 results…

The News Corp. report said cable network programming posted operating income of $289 million, an increase of $40 million from the year-ago quarter. The 16% growth reflects increased contributions from Fox News Channel, the regional sports networks and the Fox international channels; however, that growth was partially offset by launch costs associated with the Fox Business Network and the Big Ten Network as well as a lower contribution from FX.

The Fox News Channel more than doubled its operating income compared with the first quarter a year ago, primarily from increased affiliate revenues on higher rates and advertising revenue growth from higher volume and pricing.

FTVLive is sticking to its story that Tucker Carlson’s show is going off the air…

Big Head D.C. notes how the conversation this morning on Morning Joe turned to hugs and how Mika Brzezinksi’s hugs from her father Zbigniew Brzezinski were…

Um, whatever. And to think this is what NBC wanted to put on MSNBC’s air. Don’t feel badly guys. You’re better off in the long run…

Update: The LA Times’ Matea Gold has more…

The main sticking point, according to a person familiar with the discussions, was compensation. O’Donnell apparently requested a salary more suitable for a broadcast network than a cable news operation.

Wellp, I called it…