Mike Huckabee was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on The Situation Room following today’s debate. Transcript follows…

BLITZER: Mike Huckabee walked into this final Republican debate before the Iowa caucuses on January 3rd in a whole new position. The former underdog now is a top contender, if not the top contender, for this first presidential contest of the primary season. And that also makes him, of course, the targets for some scathing attacks and some fierce scrutiny. He understands that.

The former Arkansas governor is joining us now from the site of this debate.

Governor, thanks very much for coming in.

And let me ask you right away, what did you think? How did you do?

MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I think the debate went fine. It was frankly a little less fireworks than I anticipated, but believe me, Wolf, I’m very fine with that. I was kind of anticipating there would be blood on the floor, most of it mine. And fortunately, I came out with — without a Band-Aid.
(more…)

Tonight on Hardball they will have on a body language expert to analyze today’s debate…

It’s the first free for all of the debate season with all the networks dialed in to cover it. Who did best? Who did worst? Who made the most insightful comment? Who made the stupidest comment? Who was too aloof? Who pandered to hard? Were there any huge gaffes made by analysts or anchors? Post it all right here…

Update: One way to separate yourself from the pack when you have the same feed as everyone else is by differentiating your coverage of said feed. In FNC’s case, that has translated into using Republican pollster Frank Luntz’s real time focus group dial results during various parts of the debate. Apparently FNC will be doing this tomorrow for the Democratic debate as well…

The Friends of Tucker have sent out another email…

As you know the New York Times reported that MSNBC was considering canceling MSNBC the Tucker Carlson show to move the news network’s programming to the far left. That is why we formed the Friends of Tucker and set up savetucker.org.

Thousands of TV viewers have contacted MSNBC to protest their planned shift to the left and to urge them to keep Tucker Carlson for his manners, conviviality, sense of humor and unpredictability.

The Nielsen ratings show that on several nights TUCKER, airing at 6pm EST on MSNBC, had a higher rating than MSNBC’s Hardball in the 5pm slot. Hardball increases its ratings for the 7pm rerun.
(more…)

CNBC announced this morning that David Pogue has joined the network as a contributor…

CNBC, First in Business Worldwide, today announced that David Pogue will join the network as a contributor, effective Thursday, December 13th. Pogue will be testing and evaluating the latest tech products, gadgets, innovations and trends on CNBC’s Business Day programming.

“David is a well-known and respected expert in his field, produces highly entertaining and informative videos, and we are excited he is joining the CNBC team,” said Jonathan Wald, Senior Vice President, Business News, CNBC. “We always strive to stay on the pulse of innovation and David will add a new element to the network’s coverage.”
(more…)

In a must read, The New York Observer’s John Koblin writes about a low boil feud between the Wall Street Journal and CNBC. And this is apparently why…

According to a spokesperson at Estée Lauder, The Journal and WWD agreed to run their semi-exclusives on Friday, Nov. 9. It’s a huge story for WWD, which follows the fortunes of Estée Lauder daily; and for The Journal, the opportunity to break big fashion-industry news rated a B1 placement.

But the day before stories were to run, The Journal forwarded an advance copy of its piece to CNBC. A CNBC anchor, whom nobody interviewed by The Observer would name, then sent the piece to a Lauder executive’s BlackBerry, the Lauder spokesperson said.

Irate at seeing the story in circulation before the agreed-upon embargo date, the Lauder public-relations department (which said it has “great respect for CNBC and The Journal”) gave WWD permission to jump the schedule and publish the news on its Web site just after 6 p.m., beating The Journal, a WWD spokesperson said.

______________
(more…)

Media Post’s David Goetzl writes about GE CEO Jeff Immelt’s comments yesterday regarding cuts at NBC…

NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker recently said NBC prime-time accounts for only 10% of overall NBCU profits. The network, which had a long run as the leader in prime time, has been in fourth place.

Nonetheless, even while acknowledging the importance of top-notch content, Immelt said GE will be aggressive in cutting expenses at NBC–and in the process look to establish a new business model there.

“We’ve got to continue to look for ways to take costs out of the system,” he said.

I would argue they’re taking more than costs out of the system, particularly at the news division. But let’s see how all this unfolds…

The Philadelphia Daily News’ Carol Towarnicky writes about the “war on Christmas”…

“Every company in America should be on its knees thanking Jesus for being born,” O’Reilly said two Christmases ago when he discovered the “war” that nobody else had noticed. “Without Christmas, most American businesses would be far less profitable.” And O’Reilly doesn’t want rich or poor, man or woman, gentile or Jew to forget it.

Too bad nobody noticed we were losing in the War on Advent. Then again, Advent has never turned a profit.

Old-timers may recall that, back when Christmas was a religious holiday, the four weeks of Advent was the time when many Christians prepared their hearts for the birth of Jesus. Back then, the first Sunday of Advent used to be the official beginning of the Christmas season - before it was replaced by another religious ritual, Black Friday.

CNBC and Yahoo announced a deal to put content from CNBC’s various tentacles, including CNBC.com, on Yahoo Finance…

CNBC, first in business worldwide, and Yahoo! Finance, the Internet’s #1 financial website, today announced an agreement to distribute content from CNBC, CNBC Europe, CNBC Asia, and CNBC.com to Yahoo! Finance users in the United States and worldwide. The announcement represents CNBC’s first global online alliance, and Yahoo!’s first global finance video agreement.

Under the terms of the agreement, CNBC will provide video clips from its global networks and articles from CNBC.com. The content will be available to Yahoo! Finance users in the U.S. (http://finance.yahoo.com), and will also be available to Yahoo!’s 21 international financial news sites. The video clips will encompass commentary and analysis of the day’s top business stories, pre-market opening buzz, interviews, investing and stock-picking segments from CNBC programs including “Mad Money w/Jim Cramer” and “Fast Money” and international market news and analysis from CNBC Europe and CNBC Asia.

“This agreement brings together two global market leaders to meet the growing demand for online business and financial information,” said Mark Hoffman, CNBC President. “This alliance draws on the strength of CNBC’s global assets and expands the reach of our unparalleled content to Yahoo! Finance’s worldwide user base. It reaffirms our commitment to providing fast, accurate, actionable and unbiased information to our audience.”
(more…)