You Decide ‘08-South Carolina Repuplican Debate (9-10:35 PM): 3,651,000 viewers (1,039,000 in 25-54 demo)
Hannity & Colmes (10:35-11 PM): 3,197,000 viewers (1,097,000 in 25-54 demo)

(numbers are Live)

Daily Live+SD Ratings for January 11, 2008

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Maria Bartiromo will be appearing on The Ellen Degeneres Show next week. Probably on Monday…

According to early Nielsen numbers FNC’s South Carolina Debate was the highest yet this season for the networ. It averaged 3.6 million viewers in P2+ and 1.03 million in the Demo. These numbers aren’t final and may change a tad…

A New Yorker forwarded me this still of Chris Jansing from WNBC’s morning news updates during the Today Show this morning. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone from MSNBC appearing on WNBC’s air before…

Update: Maybe this Richard Huff NY Daily News article on WNBC is related to Jansing’s WNBC appearance? Was it a tryout?

It’s no secret that the multiple flip-flops of news programs and the launch of a 7 p.m. newscast haven’t produced major improvement in Ch.4’s ratings.

Now, what the station needs, and badly, is a strong wind of change in both the newscasts and the on-air roster.

It’s time for Ch.4 to take a page from the WCBS/Ch. 2 playbook and shake up all its anchor teams by trying new pairings as well as new faces.

Update 2: TVNewser tosses out some interesting questions in regards to today’s development. All I’ll say is it would be colossally bad for MSNBC Dayside if she were to leave…

MSNBC’s release on Tuesday’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas on January 15th at 9pm ET…

“NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams will moderate a debate among the Democratic presidential candidates Tuesday, Jan. 15, 9-11 p.m. ET, live on MSNBC from the Cashman Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Hillary Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards will participate. The debate, to focus on issues important to minority voters, is sponsored by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, 100 Black Men of America, IMPACTO, the Democratic African-American Leadership Council, the College of Southern Nevada and the Nevada Democratic Party.

The debate is the first among the Democratic presidential candidates to follow the pivotal New Hampshire primary, and comes just four days before the Nevada caucus on Jan. 19.
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The Hill’s Betsy Rothstein writes about a shoeless Norah O’Donnell during part of MSNBC’s New Hampshire primary coverage…(via Fishbowl DC)

MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell was in the middle of a balancing act last week during the network’s lengthy coverage of the Iowa caucuses. Which helps explain why O’Donnell went shoeless during her 10:15 p.m. segment. The correspondent, in a red blazer and black skirt, placed her heels underneath a glass table on set. The camera panned her from head to toe, revealing that her shoes were not actually on her feet.

In explanation, O’Donnell was doing entrance polling from the “catwalk,” an area suspended from the main set. The platform tends to move a bit, so she slipped off her shoes to steady herself.

And her feet had to be hurting. She pulled an 18-hour day last Thursday, working from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. Friday.

Big Head D.C. is reporting that Jim Pinkerton is leaving FNC and joining the Huckabee campaign…

TV Guide’s Stephen Battaglio interviews FNC’s Carl Cameron…

TVGuide.com: What is life like in the Election Link vehicle?

Cameron: Cramped. Exciting. Unpredictable. We’re sitting in the passenger seat of a car. There’s a camera on the dashboard, a camera on the roof and a regular camera, which we can actually remove from the vehicle, that uses a Wi-Fi connection and can go around for a quarter-of-a-mile radius. We’ve been able to interview candidates in their buses while they’re moving. In the past that had to be done on tape. In the Election Link vehicle we’ve done it live. One is already here in South Carolina and another is on its way from New Hampshire.

TVGuide.com: You’ve been covering campaigns for Fox since 1996. What’s been the major difference for you in this presidential cycle?

Cameron: The sheer length of it. My producer Jake Gibson and I went out in November of 2006 right after the midterm election. We covered Iowa governor Tom Vilsack’s announcement. We rode with him from New Hampshire on his announcement day to Iowa in his plane — in the calendar year of 2006. Of course, he was out of the race in January. We were on the road then, three weeks out of the month. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 42 or 43 weeks of the 52 weeks of 2007 we were on the road, and that was absolutely unprecedented. It’s a function of the money, of the compression (of the primary and caucus season) and that you have no sitting vice president or president running. That hasn’t happened in 80 years. It’s historic.

Gee, I wonder what prompted this…

The Indiana Daily Student’s Sarah Hutchins writes about the story of Eboni Gatlin who is going from FNC’s intern program to its apprentice program…

Gatlin worked on production for “Studio B,” a Fox news television program, which included everything from researching for segments to booking guests to appear on the show.

“It can be very, very stressful and there’s a lot of pressure,” Gatlin said. “It’s great that we put so much emphasis on getting things right. Everything is triple-checked and then checked one more time. There is always a stress on being perfect and being at the top of the game and that’s fun.”

While the entire program has been beneficial, Gatlin said, working with Shepard Smith, news anchor for “Fox Report,” was one of the highlights.

“Having Shepard as my mentor and the person who kind of helped me and pushed me along, that is one of the things I am most thankful for,” Gatlin said. “I truly did feel like I got to experience every aspect of TV production and figure out what I eventually really, really love and really want to do.”

Bloomberg TV announced that Treasury Secrectary Paulson will be Al Hunt’s guest this weekend…

This weekend on the BLOOMBERG TELEVISION® program “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” Al interviews US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. They’ll talk about the economy and fiscal stimulus proposals.

Also on Political Capital this weekend: The next big political contests will be the Nevada and South Carolina primaries. We’ll have reports from Bloomberg’s Heidi Przybyla in Charleston, SC and Hans Nichols in Las Vegas.

Robert Novak and Margaret Carlson debate the week’s issues.

Update: Bill Richardson will be on Bloomberg’s “Money & Politics” tonight at 7pm ET to talk about withdrawing from the race…
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FNC had one of its Election Link vehicles on display in the Spin Room during Hannity & Colmes post South Carolina debate wrap-up show…

Talking Biz News’ Chris Roush has an interview with CNBC’s Steve Liesman…

How do you report stories about economic data so that the average person can understand their importance?

I make a point of explaining all of our economic terms, be it the Fed Funds rate or GDP. It’s a difficult balance, given that we have a pretty sophisticated audience and it’s an ongoing conversation. But I’d like people to be able to come in in the middle of the conversation and understand what’s going on.

I get mixed feedback: Some people say they saw me on TV and had no idea what I was talking about, but I looked good; others thank me for making this stuff understandable and that they finally get it. Others say I just didn’t look good.