Here’s a list of the top 25 primetime programs on CNBC for the past five years as ranked by P2+
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Thanks to the broadcast of the Westminster Dog Show last night, CNBC won the Demo and came in 2nd in Total Viewers…

Daily Live+SD Ratings for February , 2008

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CNN announced it will premiere CNN: Special Investigations Unit – The First Patient: Health & the Presidency Saturday, February 16th at 8pm ET…

Amid the 2008 campaign for U.S. president, CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes a physician’s look at the health of U.S. presidents and the current candidates and how the high stress of campaigning and governing can affect health. He also reports how a president is treated for sickness or injury at the White House, on Air Force One and while traveling in the United States and abroad.
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Chris Wallace will anchor You Decide 2008 coverage from 8:00-9:00PM ET. Hannity & Colmes will be live from 9:00-10:00PM ET followed by On the Record with Greta Van Susteren from 10:00PM-11:00PM ET and Shepard Smith hosting more You Decide 2008 coverage from 11:00-12:00AM ET.

Chief Political Correspondent Carl Cameron and Major Garrett will provide live updates, in addition to results analysis provided by; The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol; Fortune Magazine’s Nina Easton; Politico’s Jim Vandehei and FNC political contributor, Karl Rove. Also, viewers can log on to www.foxnews.com for in-depth coverage of the races.

Tonight Bloomberg TV will have live “Business & the Ballot” coverage of the Potomac primaries during a special edition of Money & Politics hosted by anchor Peter Cook.

Portfolio’s Jeff Bercovici argues that Hillary should back off her fight with MSNBC…

While Clinton believes MSNBC has it in for her, a producer there told me recently that the network’s only bias is an institutional one shared by all media outlets. “Obama’s new, so he’s the story,” says the producer. “She’s been around for 16 years.”

The Clinton campaign’s decision to leak a letter of harsh criticism — after Shuster had already apologized twice, and been suspended from his job — was seen as a bullying move at MSNBC, where Shuster is well-regarded.

Eat The Press’ Rachel Sklar writes about the David Shuster situation…

But though he took the fall, it wasn’t entirely Shuster’s fault. Yes, he said something stupid (and offensive, and inappropriate). But let’s put it in context — the context of a network where conversation is free and easy and where spicy rhetoric has been robustly encouraged, because it’s been working in the ratings but also because frank, no-holds-barred commentary is fascinating and fun to watch. The risk, though, of skating close to the edge is sometimes you go over it. Probably no one means any harm. Probably they’re just being kidding around - but it creates a norm, and not always a great one. It’s within that kind of norm that talk becomes more casual, edgier. Shuster would never have made that comment were he to appear, say, on “NBC Nightly News” — it would have seemed wildly inappropriate and out of place for that no-nonsense, straight-up news environment. But elsewhere on the network, that line has become blurred — as Cenk Ugyur points out, more and more the news has been shot through with strong, spicy opinions, and that affects the atmosphere and that affects the discourse and that affects the norm.

That’s similar to what I said Friday…

FishbowlDC notes that Facebook has a Support David Shuster page up. And note who FishbowlDC believes is behind it…

TV Week’s Michele Greppi writes about Nielsen blowback…

Clients wonder if the delays also could be due to too few personnel—or too many less-trained personnel—handling increasingly complicated core tasks as Nielsen rolls out ever-more-sophisticated products and services—such as its national TV/Internet Fusion database that would allow clients to focus on the relationship between consumers’ usage of both platforms.

Clients also wonder if the problems with the fast nationals delivery hint at other hidden problems in the final nationals or other data.

Such issues are sure to come up in conversations during Nielsen’s national client meeting on audience measurement Thursday and Friday at Caesars Palace Las Vegas.

Nielsen spokesman Jack Loftus downplayed the human error question, characterizing its frequency as “not a lot” and saying it was “way down the list” of bugs in the system. He said error often takes place in the homes in the sample.

The root causes all contribute to stress on the company’s systems, he said, but, “We’re trying to get the data out as best we can and as fast as we can.”

Daily Live+SD Ratings for Saturday, February 9th, 2008

Daily Live+SD Ratings for Sunday, February 10th, 2008
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Waren Buffett phoned in to CNBC this morning during Sqawk Box regarding an offer he made to insurers Ambac, MBIA, and FGIC. CNBC.com’s Warren Buffett Watch’s Alex Crippen has the story…

In a live telephone call to Squawk Box just a few minutes ago, Buffett offered to reinsure $800 billion in municipal bonds now insured by Ambac, MBIA and FGIC, effectively giving them a AAA credit rating.

Those insurers are in danger of losing their AAA credit ratings due to problems with subprime mortgages and other loans.

Buffett tells us he sent that offer to the bond insurers last week, and that he’s giving them 30 days to find a better deal.

Buffett says one bond insurer turned him down, and he hasn’t yet heard from the other two. Buffett wouldn’t say which company turned him down. He said he didn’t think regulators could do much to force the bond insurers to accept his offer, unless they took over the companies themselves.

FishbowlDC has a recap of Hillary Clinton’s comments to the Politico’s John Harris regarding MSNBC and the praise she gives FNC over their coverage of her. Oddly enough, the Politico’s website has an incomplete transcript of the interview as of 10:08pm PST…

Update: The Politico fixed its transcript…

JOHN HARRIS: Senator, you were offended the other day for reasons that I think a lot of people understood by comments that were made on MSNBC. And in the wake of that, I heard from some of the people on your staff who say, to their surprise, they actually think that Fox News is giving you a better break than MSNBC. Is that your perception?

SENATOR CLINTON: Well, there was some independent study that my staff sent me — we didn’t do it — but it was some independent study which seemed to suggest that, that in terms of the fairness of the coverage — you know, look, I’m a mom first. I’m a candidate second. And, you know, I really am troubled by this pattern of behavior and comments that you hear.
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Gawker has an email from Rachel Marsden about her time on Red Eye and Greg Gutfeld. Will this be a topic on the next Red Eye?

Daily Live+SD Ratings for February 8, 2008

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