Outside Cable News

Via NYTimes
By FELICIA R. LEE
Like the Candidates, TV’s Political Pundits Show Signs of Diversity

The historic and long-running presidential campaigns of Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton have injected issues of race and gender into politics as never before. With campaign coverage center stage on the cable channels, producers and critics are again assessing the diversity among pundits, who talk (and talk) about things like Mr. Obama’s pastor, the Hispanic vote, Iraq and the economy.

Both MSNBC and CNN this election season have given new prominence to a handful of contributing commentators from varied backgrounds and perspectives: blacks, Hispanics and women. Whether such moves signal real progress in diversifying the punditocracy or merely reflect the needs of a particular news cycle is the question, some media experts say. The most prominent positions on television remain overwhelmingly with those who are white and male, and some critics note how striking that non-inclusion can seem during this election year.
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Via AJC
By KRISTI E. SWARTZ

CNN edges out Fox in key demographic
Fox still leads in overall ratings

It’s all about Anderson Cooper. At least he’s a major reason CNN gave for beating Fox News Channel during prime time in a key demographic.

The Atlanta-based network had an average number of viewers aged 25-54 for the first quarter of 2008, taking bragging rights in the category away from Fox News for the first time since 2001, Neilsen Media Research said Tuesday.

For that age group, CNN averaged 444,000 viewers during the prime-time slot — 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. — soaring 87 percent compared with a year earlier.

News Corp.’s Fox News averaged 430,000 viewers, up 10 percent.
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But, bringing a baby in a bar is disgraceful. And I’d probably go ahead and extend that to FBN for allowing this! SHAME!

Via NyTimes
By Nicholas D. Kristof
A Challenge to Bill O’Reilly

Bill O’Reilly takes a pugilistic lurch at me in his “talking points memo” today:

While getting some R&R in Florida last week, I noticed something interesting. Some newspaper columnists all in the tank for Senator Obama wrote pretty much the same thing: Hillary Clinton can’t win and is hurting the Democratic Party by staying in the race.

Is it a coincidence that Eugene Robinson of the The Washington Post, Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times and Jay Bookman of The Atlanta Journal Constitution would all publish the same message? Maybe. But these guys are heavily invested in getting Senator Obama elected president, so there’s doubt.

“Talking Points” believes the Obama campaign, sensing weakness after Hillary’s embarrassing Bosnia misstatement, may have reached out, as they say in California, to their embedded people in the media. Of course, Robinson, Kristof and Bookman were more than happy to oblige.
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>May I ask, what is Nancy Grace doing in this? Its a pretty sharp promo IMO, but Grace seems out of place. Sorry for the very end getting cut, but I’m busy watching a movie..

>Just checking out my new Red Lasso action. I’ll probably get around to making my own clips from there.. but this one was already waiting for me, eh.

Via The Reflector
By Jed Pressgrove
CNN.com grants knowledge to all

You learn a lot from political coverage. The past week has been especially nurturing to my knowledge bank.

Ergo, a substantial change in my political orientation occurred March 30. I am voting for Hillary Clinton now.

I consider this a new chapter in the book I call “My Life As a Book.” This new chapter is brought to you by inspiration, which was brought to me by the similarly inspired news organization known as CNN.

To be accurate, I was born again online at CNN.com. This is proof the Internet can have a positive effect on the individual.

They have this link on CNN.com that reads “The Political Ticker.” This link rightfully falls under the umbrella of “Hot Topics,” this one so hot I started to imagine my mouse setting my hand aflame.
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Via CJR
By Liz Cox Barrett
CNN on “The Vanna Vote”

It’s on! The media’s hunt to locate - and coin a snappy moniker for—2008’s must-get swing vote (that subset of the population who, by dint of sharing a single trait, might be counted on to vote monolithically and therefore swing the election to their chosen candidate.)

Election 2004 saw, among others, Strip Club Dads, Hook and Bullet voters, and WINDOWS (widowed, independent, on-their-own women) all ID’s at some point by the press as the Voter To Get.

And this year? “The Vanna Vote.” According to CNN yesterday: “Election 2008 is all about game show watchers and connecting with them.” Specifically, apparently, Clinton, McCain and Obama have together spent more on ad buys during Wheel of Fortune than any other single TV show.
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Via paidContent
By Joseph Weisenthal
CNBC: Ad Revs Up 17 Percent In ‘07, 15,000 Webcast Subscribers

Yep, CNBC still dominates the cable news game, even if it let upstart rival Fox Business News have MLK day—when foreign markets imploded—all to itself. In fact, as Fortune’s Jessi Hempel points out in a glowing piece on the network, the combination of the credit crunch and line-up of high testosterone programming has fueled higher ratings and profits—ad revenue was up 17 percent in 2007, by one outside estimate to, to $211 million. And really, it’s not so slow footed: on the Monday that Bear Stearns fell to $2 per share, the channel had a documentary ready to go that night (no doubt we’ll be seeing this documentary for some time, probably even next MLK day. Hey, it beats another special on Wal-Mart.).
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Via Radar Online
By Tyler Gray
CNBC Reporter Cozies Up to Bear Stearns Savior

Is Michelle Caruso-Cabrera trying to become the new “Money Honey” on CNBC? Rumor has it, she’s torn a page out of fellow so-called anchor babe Maria Bartiromo’s play book, covering the $30 million Bear Stearns bailout while allegedly dating the man who orchestrated it, Gary Parr. He’s the deputy chairman of Lazard Frères & Co., a 50-year-old divorced dad of two who devised the plan to funnel $30 million of Fed-backed money into the tanking bank, the fifth largest on Wall Street. He’s the guy Bear Stearns CEO Alan Schwartz desperately dialed as he learned of the investor run on the Wall Street behemoth. He’s also a big investor in indie films, having backed Proof and At Home at the End of the World, and he’s known for wining and dining journos at premieres. But, rumor has it, Caruso-Cabrera is his favorite.
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Via NYTimes
Politics Benefits CNN
By BILL CARTER

The political season continues to be very good to CNN, which will officially announce on Tuesday that for the first time since 2001, it managed to beat the Fox News Channel in prime time for one quarter of the year in the category of news viewers most desirable to advertisers, according to Nielsen. Thanks to its debate coverage and heavy focus on the presidential primaries, CNN’s ratings in prime time for viewers 25 to 54 were up 90 percent, to an average of 453,000 for the first quarter of 2008. That was enough to edge past the perennial leader, Fox, which had 438,000 viewers, up 12 percent from last year. MSNBC also had a strong quarter in prime time, growing 68 percent to 329,000 viewers. CNN has done especially well on the nights of contested primaries, winning every night in those ratings except one, the Florida primary on Jan. 29. That was the only night when the Republican race was of higher interest than the Democratic one, and Fox won that night. Among total viewers in prime time, Fox maintained its leadership position in the first quarter with an average of 1.8 million viewers, up 14 percent from last year. CNN grew 67 percent to 1.3 million viewers. MSNBC was up 59 percent to 791,000 viewers.