Outside Cable News

>I must admit, ICN’s “in depth” happens to be my favorite! So, head on over to Inside Cable News to read it.

In Depth: Profitability over Ratings?

Via Slate
The Worst Show on a Cable News Network
It’s still The Journal Editorial Report.
By Jack Shafer

If you’re sick of cable news reducing everything it discusses to a left-wing argument versus a right-wing one, tune your TV set to the weekly half-hour of conservative concurrence that is The Journal Editorial Report on the Fox News Channel.

Hosted by Wall Street Journal Editorial Page Editor Paul Gigot, the show draws its guest list almost exclusively from Gigot’s staff and contributors to his page, making each installment an extended exercise in groupthink. Dim groupthink. Dim groupthink punctuated with laughter and knowing nods.

When The Journal Editorial Report invites outsiders onto the show, it tends not to stray from its ideological comfort zone. In 2008, outside guests have included Newt Gingrich, John Sununu, Republican pollster Whit Ayres, former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, and three Fox News Channel contributors: journalist Michael Barone, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and New York Post columnist and “Fox News Analyst” Kirsten Powers, the lone Democrat.

>Read the rest at Slate.

Via Crain’s New York
By Elizabeth MacBride

Sunny Hostin’s life might best be summed up in small numbers: two jobs, two young children, five hours of sleep (if she’s lucky.)

The youngest managing director in the New York City office of security and investigations company Kroll, she spends the first five hours of each day as the legal analyst for CNN’s American Morning. She still makes it to the office by 9 a.m.

“A star lawyer, with high-profile government and litigation jobs on her résumé, Ms. Hostin was recruited from law firm Dickstein Shapiro a year ago to become a managing director of business intelligence and investigations at Kroll.” She and her teams of detectives are hired by private clients to scour the world in search of everything from people to corporate intelligence.
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Via Access Hollywood
Ryan Seacrest’s Blue Gift For Larry King
Ryan Seacrest has revealed he sends a monthly gift to fellow TV personality Larry King.

The “American Idol” and KIIS FM morning show host admitted it is a particular item of clothing that finds its way to the CNN “Larry King Live” presenter.

“Larry and I have been friends for many years,” Ryan told Access Hollywood at this past weekend’s KIIS FM Wango Tango concert. “I send him a pair of jeans every month because he loves [to wear] jeans under the desk.”

In related news, recently it was reported that Seacrest may be stepping into Larry’s chair, and while the spiky haired presenter sidestepped addressing the question directly, he told Access he plans to tackle it later this week when he appears as a guest on the CNN show.

“I will be on Larry’s show Thursday night. We will talk more about it with Larry,” Ryan explained. “Larry is going to be on CNN as long as Larry wants to be but I am going to be Larry’s guest Thursday night and Larry and I are going to talk about everything.”

Via NBCUNI Media Village
MSNBC PROGRAMMING NOTE: COVERAGE OF WEST VIRGINIA PRIMARY TOMORROW

Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews will anchor MSNBC’s special live coverage of the West Virginia primary tomorrow, 6 p.m.-11 p.m. ET from MSNBC Election Headquarters in New York, with “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams and NBC News Washington bureau chief and moderator of “Meet the Press” Tim Russert joining to provide analysis, along with NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd and MSNBC Chief Washington Correspondent Norah O’Donnell with the latest exit polls. Dan Abrams will anchor special “After Hours” coverage, 11 p.m.-2 a.m. ET.

Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and Harold Ford, Jr. will serve as MSNBC’s “Insiders,” providing insight and analysis throughout the evening.
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Via MediaWeek
Financial News Sites Bank on Video
Big financial news sites cue up Web-beats-cable sell
By Mike Shields

CNBC’s biggest threat at the moment isn’t cable’s recently launched, much-hyped Fox Business Network–it’s Web video.

Top business/financial news sites like CNNMoney.com and Yahoo Finance are pumping out more original video and now claim audiences approaching the daily ratings of the category’s leading cable network.

Such a Web-beats-cable story should turn heads in the TV industry, given the conventional wisdom that the audience generated by online video is purely additive. Thus, it’s a story some sites are bringing to buyers.

“I do think that we can start to become part of those conversations,” said Jonathan Shar, general manager of CNNMoney.com. Since dialing up video output in January from roughly two clips a day to upwards of 20, the site has shot to the top of Nielsen’s VideoCensus ranking for the financial news and information category, delivering 14.6 million total streams in March, nearly 10 million more than second-ranked MSN Money. CNN claims a daily collective reach of 807,000 viewers, over three times the 238,000 averaged by CNBC in April, per Nielsen. (CNBC officials did not return calls seeking comment.)
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Via TVPredictions
Dish Network to Add 22 HD Channels
The satcaster says it will offer 95 high-def channels.
By Swanni

Dish Network says it will add 22 High-Definition channels this week, starting with 20 today.

The satcaster says the launch will expand its high-def lineup to 95 national channels, roughly the same number as offered by rival DIRECTV.

The new channels that will be added today are:

ABC Family HD; Biography HD; Bravo HD; Cartoon Network HD; Cinemax 5 Star HD; Cinemax HD West; CNBC HD; CNN HD; Disney HD East; ESPNews HD; Hallmark Movie Channel HD; MGM HD; Sci-fi Channel HD; Smithsonian HD; Tennis Channel HD; Toon Disney HD; Travel Channel HD; USA Network HD; Weather Channel HD; and World Fishing Network HD.

>Read the rest at TVPredictions.

Via Washington Post/Newslab
NBC’s Primary Source for Election ‘08
Chuck Todd Keeps The Numbers Flowing
By Howard Kurtz

NEW YORK — In a borrowed office at 30 Rock, Chuck Todd is on his cellphone, telling a Barack Obama strategist that his boss will probably fall just short of winning Indiana that night.

“Are you really going to ask for a recount over one delegate?” NBC’s political director asks, swiveling in his chair. “It is literally one delegate!”

Less than an hour later, Todd is in front of a bright green wall in Studio 3K, a map of Indiana projected behind him, Hillary Clinton clinging to a fragile lead, when MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann asks: “Did it just end tonight?”

“It may just have ended,” Todd says, virtually pronouncing Obama the Democratic nominee at 12:09 a.m. Wednesday.

>Read the rest at Washington Post.

Via NYT
The Pundit Analyzing Obama? Some TV Upstart Named Rove
By JIM RUTENBERG and JACQUES STEINBERG

WASHINGTON — Late Thursday night, Karl Rove, the architect of the last two Republican presidential victories, was on his new television perch at Fox News, offering free advice to Senator Barack Obama as he closed in on the Democratic nomination.

Any move by Mr. Obama to declare victory before the last of the Democratic primaries in June, Mr. Rove said, would alienate Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s wing of the party. “That’s a mistake,” he said. “That just is rubbing the loser’s nose in it. And a lot of those supporters will remember it by November.”

In the Obama campaign war room in Chicago, where Mr. Rove’s talking head was just one of several across six television screens, his counsel was taken with a heavy dose of salt.

>Read the rest at NYT.