The Ratigan Effect comes to MSNBC…

Dealbreaker.com’s Bess Levin notes some “turmoil” during Morning Joe yesterday when Dylan Ratigan “grilled” Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm

Big D was a guest host on Morning Joe yesterday and during an interview with Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm on the matter of General Motors, seemingly horrified his colleagues with his line of questioning. To us, people who are forced to watch CNBC all day and are familiar with the Englewood Cliffs Guide To Interviewing, it really doesn’t seem that bad. But I guess at MSNBC, you’re not allowed to get all up interviewee’s grills, cut them off, and demand they answer the question before giving them the chance to do so. It’s at around 4 minutes in that Joe and Co. start apologizing to Granholm, referring to D.Rat as “a spaz,” instruct him to “ask a question and be quiet,” and end the show by saying, “We’re very sorry about Dylan.”

Watching the video I think Levin is overstating things quite a bit. It wasn’t nearly that bad and I don’t think Ratigan was browbeating Granholm much if at all.

Spin Control…

Don’t take this at face value. Not by a long shot (backstory here.) If High was doing such a fantastic job…if Dayside was doing so phenomenally under High, then MSNBC wouldn’t be in the middle of what amounts to a near overhaul of Dayside which culminates with the June 29th launch of Ratigan and Snyderman’s shows. The writing was on the wall for High when they hired Miley to do what High was already doing. They worked out the announcement to make it look like High was still in overall control of Dayside by having Miley report to High. But it appears the intention always was to have Miley report to Griffin, which made High redundant. High still has more than a year on her contract and a VP title so she gets put on Ratigan and Snyderman’s show.

“Develop other MSNBC daytime programming” sounds like CYA to me in order to make it look like less of a demotion. What hours in the day does MSNBC have available to launch a new show? 9-11 is brand new. 12-1 is brand new. 3-5 is brand new. 2pm is sort of brand new (still waiting for Carlos Watson to start anchoring 5 days a week). That leaves 1pm which is Mitchell’s hour and, if you want to consider it available, 5pm with the first Hardball show. 11 am seems not in play because there are stories that David Gregory will get at least one hour a week in that slot, and probably Harwood/NYT Edition getting another (and maybe It’s the Economy though that seems less certain to me). So where does that really leave High room to develop anything? I suppose they could throw Mitchell under the bus as her show is the least opinionated, least prone to fireworks, show MSNBC has these days, which seems to run against the apparent direction Phil Griffin is pushing MSNBC Dayside towards (to my eternal consternation). But doing so wouldn’t look very good.

Press Releases: 06/05/09

CNBC (1)

CNBC PRESENTS “DOLLARS & DANGER: AFRICA, THE FINAL INVESTING FRONTIER” PREMIERING WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10TH AT 9PM ET

ONE-HOUR SPECIAL TAKES AN UNPRECEDENTED LOOK AT AFRICA, A CONTINENT RICH IN RESOURCES AND FRAUGHT WITH RISK

CNBC Special Anchored & Reported by CNBC’s Erin Burnett

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J., June 5, 2009-Libya, Senegal, Egypt, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria -CNBC’s Erin Burnett spent a year traveling to Africa to examine how the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression may be the investment opportunity of a lifetime in a continent full of riches and risk.

On Wednesday, June 10th at 9PM, 10PM and 1AM ET, CNBC presents “Dollars & Danger: Africa, The Final Investing Frontier,” anchored and reported by CNBC’s Erin Burnett.

Examining the Starbucks/Morning Joe Deal…

Ad Age’s Emily Bryson York writes about the Starbucks deal with Morning Joe…

Reports of the deal earlier this week estimated that Starbucks had laid out about $10 million for the sponsorship, but Mr. Davenport said that estimate is “way off.” “Anyone who’s been following our measured-media buying would know that figure would be a significant chunk of our spend,” he said, adding that the MSNBC deal isn’t among Starbucks’ biggest initiatives of the year. According to TNS Media Intelligence, Starbucks spent $28 million in measured media during 2008. The chain has said its spending will be flat this year.

The partnership, a one-year deal at the outset, will give Starbucks very brief promotional opportunities, during which Mr. Davenport said the chain will promote its ethical commitments. “I think one of the things you’ll see us do with this relationship is our ‘Shared Planet’ strategy and messaging,” he said. “We don’t see this as a forum for Pumpkin Spiced Latte, but a forum for talking about ethical sourcing, responsible growing of coffee and volunteerism in local communities. I think it’s a very appropriate forum for us to get those types of messages out.”

Reviewing the Glenn Beck comedy tour theater simulcast…

The New York Times’ Mike Hale writes about attending on of the theater simulcasts for Glenn Beck’s Common Sense Comedy Tour…

The small group that braved West 23rd Street was audibly pro-Beck, laughing at the same times as the capacity audience in Kansas City and occasionally saying something in menacing tones about the Federal Reserve or the progressive income tax. Being the critic, I didn’t cheer or heckle, but I did yell at the screen once, something I don’t think I’d ever done in a movie theater. It was 50 minutes in, when Mr. Beck announced that he was taking a 15-minute break and coming back for the second half of the show. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” was out of my mouth before I knew what was happening.

What comic — and this was billed as the Common Sense Comedy Tour — takes a 15-minute break? (Or does a two-hour show?) Maybe one whose live audience — and I say this with the utmost respect for both sides of this equation — has an age range similar to what you’d find at a Broadway play. But also one whose performance is an odd and unwieldy combination of stand-up, revival meeting, motivational seminar and stump speech. And that’s before Mr. Beck emerges from the intermission in white Colonial wig and knee breeches for an hourlong lecture on American history and self-reliance.

The Common Sense show was light on the histrionics and explicit doomsday talk that have attracted viewers to Mr. Beck’s Fox show and drawn condemnation from liberal commentators (though he did slip in a reference to thinking the unthinkable). There were no tears. Perhaps Mr. Beck dialed things back because the show is largely a promotional vehicle for his new book, “Glenn Beck’s Common Sense,” which he hawked from the stage and which was advertised relentlessly during that 15-minute break. There’s some cognitive dissonance there: one of his big applause lines, which is also one of his few clearly stated points, is “we need to stop spending.” On everything except Glenn Beck’s books and DVD’s, apparently.

Talking Head Primetime Invades Daytime: Chapter 4…

Real Clear Politics has video of MSNBC’s Tamron Hall losing it when someone points out her network’s “obsession” with Rush Limbaugh. There are ways to handle the baiting from the pundit from the Right. Mixing it up with him is not one of them. Bringing up Keith Olbermann, someone not known for news but partisan opinion, is not a good retort either. Is Hall angling for a primetime show?

But then what do you expect? You toss a match on gasoline you get an explosion. You do opinion and talking heads instead of news, you get shouting matches. And this doesn’t just apply to MSNBC…

John Roberts interview…

Marie-Joelle Parent has an interview with American Morning’s John Roberts on Ent Blog…

Q-Do you miss covering conflicts ?
A-You can’t say that you miss covering conflicts because nobody ever wants to cover conflicts. On the other hand, it is an interesting beat to have, the adrenaline of a war correspondent is almost addictive. My job now is being in the studio probably more than I would like, but we’ll see where things go from here.

Q-Did you suffer some sort of post-traumatic stress coming back from war ?
A-Yes, there is an interesting re-entry process when you come back from war in Iraq. You don’t realize at first the effect it had on you, it takes time. I remember one particular time, I was back from Iraq for 3-4 days, I was working at the White House, I was getting in a parking garage and some driver behind me was really aggressive and I just thought to myself if that’s all you have to worry about getting into a garage, then you really need to get out there and see the problems of the world. It really puts life into perspective.

Q-Despite the scale what would you say is the main difference between working for American medias and Canadian medias ?
A-The nature of it and maybe the level of competition between each show is higher in the States. I don’t think there is much difference now but back then when I moved to the United States, there was a media gap in terms of technology. Canada had one Live Truck and the TV Station in Miami I worked for had four !

Q-Who would you love to interview ?
A-Barack Obama since he became President, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Ahmadinejad.

Free for All: 06/04/09

What’s on your mind?

Ed Schultz and his contract…

Yesterday, I noted the Felix Gillette artcile on Ed Schultz’s contract. I was in a hurry to get that up and didn’t have time to properly flesh out my thoughts. So I’m going to expand a bit on that now…

Gillette wrote that there were rumors circulating that Schultz may not have a long term deal and had blowback from both Schultz and MSNBC that he did have a long term contract. Contradictory statements, right? Not necessarily…

It all hinges on how you define the term “long term contract” MSNBC says he has a 3 year deal, and that’s probably true. But is it a guaranteed to keep him on the air three year deal? Ah, there’s the rub.

Contracts have lots of clauses in them. Schultz’s contract included. What those clauses are is the key. MSNBC could have stuck out clauses in Schultz’s contract that could cover anything from “being caught with farm animals” to not reaching certain metrics in the ratings. The bottom line: Schultz could have a 3 year deal and still get dropped in eight months. Is it likely that would happen? I would tend to doubt it. Even if MSNBC were wondering if they made a mistake with Schultz, they’d probably hang with him for at least a year before dropping him, if for no other reason than the bad news for MSNBC angle that would come out in the stories regarding the network’s dismissal of him. Paula Zahn remained at CNN long past the time everyone in the industry proclaimed her program as the “walking dead”. Similarly, MSNBC has too much tied up in Schultz to cut him loose so quickly, especially after having removed David Shuster from the slot after a very short stay.

What I’m more interested in: Where’s all this internal anti-Schultz rhetoric coming from? Who has pulled out the long knives? Who’s agenda is served by trying to put the screws to Schultz this early in his show’s life?

Beyond The Pale…

I’m not going to be talking about that picture of those posters FTVLive has posted which is a take off on the Quentin Tarantino movie of a few years back. I think it’s in bad taste and to talk about it or even post it would in my eyes amount to tacit approval of it given the events of last weekend.

I fully realize that this issue is just about to heat up. It’ll go viral. It’ll wind up on The Factor (maybe, not sure, O’Reilly may choose not to respond). It may wind up on Countdown. But it’s my belief that even discussing it is giving it free advertising. So I’m opting out. The only reason I even have this post up is to explain in advance, with as little reference to the contents of it as possible, why I’m just not going there. I consider it to be something that could be read by some lunatic as an incitement to violence, even though its original intent was satire. Your opinion may differ.

“Business babes”…

The Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Neal Justing writes about “business babes”…

Not everyone watches just to check in on the latest financial tidbit. The Internet is chock full of websites dedicated to “business babes,” focusing more on journalists’ long legs than their knowledge of credit defaults. For example, in CampusSqueeze.com’s not-so-scientific survey of the country’s 20 “hottest news reporters,” seven cover business.

In an article for Best Life magazine last year, celeb economist Ben Stein described Fox Business Network women as “models who are basically telling us, ‘It will be all right. We’ll make up the losses tomorrow. It’ll be fine. Now kiss me.’”

Sandra Smith, a reporter for Fox Business Network, has a less piggish take on why women reporters have stood out in the last couple of years.

“I think females can do a very good job of showing the softer side when covering these kinds of stories,” said Smith, who hails from Chicago. “I can’t tell you the number of victims I’ve talked to who have lost so much of their net worth. You can’t just treat them like their only purpose is to fulfill a story.”

Ed Schultz: Long term contract or not?

The New York Observer’s Felix Gillette writes about Ed Schultz’s long term contract…if he has one…which according to Schultz and MSNBC he does. Uh, so where’s the story? It’s not like Gillette to rumor monger like this. He doesn’t tend to stick his neck out like that. So I’m flumoxed.

Perhaps as a result of the soft numbers, rumors have recently been floating through the TV news community that Mr. Schultz is working for MSNBC without a long term contract–the implication being that his future at the network seems far from guaranteed.

Not true, said Mr. Schultz when The Observer reached him on Tuesday morning. Mr. Schultz, who represents himself in all his business deals, said he has a solid deal with the cable news channel firmly in place.

“I have a three-year agreement with MSNBC,” said Mr. Schultz. “Anybody who thinks I don’t have a signed contract is completely wrong.”

Free for All: 06/03/09

What’s on your mind?

New programming for Bloomberg?

Marketwatch’s Jon Friedman writes about possible changes coming to Bloomberg’s programming. However a Bloomberg spokesperson tries to tamp down the speculation…

I hear that BTV is working on ambitious programming, including shows that could wind up echoing some of the snappier features of “The Daily Show.” It’s said to be using the working titles of “None of Your Business” and “Mad Cow.” It’s still early in the process and anything can happen.

I hope Bloomberg follows through on these kinds of ideas. It would be interesting to see Bloomberg TV — which, indeed, has been drab — adopt a looser format and try to inject some humor into its offerings. Bloomberg TV has been a reflection of its famous Bloomberg Terminals: straightforward, data-oriented and not exactly creative-minded or adventurous in its approach.

FBN and Populism…

Daily Finance’s Jeff Bercovici looks at FBN’s Populist angle…

Launched in October 2007, FBN struggled early on to translate its promise to serve “Main Street, not Wall Street” into a clear, logical identity — a struggle that’s been reflected in ratings so low, the network still won’t talk about them. But last fall’s economic meltdown, and the government’s response to it, have finally given Fox a raison d’etre: speaking for those who worry that the cure to the financial crisis might be worse than the disease. Hence this week’s programming theme, Red Ink Week, “a full five days of coverage dedicated to uncovering how the government is spending taxpayers’ money and how that will affect us in the future,” as an FBN press release puts it.

“Americans have bailout fatigue,” explains FBN anchor Cheryl Casone. “They’re tired of watching taxpayer money go to private business.”

With its unabashedly populist tone, Red Ink Week is clearly an attempt to tap into some of the same anger that fueled April’s tax-day “Tea Party” protests — protests that Fox is careful to insist it played no role in organizing, even if its wall-to-wall coverage did have the effect of promoting them and boosting turnout. The tea parties were a ratings hit for Fox News, and it’s likely they had a similar effect on Fox Business. And, while Casone says they weren’t the inspiration for Red Ink Week — “We’ve been covering this for months,” she says — it’s obvious the network believes it has discovered its sweet spot at last.

We have a winner…

…in the “Who gets Campbell Brown” first derby and it’s TVN’s Steve Krakauer…

The show has dropped “No Bias, No Bull” from the title. “It was a way to emphasize the distinction between us and the partisan programs at 8pm, and we feel like we accomplished that and don’t need to continue to spell it out,” Brown tells TVNewser.

Oh really?

Brown also says she wanted to do more hard news and that was a factor in all the new segments.

Brown says she came up with the changes while away on maternity leave. “There is plenty of opinion out there,” she says. “When I had the opportunity to step away and to try to look what was on at 8pm as a viewer, what I was craving was more straight news, and hard news especially. That’s what we want to be able to deliver.”

But the “new segments” move away from the direction that “No Bias, No Bull” tried to emphasize, which, despite what Brown or Jonathan Klein have said, was an opinion based one where the host’s opinions are the selling point.

So on the one hand Brown is saying “Mission Accomplished” on the opinion angle while her show is, in effect, taking on a different mission away from opinion and towards more news. So what we have here are what appear to me to be conflicting Brown statements. Or, put another way, one statement looks like spin, the other looks like fact.

My read: Brown was never comfortable with the Opinion label. She once said in an interview that she didn’t do Opinion. But there was a little buzz early on regarding a statement Brown made early on regarding freeing Sarah Palin and someone decided to try and seize on that so we got “No Bias, No Bull”. But having time off during maternity leave to think things over Brown decided that really wasn’t how she wanted to position herself or her show. The fact that the show hadn’t done much more in the ratings since being branded “No Bias, No Bull” with the “new” opinionated Brown probably played a factor as well.

CNN.com adds Black in America 2 webpage…

CNN.com has added a web page for its upcoming Black in America 2 documentary reported by Soledad O’Brien. The doc premieres on July 22 and 23rd at 8pm…

May Numbers: MSNBC…

MSNBC is noting its May numbers…

MSNBC BEATS CNN IN PRIMETIME AGAIN

MSNBC #2 in Total Viewers and Adults 25-54, #1 News Network Among Young Viewers, Adults 18-34, in Primetime

“Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” “The Rachel Maddow Show,” “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” Beat CNN

NEW YORK – June 2, 2009 – For the third consecutive month, MSNBC out-rated CNN in primetime among the key Adults 25-54 demographic in primetime and out-rated CNN in total viewers for the second time in three months, according to Nielsen Media Research data for the month of May. MSNBC was also the #1 cable news network among younger viewers, Adults 18-34. “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” continues to dominate CNN’s “Campbell Brown: No Bias No Bull” at 8 p.m., beating CNN for the 15th consecutive month among A25-54 and total viewers. “The Rachel Maddow Show” out-rated CNN’s “Larry King Live” for the seventh time in eight months in A25-54, while “Hardball with Chris Matthews” also out-rated CNN in total viewers and A25-54 at 7 p.m. Following are MSNBC ratings highlights for May 2009:

May Numbers: CNN…

CNN is noting its May numbers and has included a couple of slides…

CNN Has Significant 41% Advantage over MSNBC in May

HLN Audience Increases 43% in Prime, Most Growth in Cable News

Nancy Grace Posts Best May in HLN History; Surges 84% among 25-54

CNN Digital Remains #1 in April with 1.4 Billion Total Usage Minutes

More Video Plays in April than Yahoo!, MSNBC and Fox News Digital

In May, CNN easily outperformed third place MSNBC in total day in both total viewers and in the demo 25-54. For the month, CNN averaged 535k total viewers, an impressive 41% advantage over MSNBC’s 379k, and posted 154k in 25-54, 11% ahead of MSNBC’s 139k. May also represents CNN’s second best total viewer performance in a decade among total viewers with 535k, second only to last year’s peak of 577k during the prolonged primary season.

Arwa Damon Profile…

The Saratogian’s Paul Post profiles CNN’s Arwa Damon regarding her return to her alma mater…

“I believe in serendipity,” said Damon, 31, a 1999 Skidmore grad. “Opportunities are out there. You just have to find them. There’s always a way to make things happen.”

This weekend, she returned to Skidmore for the school’s annual alumni reunion, with about 1,000 people on hand. Overlooking the green outside Case Hall, she reflected on her six years in Iraq and other stories that lie ahead.

“I don’t think an exit any time soon is in Iraq’s best interests,” Damon said. “No matter how you feel about the war, America has a responsibility. The carnage is winding down, there aren’t as many deaths, but that’s not an accurate reflection of how the war is going. The Iraqi government isn’t ready to stand on its own yet. If we focus our anti-terror efforts on Afghanistan and Pakistan, it’s just going to pop back up in Iraq.

“The world wants the war to be over. It isn’t.”

Mixed reaction to Starbucks/Morning Joe…

Broadcasting & Cable’s Marisa Guthrie writes about reaction to the Starbucks/Morning Joe deal…

The deal – which includes on-air branding via title sponsorship that lets viewers know that Morning Joe is now “Brewed by Starbucks” – makes the relationship official, more conspicuous and, of course, gives MSNBC an infusion of cash. When asked to characterize the internal debate over the sponsorship, Griffin said, “There wasn’t a lot of wringing of hands.”

“We have to look at new ways of doing things,” he continued. “In this day and age, you’ve got to be smarter and more interesting in the way you deal with everything in this business from advertising and promotion to the content you put on the air. It is so competitive out there. We are in the middle of a media revolution, and we’re also in the middle of a very difficult economic period. And you have to look at new ways of doing things.”

Me: Morning Joe is not a news show. If it were I would feel more strongly about branding. As it is I really don’t care that much. If MSNBC can hustle Starbucks into coughing up 10 million for Morning Joe, more power to them. Besides MSNBC, the past year and a half, seems to be regularly knocking down firewalls/barriers between what traditional TV journalism could/should and couldn’t/shouldn’t do, so what’s another one knocked down?

Jeeze, that was cynical…

Free for All: 06/02/09

What’s on your mind?

Tiller Hysteria…

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz takes a look at all the Tiller talk and doesn’t like what he sees…

We need to be really, really careful about blaming people for murder.

The reprehensible slaying of George Tiller, because he performed abortions, shocks the conscience. The man who pulled the trigger–a suspect is already in custody–is responsible.

But within hours, the liberal blogosphere was aflame with posts declaring that Bill O’Reilly bears some responsibility for the killing.

I’m not going to join the attack. It is perfectly fair to hold the Fox News host accountable for his words and to question whether he has gone too far in personally assailing Tiller time and time again.

But is it his fault if some abortion-hating fanatic decides to kill another human being?

If you believe in a woman’s right to choose, you have a duty, it seems to me, to speak out against those who would have the government take that right away. But if you believe abortion is murder, you also have the right to speak out against the practice. That is part of a noisy democracy that places a premium on free speech.

Tillman was shot and wounded in 1993, before there was an “O’Reilly Factor” or a Fox News Channel.

HLN to go HD?

CNN Observations finds a clue…

Un-Charted Territory?

The Right Scoop has a great set of charts of the year to date performance of the big four during the hours of 5pm to 11pm. If the chart is accurate Hardball edged out Lou Dobbs for the Demo and is nearly in a dead heat in Total Viewers in May. I guess we’ll find out soon enough… (via J$)

No Bias, No Bull…no more…

Tonight CNN very quietly (there was no advance warning) changed the name of Campbell Brown’s show from “No Bias, No Bull” to simply “Campbell Brown“. It’s about time. No…scratch that. It’s way past time. That original title was ultra lame and looked like a desperation throw to siphon off some of the opinion show watchers from MSNBC, HLN, and FNC. I read in the comments on another thread that the format changed too. Anyone care to fill in the changes in the comments below?

What other changes is CNN planning to fix its no longer 2nd place primetime lineup?

Update: Who will be the first to get either Jon Klein or Brown (or both) on the record regarding the change? Kurtz? Stelter? Calderone? Ariens/Krakauer/Shister? Gillette? Carter? The AJC?

(the above list is in my projected order of likelihood)

Update 2: CNN Observations has some info on the format change…

Tiller/O’Reilly/Olbermann…

Post your comments about tonight’s cable news commentary regarding the murder of Dr. Tiller here…

Hypocrisy?

I saw this when it started last night and passed on it but an emailer convinced me it might we worth noting for the alleged hypocrisy angle. Bloggasm’s Simon Owens blogs about the case of the banned O’Reilly.com blogger who posted screen grabs of disparaging user comments found on BillOReilly.com after O’Reilly attacked HotAir.com…

After Bill O’Reilly chastised a major blog for allowing controversial comments to appear below one of its posts, it was only a matter of time before one of his millions of viewers put O’Reilly’s own site to the same kind of scrutiny. Especially after he specifically claimed that he closely monitors his own message boards.

Last week, O’Reilly received harsh criticism from the blogosphere after he presented a controversial reader comment from the conservative blog Hot Air and made it seem as if it has been written by one of the two bloggers for the site (a caption of the comment was labeled “HotAir.com blog posting.”) When blogger Michelle Malkin, who owns the site, attacked O’Reilly on another FNC show for his misleading reporting, he offered an “apology” the next night.

“Miss Malkin is upset because I didn’t identify the ‘Hussein’ comment was made by a civilian — not her or her staff,” the host said. “And that’s true. I should have been more precise. But we often cite hateful civilian comments on blogs and say they should be edited, as we do on billoreilly.com.”

Political blogger Patterico (a pseudonym) decided to test him out on this claim. Because users must pay $4.95 to become a “premium” member before entering O’Reilly’s message boards, the blogger coughed up the money on Thursday night to gain access.

Campbell Brown returns tonight…

Campbell Brown returns from maternity leave tonight. Former President Jimmy Carter will be interviewed by Brown regarding the advice he’d give President Obama before he leaves for the Middle East. Trianscript highlight follows…

Campbell Brown: Weigh in if you will on the torture debate, what about prosecuting Bush administration officials who approved waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics. You know, there’s a real split in your party about this issue. What do you think?

Press Releases: 06/01/09

CNBC (1)

CNBC TO BROADCAST TWO-HOUR LIVE SPECIAL “CNBC REPORTS: REBUILDING GENERAL MOTORS” TONIGHT, MONDAY, JUNE 1ST AT 8PM ET

Special Anchored by CNBC Automotive Reporter Phil Lebeau and CNBC Anchor Dennis Kneale Live from CNBC Global Headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J.

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J., June 1, 2009-General Motors is the quintessential American industrial icon and a symbol of U.S. manufacturing for nearly a century. The automaker helped this nation win during war-time, battled international competition and survived the depression, and today GM has filed for bankruptcy and the future of the American manufacturing engine is in doubt.

Tonight at 8PM ET, CNBC, First in Business Worldwide, will broadcast a two-hour live special “CNBC Reports: Rebuilding General Motors,” anchored by CNBC Automotive Reporter Phil LeBeau and CNBC Anchor Dennis Kneale, taking viewers behind the wheel and looking ahead to what it will take to get GM firing on all cylinders once again.