Limbaugh Misquoted on CNN?

Yes, But, However’s John Romano blogs about CNN’s Rick Sanchez attributing a quote to Rush Limbaugh which apparently does not exist…

Yesterday, CNN’s Rick Sanchez quoted controversial talk show host Rish Limbaugh as saying “slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back. I’m just saying it had its merits.”

On today’s show Mr. Limbaugh vehemently denied that he ever said the quote and that he is working behind the scenes to get an “apology” from CNN and other media outlets that have attributed the quote to him. Mr. Limbaugh spent much of his three hour broadcast on the topic.

Update: Video…

Update 2: According to a commenter, Sanchez read Limbaugh’s statement on the air but neither retracted or apologized for the misquote.

The Hazards of Live TV: #25,021

Well at least the censor worked…

Thrust and Parry?

Mediaite’s Colby Hall appears to catch FNC pundit Bernard Goldberg changing his tune a bit regarding opinion jourmalism…

So to recap: Two weeks ago, Bernie Goldberg made news by claiming that Fox News hosts should stop claiming to be journalists. Then in response to similar criticisms made by the White House, Goldberg claims that the alleged bias is due to the fact that the newsroom now features women, African-Americans, Asians, and Hispanics who have all come in with a liberal bent, which didn’t exist when newsrooms were completely made up of white men. Got it.

Free for All: 10/13/09

What’s on your mind?

GE/Comcast/NBCU: Latest “Rumors”…

Reuters’ Yinka Adegoke and Anupreeta Das write about the latest tittle tattle surrounding NBC Universal’s future…

GE has negotiated a redemption option, that will give it the right to redeem all or part of its stake in the so-called ‘newco’ in exchange for cash at the three-and-a-half year mark and at a seven-year mark, the sources said. They spoke anonymously because the talks are private.

The new NBC Universal is expected to be able generate enough cash to pay down $9 billion in debt that would be added to its books as part of the deal, and purchase the rest of the company from GE.

“There’s a sense there will be sufficient cash flow to do that,” said one person familiar with the talks.

But under the deal being negotiated, Comcast would also provide a backstop of around “mid-single billion” dollars, if there is insufficient cash to buy out GE’s stake within the agreed time frame, according to the sources.

Talks between Comcast and GE continue, and it is unlikely the two sides will reach a deal in the next three-to-four weeks, a second source said.

There’s also this little nugget which some will take too much stock in…

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp (NWSA.O) and John Malone’s Liberty Media Corp (LINTA.O) are also interested in NBC Universal, though neither has approached GE so far, CNBC reported, citing sources.

While some no doubt would make a lot of hay out of a New Corp owned MSNBC and would count the seconds until Keith Olbermann quit, there’s about as much chance of News Corp owning NBC Universal as there is of the Red Sox winning the World Series this year.

Courtney Friel’s Whereabouts?

Questions are coming in to ICN about Courtney Friel’s status on FNC? She hasn’t appeared on FNC since September 3. She hasn’t appeared on The Strategy Room since around the same time period. And that’s also around the last time she posted on her Facebook fan page. Her bio is still up on the FNC website but that’s not necessarily indicative of anything other than she’s still on the payroll, not what her status is (e.g. Brigitte Quinn, Page Hopkins). So what exactly is going on with Friel?

Terry Keenan Leaves FNC…

Johnny Dollar scoops that Terry Keenan has left FNC “on her own terms”. I checked the FNC bio page and, sure enough, Keenan’s not there.

CNN Alters 360 Ad…

Mediaite’s Steve Krakauer noticed that the AC 360 ad which caused something of a commotion over the weekend has been altered…

CNN tells us the promo had audio dubbed in stereo, rather than a mono track. The spot has been remixed and is now more clear.

White House vs. FNC: FNC fights back…

FNC’s James Rosen reports on the White House/FNC War with new details (via J$)

Update: Beck had a (predictable) field day with this feud…

Free for All: 10/12/09

What’s on your mind?

Font Wars…

Cityfile writes about the Font Bureau suing CNBC/NBC over alleged illegal font usage…

NBC’s legal team has one more headache on its hands. On Tuesday afternoon, the company was served with a lawsuit by the Font Bureau, one of the country’s leading typographic design firms and the company responsible for crafting typefaces for the likes of Apple, Microsoft, and the New York Times Co. What would prompt a company that designs fonts to wage a legal assault on the media conglomerate? It seems NBC didn’t secure the rights to use a handful of Font Bureau’s trademarked typefaces. The same ones, we should add, that have been used as part of NBC’s fall marketing campaign to tout shows like The Jay Leno Show, Saturday Night Live and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Commentary or Opinion?

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz writes about comments NBC’s Richard Engel made on MSNBC last week regarding the Afghanistan conflict…

“I honestly think it’s probably time to start leaving the country. I really don’t see how this is going to end in anything but tears,” Engel said last week on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” He added: “The idea of going in to nation-build and win hearts and minds, I think, over the long term is kind of a loser.”

That sounds awfully opinionated for a working reporter, but Engel says in an interview that he wasn’t “taking sides. If it came across that I was giving my opinion or advocating one particular policy or another, I was just trying to reflect what I’m seeing on the ground. . . . A lot of Afghans tell me that over the long term there can’t be a military solution to this.”

The Future of Jeff Zucker in a Comcast World…

Bloomberg’s Rachel Layne and Kelly Riddell write about Comcast thinking about what to do with Jeff Zucker if it acquires majority control of NBC Universal… (via FTVLive)

Comcast Corp. is leaning toward keeping NBC Universal chief Jeffrey Zucker and his team if it gains control of the General Electric Co. entertainment unit, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.

GE and Comcast, the largest U.S. cable-television service, are in talks to form a company that would own New York-based NBC Universal, people with knowledge of the situation said Oct. 1. Comcast would hold more than 50 percent of the venture, which would include assets from both companies.

Lou Dobbs to FBN?

Buried in Brian Stelter’s New York Times story on the Obama/FNC feud is this little nugget…

Certainly, Fox continues to aggressively bolster its on-air talent, most recently with the hiring of John Stossel, the libertarian investigative journalist from ABC News, for its spin-off channel, Fox Business. The business channel is also keen on another administration critic, Lou Dobbs, who met for dinner with Mr. Ailes last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the meeting.

And there’s also this must read graph which some at 30 Rock and NBC’s D.C. Bureau will think sounds awfully familiar…

Mr. Beck, whose 5 p.m. program consistently draws three million viewers, is a “cultural phenomenon now,” Mr. Shine said. But this success has come at a price: he is the source of considerable discomfort for Fox’s journalists, especially for false statements on his program. In August, for instance, Mr. Beck claimed that Mr. Garrett was “never called on” at White House press briefings, but Mr. Garrett had asked a question that day.

As Beck gets bigger and makes more provocative statements will the tension inside FNC continue to grow? I’m not sure. As long as FNC doesn’t put Beck front and center anchoring news events, things may stay at the “hold your nose and continue to work” stage…

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 10/11/09

It’s an all Not Hot list this week…

What’s Not:

Fact check run amock – CNN fact checking SNL is like US National Team Wrestling fact checking the WWE. Why bother?

Tape heads – Everyone knows I don’t think much of FBN bringing in Don Imus and essentially giving CNBC a free pass from 6-9. It’s a brand damaging move in my opinion. So is dumping all your primetime daily programming for a bunch of documentary repeats which don’t always have a strong tie in to business news (despite what CNBC says). CNBC has thrown in the towel in primetime in the same way FBN threw in the towel with Imus. It’s all about ratings now, not necessarily about branding.

Drip, Drip, Drip – More FBN selective ratings leakage this week. Plug the leak with a “Do not open until we’re rated by Nielsen” sign on it.

Health care reform is either dead or on life support – The evidence? Keith Olbermann devotes an entire show to the subject. The problem with this is he’s not going to influence anyone since, given his audience, he’s talking to the choir.

Don’t quit your day job – ICN did Mediaite’s Office Hours this week. What were they thinking? Must have been a slow week…

Fractured Audiences…

Time Magazine’s Michael Scherer blogs about the fractured cable news audience but keenly notes a new AC 360 ad…

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn appeared Sunday morning on Howard Kurtz’s CNN show Reliable Sources to discuss her comments in my TIME magazine story this week. She continued her criticism of Fox News:

But let’s be realistic here, Howie. You know, they are widely viewed as, you know, part of the Republican Party. Take their talking points, put them on the air. Take their opposition research, put them on the air and that’s fine. But let’s not pretend they’re a news network the way CNN is.

The ironic part came later, during the commercial break. All morning, CNN has been intermittently running a promo for Anderson Cooper 360, a show that has long billed itself as a classic straight news program with an investigative front man who digs “beyond the headlines” with “many points of view, so you can make up your own mind.” The new promo, by contrast, consists of a woman’s voice, pitching Cooper’s show as, essentially, a liberal alternative to Fox News: “I’m a lifelong Democrat,” she says, “and that’s why I watch Anderson Cooper.” Hmmm. The voice goes on to say that Cooper is the person she can turn to hold “right wing” conservatives accountable. Cooper is not exactly aiming for the political middle ground here.

I do have to disagree with something Scherer says later on…

In Depth: Getting Played…

While I was away this week, and unplugged from the internet, a mini-flood of FBN ratings pieces hit the web, complete with numbers for Don Imus’ new show. Articles in Daily Finance, Mediaite, and Talking Biz News all played up the ratings for the I-man.

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out where these ratings leaks came from. All three pieces “acquired” the numbers from points unknown but come on. It’s obvious where they came from. They came from FBN.

If it was just one site posting numbers, it would be more difficult to draw such a conclusion. But three sites within 24 hours? That has all the characteristics of a PR blitz trying to build some momentum for Imus’ show. And given the positive spin in all three pieces you know these numbers didn’t come from CNBC, which must be positively incensed at having to deal with these unofficially official leaks. And here’s why…

FBN isn’t officially rated yet by Nielsen. They have more subscribers than FNC did at this point in time when it was publicly rated, and yet FBN is still not officially rated. I have noted this contradiction before and it still doesn’t make a lot of sense to me today.

More to the point, FBN is using this as a dodge. It hides behind the fact that it’s not officially rated by Nielsen and yet it continues to feed out ratings tidbits here and there to make itself look good. But if FBN’s official position, as noted in two of the above Imus stories, is that it can’t confirm or deny ratings numbers because it’s not yet rated by Nielsen, this selective leaking directly contradicts the notion that the numbers are not accurate. And if they are accurate enough to be leaked out piecemeal then all the numbers should be accurate enough to be released officially.

I have complained before about this problem. Nut graphs…

What’s Hot/What’s Not: Submissions…

Post your nominations for this week’s What’s Hot/What’s Not. I’ll post the finalists on Sunday night. And no, my appearance on Office Hours doesn’t count as Hot (but probably does merit a Not mention). And, yes, I got my snorkel back. Then the airline lost my luggage containing said snorkel…

Blogus Interruptus…

Ok, since y’all have been clamoring in the comments for a snorkel update, here goes… (for the uninitiated start here and then go here)

So having been told by U.S. Customs that my snorkel would be released to me I headed to the impound yard in Kauai. To say I was giddy would be an understatement. Snorkels are very sensitive. They can’t survive long on their own without their owners. Buuuuuuuuuuut…

When I arrived at the impound yard to retrieve my snorkel, U.S. Customs informed me that someone had broken into the yard the previous night and made off with it. Worse, they had very cleverly removed the GPS tracking I spent a ton of money on. I was crestfallen. So close…and now it’s gone. Who would want a used snorkel anyways? Yes, it was my first snorkel; the one I’ve had throughout my diving adventures – well, until I lost it that is – but it’s still just a snorkel. And now the trail had gone cold. All was lost…

But then yesterday an emailer and part time tech diver sent this frame grab in…

Free for All: 10/05/09-10/11/09

Behave yourselves…

Another Imus Profile…

Mediaite’s Steve Krakauer profiles FBN’s Don Imus…

Fox Business Network turns two-years-old later this month, and the biggest star on the young channel makes his debut this morning.

But it’s a familiar face – Don Imus‘ radio program will be simulcast from 6-9amET. Imus on a business channel: will it work?

“I believe it’s a perfectly compatible audience,” FBN executive vice president Kevin Magee tells Mediaite. “Don does a smart show. These are people who are curious intelligent and affluent. And that sounds like the same kind of audience we attract to Fox Business. I think it’s going to mesh like a couple of cogs turning.”

FBN has taken steps to ensure the show has a business vibe. There will be business updates every 15 minutes from FBN anchors Jenna Lee and Connell McShane, and the duo will host a web morning show, with Ashley Webster, on FoxBusiness.com during the block. And it’s not like Imus doesn’t talk financial news at all – when the story broke about Ken Lewis leaving Bank of America, he spent a segment on the topic (obviously with his own unique point of view).

Covering Afghanistan…

Broadcasting & Cable’s Marisa Guthrie writes about the news networks covering Afghanistan with the 8th Anniversary of the Afghan War coming up…

“There’s a huge disconnect with the American people paying attention in Afghanistan,” says CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who recently spent a week embedded with the military at Jaker, a remote forward operating base in Helmand province. “These are not stories people are watching. Frankly, when I was there, 60 Minutes was all over the place. CNN has a full-time correspondent there. There are people telling the stories. But I know for a fact that not a lot of Americans, no matter what they say, are interested or are willing to spend a lot of time watching. I think polls reflect that, ratings reflect that.”

Still, TV news divisions are going there. CBS News will commit half of each Evening News broadcast from Oct. 5-7 to Afghanistan with reporting from correspondents Lara Logan, David Martin and Terry McCarthy. In addition, Scott Pelley recently spent three weeks with a Marine company in Helmand for an upcoming report on 60 Minutes.

“This isn’t something we’re doing for ratings,” McManus says. “Stories on wars normally don’t get good ratings.”

NBC News will update Engel’s Tip of the Spear series about Viper Company, previously aired on Nightly News, into an hour-long documentary set to bow Oct. 11 on MSNBC. At ABC, Nick Schifrin is currently in Kandahar, and the network plans to send a second correspondent to Afghanistan this week. PBS’s Frontline wades in with an analysis of the counterinsurgency strategy on Oct. 13 with Obama’s War.

Don Imus Interview…

The New York Daily News’ David Hinckley interviews Don Imus…

“Fox Business is just a good fit for us,” he says. “Wall Street has always been our audience.”

On Fox, he’ll add business news and Fox guests and will share much of the screen with a stock ticker and news updates.

It’s all good, apparently.

“I watch Fox Business all the time,” Imus says. “I like having all that information. It says something is going on.”

What’s going on with the Imus show, of course, is whatever Imus decides.

“I’m in a unique position,” he says. “I can do anything I want.”

So he will be to Fox what he has been to MSNBC, RFD and radio stations like WFAN – a ship anchored in their harbor. In the community, but just off-shore.

“Our job is to watch the freak parade,” he says, and that includes the media he’s part of.

And Now, Don Imus…

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz writes about Don Imus starting today on FBN…

The program has always been a mixture of politics, sports and culture, melded to the host’s eccentricities and a brand of insult humor that sometimes goes over the edge. It seems an awkward fit with a network devoted to stocks and finance, though Imus begs to differ. “That’s our audience — an upscale, high-income audience,” he says. “We have to find a way to make fun of business people, but that should be easy.”

Fox will compensate for ceding the crucial pre-market hours by having business anchors Jenna Lee and Connell McShane do news cut-ins, and by airing an online business show in the 6-to-9 a.m. slot. Word of the debut “has already created excitement,” Magee says. “Imus will bring an audience to us. You’ve got to get them to sample.” As for the incident in which Imus called the Rutgers women “nappy-headed hos,” Magee says: “Don has more than paid his price for that. He was censured by the marketplace.”

Bloody Repeats…

The New York Times’ Brian Stelter writes about CNBC’s repeat programs…

For CNBC, the evening hours have been a dilemma for years. Its executives are fond of saying that its prime time is really the daytime, during the trading day in the United States. So what should the channel be after the trading day? It has fitfully tried talk shows and personal finance programs, but it seems to have settled on documentaries as the most effective option.

“Business documentaries have performed very well on CNBC, and they continue to do well as we expand into new time periods,” said Ray Borelli, a vice president who oversees scheduling for CNBC.

Last spring, the network canceled a 10 p.m. talk show with the advertising executive Donny Deutsch and put documentaries in its place. Then last month, it canceled an 8 p.m. summation of the day’s news and opinion by the reporter Dennis Kneale. “Biography” episodes and documentary repeats soon followed.

What’s Hot/What’s Not: 10/04/09

What’s Hot:

GE considering NBCU Options – News that GE is considering the future of NBC Universal and its relationship to the corporation is a story that’s just starting to play itself out. The future is uncertain. And we haven’t heard the last of this.

Disaster Coverage – Earthquakes in the South Pacific, Tsunamis in the South Pacific, Hurricanes in the South Pacific. It was disaster coverage week in the South Pacific. But the coverage was uneven. Some networks sent people over. Some didn’t (even as the death toll continued climbing in Samoa).

What’s Not:

We build you up, and we’ll tear you down – Amazing turn of events regarding the media’s coverage of Obama and the Olympics.

ALG vs. NBC News – The fact that neither side has stepped up and conclusively proven their case to be accurate just leaves everyone else taking sides; sides which more often than not divide along ideological lines.

We’re #2! No…WE’RE #2…but WE’RE #1 actually – If anyone wants a reason why the cable news ratings race has become rather comical, all one has to do is look at what happened this week. MSNBC put out a release noting it was #2 in the prime time Demo in September. CNN countered with a release noting it was #2 in Q3. But wait! MSNBC’s earlier release noted it was #2 for 2009 year to date. Meanwhile CNN was playing TV ads saying they’ve been #1 with the most eyeballs since dirt.

Lost in this back and forth was this: CNN claimed #2 for Q3 but it was only #2 for the month of July for the quarter. MSNBC was #2 for August and September. Which means CNN’s Q3 win rested on what happened in July. And what happened in July? Extended coverage of Michael Jackson’s death (he died in late June). So CNN was #2 for Q3 in part because of its smothering coverage of Michael Jackson.

Covering Disaster Coverage – One of the purest indicators of a news orgs’ abilities is the way they cover an unexpected major disaster. It shows their interest level and their ability to put resources in the region and how quickly they can do it. You’d think that what happened this week in Samoa, Tonga, Indonesia, and The Philippines would merit coverage by those who cover the coverage of the news. But you’d be wrong. Instead, most “media watchdogs” in print and the blogosphere focused in on Roman Polanksi’s arrest, David Letterman’s scandal, and the September/Q3 numbers.

ICN says you all blew it. You went for the low hanging fruit; the salacious and most meaningless news. You couldn’t even bother yourselves to note what network sent its people over to cover the stories. When the networks actually do marshal themselves for news of a life and death nature overseas in a country not named Iraq or Afghanistan, you don’t note it. Not your finest hour…

NBC = No Bucks (for) Chauffeurs?

Glenn Beck’s website has the audio from a radio interview with Katy Abram about allegedly being driven by limo to get in front of a camera for an interview on MSNBC and later on having the Limo company call her trying to get paid since apparently MSNBC hadn’t done it.

GLENN: And what is the new turn in this story?

CALLER: The new turn is let me explain to listeners. With these interviews when the networks call you, they will send a car to pick you up and take you to the venue or the video place where you’re going to do the interview.

GLENN: Right.

CALLER: And I’ve noticed that, you know, they are pretty expensive. Well, my husband got a phone call the other day from a gentleman who has a limo company who drove us to the venue for this MSNBC interview with Lawrence O’Donnell, and they never paid him. And so they’re looking to us to try and help them out to get paid.

GLENN: Okay. Hang on. Now, what do you mean they never paid him? I mean, this is whenever we have a guest on the show, we send a car, and we do this. Everybody does this. You send a car because you don’t want the person to get lost, it’s important that they are there for the satellite window, et cetera, et cetera. So we send a car, and we have these deals with car companies all around the country. So what do you mean they didn’t pay him?

CALLER: They haven’t paid him. Simple as that. So, you know, I don’t have a lot of the phone numbers from all these people, and I remember the name of the gentleman who set this up. So I’m in the process of trying to track him down but I’m not quite sure how to do that. But they want to get paid.

GLENN: Did you call MSNBC?

CALLER: I can’t get to him. I can’t get

What’s Hot/What’s Not: Submissions…

Post your nominations for this week’s What’s Hot/What’s Not. I’ll post the finalists on Sunday night…

Speculating on a GE/Comcast deal…

Multichannel News’ Mike Ferrel writes about the implications of NBCU being “on the block”…(via J$)

Several analysts have called the deal a bad move for the cable giant, perhaps harking back to its failed $66 billion hostile bid for The Walt Disney Co., which was rejected by shareholders in 2004. In a research note, Sanford Bernstein cable and satellite analyst Craig Moffett wrote that while the joint venture is less onerous than an outright buy of NBCU — which would have cost upwards of $35 billion — it has its problems too.

On the plus side, Comcast gets access to networks representing 20% of the total TV viewership in the country, including the perennial cable ratings champ USA Network. Other properties in the stable include CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, Syfy, The Weather Channel and Oxygen. And it also would gain a foothold on both sides of the online-content debate — it already has joined Time Warner in its TV Everywhere authentication initiative and, through NBC, would become a major player in online content provider Hulu.

For GE, which has struggled with big declines at its GE Capital Finance unit — segment profit at the unit was down 69% in the first half of the year to $1.7 billion from $5.6 billion — the deal looks a little better. While on the surface, it seems like GE is basically giving away control of its NBCU assets —the $6 billion in cash from Comcast will likely be used to buy out Vivendi — the deal does allow them a relatively seamless path to exit the media business.

Rick Sanchez and Cars…

In one of the oddest cable news tie-ins I’ve seen this year, Motor Trend’s K.S. Wang interviews CNN’s Rick Sanchez about cars…

When Sanchez takes a road trip, he rents. He took a trip back in 2000 in a Sebring convertible with his wife Suzanne, that they still talk about today.

“I love my wife and I want to be married to her for the rest of my life, but I re-fell in love with her when we flew to Los Angeles and drove up the Pacific Coast Highway,” he says. “We ended up in San Francisco in a completely unplanned vacation,” he recounts.

They took leisurely stops along the way. “We stopped on beaches, we stopped to make out, we just had a fabulous time,” he says.

It didn’t matter what kind of car it was. “It was just the wind in your hair, just getting away, just the two of us,” he says. “We felt like two teenagers driving by an ocean. Being East Coasters, it was so cool to experience that. Santa Barbara, Chinatown, the Wharf, the elephant seals on the beach as we were driving by. We stopped and hung out on the beach with them. We were just telling the kids this story yesterday. “