What’s Hot/What’s Not: 12/6/09 and 12/13/09

What’s Hot

Eric Burns vs. Glenn Beck – Burns voiced an opinion regarding Glenn Beck and FNC. Too bad I was away so I don’t know what the blowback was, if any.

Glenn Beck and Gold – This was the story that didn’t go away enough for FNC’s tastes. Bill Carter’s interview with Joel Cheatwood regarding the subject apparently wasn’t enough (and it really wasn’t since Cheatwood danced around the issue in his answers) and so Cheatwood gave a more detailed response to Daily Finance’s Jeff Bercovici. It was more detailed but it still raised questions as to why FNC would put itself in this position of an apparent conflict of interest. There may not be much substance to this issue but appearances matter and it’s appearances that are the problem here.

Comcast completes deal with GE to gain control of NBC Universal – Though it still has to clear regulatory hurdles, it looks like in a year’s time Comcast will be running NBCU.

Jeff Zucker re-ups with NBCU for three more years – The general reaction to this was one of flabbergasted skepticism. Fair or not, Zucker is widely believed by many in the industry to have failed upwards in his rise to the top of NBCU and the news that Comcast will have Zucker on board when it gets control of NBCU had these people shaking their heads in amazement. Zucker will have to prove his detractors wrong to make the skepticism go away. But he needs some successes with NBC in order to do that.

John Stossel debuts on FBN – I missed it so I’ll have to give my reaction at a later date when I can actually watch the show.

What’s Not

CNN’s 4th place primetime finish – And the downward trend for CNN in the primetime Demo continues. But that’s not as bad as…

MSNBC’s 5th place Total Viewer and Demo dayside finish – MSNBC came in 5th in total viewers and the demo for its dayside programming. Behind CNBC. But you’d be hard pressed to find mention of that almost anywhere but here. Indeed it was ICN which discovered that MSNBC fell behind CNBC not just in demo viewers during dayside but in total viewers as well. The first manifestation of a reaction to this was the news that Morning Meeting had been split in two temporarily with an hour at 9am and an hour at 4pm, with a permanent move to the afternoons planned in the start of 2010. But almost no one picked up what ICN wrote. Which leads me to…

The media beat writers and bloggers – With a couple of exceptions, the Huffington Post’s Danny Shea and Mediaite’s Steve Krakauer being two, the usual suspects were totally asleep on the MSNBC 5th place finish in dayside story. Even MSNBC falling behind CNBC wasn’t enough to prod them into noting it. TVNewser ignored it, which makes me wonder what exactly they’re in business for.

Open mouth, insert foot – Chris Matthews’ shoot from the hip style came back to bite him once again when he made a reference to West Point being the “enemy camp”

Branding run-amock – The Weather Channel’s recent foray into non weather news territory shows all the imprints of 30 Rock tinkering. And not in a good way.

Death in the family – I got my snorkel back in Hawaii but it got destroyed under the north shore’s pounding surf during day 1 of the Billabong Pipe Masters. Spud’s Snorkel (January 10, 2008 – December 9, 2009) is survived by Spud. Funeral services are pending. A memorial fund has been established to care for Spud’s Snorkel’s family in their time of need. Donations may be made through PayPal.