Archive for August, 2011
Market Madness = Biz Channel Programming Changes
Posted in Bloomberg, CNBC, FNC on August 18, 2011 by icn2I already noted that CNBC will be doing a special tonight on the Market dive. Well Bloomberg put a release out that they too will be doing special coverage. I assume FBN will be live as well. According to Dr. Dollar FBN will simulcast its 5am hour on FNC tomorrow…
BLOOMBERG TV MEDIA ALERT: “MARKETS ON THE BRINK”
- AIRING TONIGHT, THURSDAY AUGUST 18th at 8PM/ET -
- Also available on Bloomberg Radio at 10 PM/ET -Tonight at 8pm/ET, Bloomberg TV presents a special live report, “Markets on the Brink,” hosted by anchors Adam Johnson and Lisa Murphy. The special will be followed by live coverage of Asian markets from Bloomberg TV’s studios in Hong Kong.
Tune into Bloomberg TV tonight for expert analysis and coverage of today’s plunge in stocks and Treasury bond rally, amid growing signs that the U.S. economy is stalling.
A roundtable of experts and guests will also examine the speculation whether European banks are undercapitalized, and if we will continue to see a massive exodus from stocks, while Treasury yields reach new lows.
Press Releases: 08/18/11
Posted in Press Releases on August 18, 2011 by icn2CNBC (1)
“CNBC SPECIAL REPORT: MARKETS IN TURMOIL” AIRS TONIGHT AT 8PM ET
“CNBC Special Report: Markets in Turmoil” will air tonight, Wednesday, August 18th 8PM-10PM ET anchored by CNBC’s Amanda Drury and Brian Sullivan. CNBC’s Suze Orman will discuss what you should be doing in this market turmoil. (Pre-empts “BMW: A Driving Obsession” and “Mexico’s Drug Wars”).
9/11′s 10th: NBCU Coverage Plans…
Posted in MSNBC on August 18, 2011 by icn2NBC Universal put out an all encompassing press release for its networks’ 10th anniversary coverage of 9/11…
NBCUNIVERSAL ANNOUNCES ITS BROADCAST PLANS FOR THE 10-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF SEPTEMBER 11TH
NEW YORK, NY—August 18, 2011—To commemorate the 10th anniversary of September 11th, 2001, NBC News and its fellow NBCUniversal networks and platforms will provide special coverage and programming options for its viewers. Online, september11.msnbc.com will be the source for 9/11 news and information, including archived coverage as well as new reports and story packages.
The following is a list of NBC’s broadcast plans for the September 11th anniversary:
NBC News Special Broadcast
* On Sunday, September 11th, from 8:00 to 11:00 AM/ET (5:00 to 8:00 AM/ PT), NBC News will air a special broadcast covering the nation’s tenth anniversary observance of the 9/11 attacks. (Sunday “Today” and “Meet the Press” will be preempted.)
NBC’s “America Remembers” special broadcast will include the official memorial ceremonies at Ground Zero in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and Shanksville, PA— the site of the United Airlines Flight 93 crash. Brian Williams will anchor from Ground Zero in New York along with David Gregory at the Pentagon in Washington and Lester Holt in New York. NBC News’ Tom Brokaw, who anchored the network’s coverage of the 9/11 tragedy ten years ago, will also join this special broadcast.
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The Hazards of Live TV: #25,119
Posted in Hazards of Live TV on August 18, 2011 by icn2It’s been a while since we’ve had a Jim Cramer meltdown…
CNNI Atlanta Set Refresh…
Posted in CNN on August 17, 2011 by icn2CNNI’s Atlanta studio got a refresh. CNN Observations has the screen grabs…
Talent Twitter 101
Posted in Miscellaneous Subjects on August 17, 2011 by icn2Twitter now appears firmly entrenched in the TV news business. But its application has been, in practice, all over the map, especially where talent are concerned. Some get it immediately and embrace it fully. Others…not so much. Many of the networks themselves are working hard at social media integration. NBC for example has a team of people dedicated to it and have held seminars/webinars on the subject – though it’s not clear to me whether they’ve established internal guidelines/recommendations on the matter and work actively with talent to facilitate a more robust Twitter impact. CNN is big on social media but I’m not aware of their social media team, if it exists. FNC? No clue at all. Though many of their talent are on Twitter I don’t get a sense of any organization behind the drive.
In an effort to help out some of those who might not quite fully understand the power of Twitter and how to utilize it for maximum advantage, here are my thoughts and suggestions regarding how to approach and use Twitter.
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Is Bill O’Reilly Passé?
Posted in FNC, Miscellaneous Subjects on August 17, 2011 by icn2A lot of ICN’s long winded blog posts, like this one is bound to be, usually start off with a simple thought or question and then grows exponentially in my head until my head can’t contain it anymore and it spills out through the keyboard on to the internet.
Case in point: A while back I thought to myself “When was the last time we had a really good Bill O’Reilly controversy?” The answer was I honestly couldn’t remember. It’s been that long. I suppose you could say O’Reilly’s appearance on The View that caused Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar to storm off could be considered somewhat controversial though I think the more controversial aspects of that incident were Behar and Goldberg’s behavior than O’Reilly’s. Going back before that incident I can’t off the top of my head think of a good old fashioned Bill O’Reilly controversy in quite a while. It seems on the surface like Bill O’Reilly isn’t capable of generating controversies like he used to. Or, put another way, it seems like on the surface that Bill O’Reilly has become passé. But is he really?
The O’Reilly Factor continues to be the most popular cable news primetime show going. Its viewership levels continue to easily trounce its 8pm competition. And there are no signs of that situation changing for the foreseeable future. Clearly, from a ratings standpoint, the Bill O’Reilly program and brand aren’t passé.
But from a headline grabbing standpoint, O’Reilly doesn’t generate the ink he used to five years ago. Five years ago you could count on an O’Reilly headline somewhere about once every two weeks. Now you’re lucky to get one a month except on a few sites that write headlines about anything remotely newsworthy regardless of whether they are really headline worthy. I certainly don’t write about him like I used to and I’ve noticed similar patterns on other sites. This seems to suggest a “passé disconnect” phenomenon at work where O’Reilly’s show continues to draw big numbers while drawing comparatively little ink on the TV sites. Why has this happened? Well the short answer is a combination of things are at work which have had the cumulative effect of undermining the necessity of an O’Reilly related post.
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Christine O’Donnell Walks Out on Piers Morgan…
Posted in CNN on August 17, 2011 by icn2Morgan tweeted the following on Twitter a short time ago…
BREAKING: Christine O’Donnell just walked out of my interview for @PiersTonight in disgust at my ‘rudeness’. Tune in at 9pm ET.
Don Lemon Profile…
Posted in CNN on August 17, 2011 by icn2The Philadelphia Inquirer’s David Hiltbrand profiles CNN’s Don Lemon…
This summer, TV newsman Don Lemon published a memoir, “Transparent,” in which he came out as gay and talked about being sexually abused as a boy.
Yet he got far more attention for a snarky three-minute segment that Jon Stewart devoted to him last month on “The Daily Show,” titled, “CNN Anchor Don Lemon appears not to care for CNN.” The bit consisted of a series of clips in which Lemon again and again curtly refused to engage in the usual happy-talk banter with the rest of the on-air talent. Lemon’s disdain for clowning had Stewart giggling uncontrollably.
Lemon was watching the show at home in Atlanta with a friend when he suddenly found himself being the story instead of reporting it.
“I was having fun, laughing and tweeting,” he says. “I tweeted, ‘Jon Stewart is going in on the President,’ ‘Now he’s giving it to Boehner and Congress.’
“Then it came back from commercial, and my name and face came up. I tweeted, ‘Oh my gosh!’ My friend and I looked at each other and said, ‘Uh-oh.’ He turned up the volume, and I walked out of the room. I said, ‘I can’t watch it.’”
Megyn Kelly Interview…
Posted in FNC on August 17, 2011 by icn2Meidiaite’s Colby Hall interviews Megyn Kelly…
Mediaite: Is there a disconnect between your personal experience at Fox News and the way you often see it portrayed in the media?
Kelly: I think people have an idea of what Fox News is. If people don’t watch Fox News, then it’s just a caricature, it’s not real, they have it in their heads that it’s something very different than what it actually is. I think to some extent the executives here have that same issue, and so does some of the on-air talent. I think some people really can’t stand, for example, Sean Hannity. But if you met Sean Hannity, no matter how far to the left you are, you’d probably love him. He’s a very super-nice guy, he always has time for everybody. Some people don’t like Geraldo because of his stance on illegal immigration or whatever. He is the most beloved man in New York City. You walk through the streets with that man, no one has the popularity Geraldo Rivera has. So I see that because I work with these guys every day, whether they’re executives or anchors, and I see it at a larger extent with respect to the channel.
A Challenge to the (Dwindling) Media Writer Class…
Posted in Miscellaneous Subjects on August 17, 2011 by icn2Is the Golden Age of Media Writing over? Based on recent history, one could make that argument. Back in 2005 when I first started blogging for ICN, I would spend hours each morning running the web reading all the media related websites looking for the latest stories. The list of websites was long and all encompassing; Ad Week, TV Week, Broadcasting & Cable, The New York Observer, The New York Daily News, Media Week, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Editor and Publisher, The Huffington Post’s Eat The Press, Brian Stelter’s TVNewser, New York Magazine’s Daily Intel, Romenesko, Page Six, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post’s Media Section, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and on and on. It was a lot of work but it would guarantee I would have three or four different things to talk about on ICN each day.
Those days of endless web surfing are long gone now. I spend about 1/5 the time I used to reading 1/10 the sites I did previously. It’s not so much that I cut back because I wanted to throttle back on my reading but that I throttled back on my reading because there was less of an insightful nature to read and I whittled my blogroll down to focus on the organizations that were still churning out quality articles.
The decline in volume of print and online journalism has triggered a corresponding decline in frequency of quality media coverage of the media as many of the writers who were really plugged in to the TV news industry, my niche, either moved on to other things by their own volition or were forced to move on or otherwise cut back on their media writing output for reasons not under their control. Gail Shister was the first big domino to fall and many more followed suit; Rebecca Dana, Paul J. Gough, Michael Learmonth, Jeff Bercovici, Rachel Sklar, Michele Greppi, Jon Lafayette, Anne Becker, James Hibbard, Felix Gillette, Rush and Molloy, Anne Schroeder Mullins, Patrick Gavin, Matea Gold…and that list, unfortunately, keeps growing.
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Business TV Ad Wars
Posted in CNBC, FBN on August 15, 2011 by icn2The New York Daily News’ Richard Huff writes about an ad skirmish that’s broken out between FBN and CNBC…
CNBC would never willingly sell ad time to FBN, but Time Warner did, where the spots reached metropolitan area subscribers.
Word is, FBN bought the time to run over the next week. However, by Monday afternoon, the “gone fishin’” promos taking a jab at CNBC were gone.
Press Releases: 08/15/11
Posted in Press Releases on August 15, 2011 by icn2CNN (2)
CNN to Debut Four Original Documentaries Marking 9/11 Anniversary
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Soledad O’Brien, Drew Griffin and TIME/HBO Presentation Report: 9/11 Ten Years Later
During the week leading up to the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, CNN will premiere four one-hour productions on its domestic network. In investigations led by chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, investigative correspondent Drew Griffin, and anchor and special correspondent Soledad O’Brien, CNN is reporting new insights into the health consequences experienced by the first responders working at New York’s Ground Zero, examining the events of that day through the eyes of people who were on the front lines of one of America’s most tragic days, and profiling several unsung heroines who saved lives on that day. A fourth presentation from TIME in association with HBO features a collection of TIME magazine oral histories from people who experienced the events of that day as they unfolded, and their reflections as the nation reacted in the days, months, and years afterwards.
“It was a day that changed us all and CNN is leveraging its unmatched resources to cover remembrances from around the nation and the world as we look back on 9/11 and what it means a decade later,” says Bart Feder, senior vice president of programming for CNN. “In addition, these documentaries tell stories we feel will evoke pride in the heroism and bravery of the Americans who risked their lives, and some who sacrificed themselves on that day to save others. And, they present an opportunity to remember the difficult work of first responders – and our servicemen and women on the front lines overseas – who continue to try to keep this nation safe each day.”
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Wolf Blitzer to Interview Barack Obama
Posted in CNN on August 15, 2011 by icn2CNN announced that Wolf Blitzer will interview the President today…
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer to Interview President Barack Obama
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer will sit down with President Barack Obama in Peosta, Iowa on Tuesday, August 16. In this one-on-one interview, on the second day of the president’s bus tour across the Midwest, Blitzer and the president will discuss a variety of topics from domestic economic and international issues to 2012 politics. The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer will broadcast live from Iowa today, Monday, August 15 and Blitzer’s interview with President Obama will air tomorrow, Tuesday, August 16, during The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer 5-7 p.m. ET.
What’s Hot/What’s Not: 08/14/11
Posted in Free For All on August 14, 2011 by icn2What’s Hot:
Market Turmoil – The business channels have had their focus squarely on what’s going on with the world’s markets this week.
What’s Not:
John Defterios – Questions continued to swirl around FBC Media and John Defterios’ role with that organization and CNN’s conflict of interest guidelines particularly where non-permanent employees are concerned.
Iowa Straw Men – Cable news became distracted fixated with the Iowa straw poll this weekend.
HLN continues to do away with news – TVNewser reported that HLN is having some layoffs as it prepares to retool its afternoon schedule with less news.
Market Turmoil Causes Biz TV Boom…
Posted in Bloomberg, CNBC, FNC on August 14, 2011 by icn2The New York Times’ Brian Stelter writes about how market turmoil is benefiting the biz channels…
Through the first two weeks of August, CNBC, a unit of NBC Universal, had on average 378,000 at-home viewers during the New York market hours of 9:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., up sharply from 224,000 in July.
Fox Business, a unit of the News Corporation, had an average of 107,000 viewers at those hours, up from 76,000 in July. Bloomberg Television is not publicly rated; private ratings indicate that it too had a surge in recent weeks, though its audience is smaller than that of Fox Business.
It is exceedingly hard to estimate the reach of the business networks. CNBC, despite being dominant, flatly declines to talk about ratings because it says Nielsen’s sample does not count out-of-home viewing or affluent viewers, exactly the kinds of viewers it says it attracts.
What’s Hot/What’s Not: Submissions…
Posted in What's Hot/What's Not on August 13, 2011 by icn2Post your nominations for this week’s What’s Hot/What’s Not. I’ll post the finalists on Sunday night…
HLN Changes…
Posted in HLN on August 12, 2011 by icn2TVNewser’s Alex Weprin writes about layoffs at HLN as the network prepares to retool afternoons…
Part of the strategy is to add more chat and talk shows in the afternoon, replacing the news-based format it currently features.
Despite the layoffs, HLN is not expected to lose headcount, so new positions have been opened to replace the ones lost
The Hazards of Live TV: 25,117
Posted in Hazards of Live TV on August 12, 2011 by icn2Well at least now we know who’s on Geraldo’s mind…(via J$)
The State of Business TV Punditry…
Posted in CNBC on August 12, 2011 by icn2The LA Times’ Mary MacNamara writes about recent business TV punditry…
Day after day, producers created multi-paned “Hollywood Squares” panels of financial pundits who yelled and fomented and pounded tables and said, “I told you so,” who flipped and flopped along with the numbers and spoke words most of us do not understand in the accents of the globe. We all know Asia is important, but do we care about Australian banks? Apparently we do. And if New Zealand has a better Standard & Poor’s rating than we do, I guess we best check in with them as well. What does this mean for the securities market? For the housing market? For gold? For Emma Stone’s career?
In fact, as is often the case with instant analysis of any event, no one seemed to know anything much, but that did not stop a single soul from talking his or her head off, from launching into such soaring flights of financial digression that 3-D glasses seemed in order — the intro to a recent episode of CNBC made reference to “concern over contagion” and “black swan boom.” “Is it simply a risk of urgent trade or are financial institutions also at risk? That’s one question we will try to answer.”
Not so well, it turns out. Those of us who do not have MBAs quickly surrendered any attempt to follow the actual conversation. We let the nouns go flying and focused mainly on tone of voice and demeanor, most of which were dialed so high that tuning in had the same physical effect of a triple shot, no foam latte. (How is Starbucks doing in all this anyway?)
Iowa Straw Poll: CNN Coverage Plans
Posted in CNN on August 11, 2011 by icn2Like every other cable network CNN is following the credo: Why marginally cover something relatively insignificant when you can cover it to death. You know Alcoholics Anonymous? We desperately need a Political Reporters Anonymous.
“Hi my name is John. And I am a recovering political reporter”
“Hi John.”
Anyway, here’s CNN’s Iowa straw poll coverage plans…
Tune in to CNN: Weekend Programming Originates from Iowa
CNN reporters on the ground in NH and SC
As the GOP presidential candidates gather in Iowa for the much anticipated straw poll, CNN will have its political team on the ground to report throughout the weekend. Today and Friday, CNN anchors Candy Crowley and Don Lemon begin reporting from the caucus state. Deputy political director Paul Steinhauser and reporters Peter Hamby and Shannon Travis are already on the ground reporting from the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.
Also beginning Friday, August 12, CNN’s political correspondent Jim Acosta will report live from the primary state of South Carolina. Senior political editor Mark Preston will report live from New Hampshire covering candidates as they campaign in the “first-in-the-nation” presidential primary state, where Governors Huntsman, Perry and Romney are scheduled for events this weekend.
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