Swimming with the fishes…

Ok, here are the pics…

Liz Claman Profile…

The Orange County Register’s Peter Larsen profiles FBN’s Liz Claman…

Her sense of humor – the ability to take and deliver a wisecrack or joke – seems to have caught the attention of Jon Stewart and the staff at Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” who twice this year have invited Claman to be part of that program.

“That happened in the most amazing way,” Claman says of her first appearance on “The Daily Show,” a prepared bit based on the joke that the hot new website ChatRoulette was mostly frequented by TV news reporters and, um, perverts.

“Out of the blue I got a call from ‘The Daily Show’ that Jon wanted me to be part of a skit on ChatRoulette,” Claman says. “I thought that was a thrill – I’ve always been a fan.

“So I said, ‘Well, who else is going to be on there?’ – I’m thinking a couple of local anchors – but they say Dianne Sawyer, Katie Couric, Brian Williams and Keith Olbermann. How cool is that!”

That one was just a cameo, a non-speaking part. A month or so later, though, Claman got the Full Jon Stewart – a sit-down interview at the anchor desk.

Free for All: 05/10/10

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In Depth: FBN’s Incredibly Shrinking Business News Coverage…

Last Friday ICN broke the news that FBN would be canceling several programs including Fox Business Morning; the latter being replaced by a Best of Imus hour. Part of me was hoping my sources were wrong. They weren’t. My DVR showed the Best of Imus when I played FBN’s 5am ET hour on my DVR this morning.

I would imagine the reason for the cancellation of Fox Business Morning boils down to ratings, as most of cancellations do. We can’t tell of course because FBN continues to hide behind that “we’re not officially rated by Nielsen” sieve of theirs – it’s a sieve and not a shield because ratings occasionally drip out when the network…or its competition…wants to try and emphasize a point – but it seems the likely reason.

What is more telling however is the decision to cancel the show outright and replace it with tape rather than change the format or the hosts. Apparently tinkering was not an option. When Imus came on board FBN ceded 6-9am to CNBC and Bloomberg for business news coverage; FBN’s cut-ins and internet broadcasts non-withstanding. But it still had 5-6am for business coverage of pre market open news. Now that’s gone too. CNBC and Bloomberg now essentially own the pre-market open news cycle.