Laying Less Cable

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Cable television viewership declined at the three largest cable networks, according to the Huffington Post, citing a report in Variety.

Fox News Channel remained the alpha dog among its competitors, but experienced a 13 percent drop in its prime time audience compared to a year ago, according to Variety. Likewise, MSNBC was off 29 percent and CNN 15 percent.  HLN actually showed a 21 percent gain over its 2012 audience.

With 2014 being an election year, polarized voters are likely to boost their favorite cable news network ratings.

Cuomo Vadis?

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Media circles were all abuzz yesterday when CNN New Day host Chris Cuomo interviewed his bro, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, about Sunday's tragic Metro-North train derailment, according to a story in today's New York Times.

Conflict of interest, wailed some media types who watched the six-minute interview, arguing that journalists can't objectively cover family members. No attempt to deceive viewers, countered defenders of the interview, who considered the kerfuffle much ado about nothing.

For his part, Chris Cuomo said he would not interview Andrew for a political story, but saw no problem soliciting information from him about the train disaster. As for the ethics-sensitive staff of "TUOL," we can't wait for TLC to air a reality show featuring Chris, Andrew and most essential, papa Mario. They can call it Cuomo Esta Ustad?--it's got to be more insightful than Honey Boo-Boo.

Did Crossfire Newt Cross CNN Disclosure Rules?

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The quartet of co-hosts of CNN-resurrected Crossfire (see "TUOL" post 6/27/13) have barely had time to settle into full-throated shouting at one another, and already former House Speaker and perpetual presidential candidate Newt Gingrich may be headed for a woodshed spanking, Politico reports.

According to a report by the decidedly not impartial liberal watchdog Media Matters for America, Gingrich seems to have run afoul of standards and practices set by CNN ("Crossfire? No! No!") by allegedly not disclosing political contributions made by him or a PAC in which he is involved to candidates who appear on, or are the subject of discussion on the program. CNN didn't respond to Politico's request for comment.

Mother Jones magazine claims Gingrich's PAC recently has sweetened the respective pots of Sen. Rand Paul (R.-Ky.), a Crossfire guest, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R.-Tex.), a topic of discussion on the gabfest, without Gingrich acknowledging either contribution on-air.

Much ado about nothing and "gotcha" journalism, "TUOL" unabashedly concedes. It is refreshing, however, to write about a Gingrich gaffe that doesn't involve lunar colonies or isn't serial marriage-related.

'Pranked' TV Station Faces Defamation Suit from Asiana Airlines

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Still reeling from the July 6 crash-landing of its Flight 214 at San Francisco International Airport that killed three and injured 180, Asiana Airlines is in no mood for puerile racist humor, and will file a defamation suit against the "pranked" Oakland TV news station that aired an erroneous story about the disaster, according to reports by CNN and the Associated Press.

KTVU-TV anchor Tori Campbell promptly apologized on-air after the station named and displayed a graphic identifying the pilots of the ill-fated Korean flight with the bogus names of Wi Tu Lo, Ho Li Fuk, Sum Ting Wong and Bang Ding Ow. The station, a CNN affiliate, said a National Safety Transportation Board official, who later proved to be an unidentified summer intern, confirmed the accuracy of the offensive names before the station ran the information. The NTSB has also issued an apology.

Asiana Airlines said it planned to take legal action because it was "demeaned" by the racially discriminatory account of the crash by KTVU-TV. Poor taste, however, is not the standard for prevailing in a defamation case, and it's difficult to envision how Asiana Airline's reputation was damaged by the false report. Except for the station's news executives who were asleep at the wheel, most people who heard the account probably did not believe the ridiculous names. Neither could KTVU-TV be found liable for actual malice, because, although it didn't distinguish itself journalistically by falling for the cruel prank, it did, nonetheless, attempt to corroborate the phony names by contacting the NTSB, a sound journalistic practice.

Asiana Airlines would be better served by reviewing its flight training practices than by bringing dubious face-saving lawsuits, and the doofus responsible for the wacky monikers might consider how he or she would explain to the survivors and family members of the Flight 214 fatalities why his or her attempt at humor was so screamingly funny.

From CNN to AJA: Soledad O'Brien Joins Al Jazeera America

 Al Jazeera America ("AJA") has added some star power to its August Prime-Time launch (see "TUOL" post 6/12/13) with the hiring of CNN and NBC veteran Soledad O'Brien, The Wrap reported yesterday.

O'Brien will be special correspondent for the America Tonight current affairs magazine program and also will produce documentaries through her Starfish Media Group production company for the Qatari government-funded news network.  O'Brien formerly anchored Weekend Today for NBC News before moving over to CNN where she co-anchored American Morning and later, Starting Point (see "TUOL" post 2/20/13).

                                                                                 

'Crossfire' Redux

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When NBC Universal/ Today Show wunderkind Jeff Zucker took the helm of CNN (see "TUOL" post 11/30/12), he promised fresh programming and a Prime Time shake-up of the cable news network mired in poor ratings (see "TUOL" posts 5/3/12, 3/30/10).

According to a story by mediabistro.com's TV Newser blog, cutting-edge tv apparently means reviving Crossfire (Crossfire 2.0?), the political debate program that anchored CNN for more than two decades before it was cancelled in January 2005.

The TV Newser item about the political gabfest announced the talking heads who will appear on the program. On the political right will be S.E. Cupp, currently on MSNBC's The Cycle and a contributor to The Blaze, and Georgia's own perennially unsuccessful GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, a veteran of Congress and marriage. On the left, will be one-time Obama White House adviser Van Jones and former Obama campaign consultant Stephanie Cutler. The audience, meanwhile, will likely be on Fox, MSNBC and the Food Network.

From 'Spin Cycle' to Washed Up: Howard Kurtz Joins Fox News Watch

Howard Kurtz, former long-time Washington Post media critic and current host of CNN's Reliable Sources, will anchor Fox News Watch beginning July 1 and will also serve as an on-air analyst and online columnist for Fox News, Mediaite.com reports.

The 59-year-old Brooklyn native has not had the best of years. Reportedly, CNN had no plans to renew Kurtz's contract. Last month, Kurtz was dumped by The Daily Beast ("TDB") for whom he was Washington bureau chief, because of his error-laden reporting about NBA player Jason Collins coming out as gay and because of what TDB perceived was his excessive time commitment to an outside venture, The Daily Download.

Kurtz, a one-time fave of "TUOL," is the author of The Fortune Tellers, Spin Cycle, Media Circus and Hot Air, the latter of which focuses on right-leaning talk radio. Now Fox News chief Roger Ailes, whom Kurtz has interviewed on numerous occasions, is his boss.

It remains to be seen whether Kurtz will be able to ply what he considers his stock and trade--independent media criticism--for Fox.

Bloomberg News Plays Matchmaker; Wonders if CBS & Time Warner Will Hook-Up

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It's spring and romance is in the air, which has Bloomberg News all atwitter in an article contemplating a union between thriving media giants Time Warner and CBS.

Time Warner may still be on the rebound from its painful 2009 break-up with AOL, with which it exchanged vows in 2001 to the tune of $124 billion. Both Time Warner and CBS already have dipped their toes in relationship waters as partners in the CW Network.

Bloomberg News reported that both merger candidates are attractive New Yorkers, with CBS presently the broadcast television ratings champ and Time Warner, owner of cable outlets CNN and TNT along with one of Hollywood's busiest movie studios. Whether the match made in broadcast heaven occurs depends largely on the whims of 89-year-old mogul Sumner Redstone, who holds more than three-quarters of CBS's voting rights.

The Bloomberg article speculates that CBS could come with a $35 billion price tag, not including the cost of catering,a band and the honeymoon. Neither of the would-be lovebirds commented for the story.

Fraying Cable News Audience

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The Huffington Post reported today that all three major cable news outlets, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, continue to suffer lower ratings than in Election Year 2012, with a notable loss among the age 25 to 54 demographic group that advertisers crave.

Fox sustained a 33 percent drop-off in its viewership, followed by CNN's 28 percent plunge and MSNBC's more modest 4 percent loss, according to the Huffington Post article. Fox News, still in first place among cable news viewers for its 11th straight year, may take note that bloviator Bill O'Reilly's demographic ratings sank 26 percent. Look for his next best-selling historical tome to be entitled: "Who Killed My Show?"

Lest one think the cable audience is smartening up, CNN's sister network, HLN, enjoyed a skyrocketing 17 percent increase in its audience (and a 23 percent boost among age 25-54 viewers) owing to its around the clock coverage of the Jodi Arias murder trial.

CNN Assembles Cast for A.M. Show Spring Debut

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Ratings-starved CNN, which will debut its new New York-based morning show sometime this spring, yesterday announced the team who will helm the program, the Huffington Post reported.

Chris Cuomo, who joined CNN two months ago after serving as co-anchor of ABC's 20/20 and as the network's chief law and justice correspondent, will co-host the morning show alongside Kate Bolduan, CNN's Congressional correspondent and Situation Room co-host.  Michaela Pereira, former anchor of KTLA 5 Morning News in Los Angeles, will handle the morning program's news anchor duties, according to the Huffington Post article.

CNN President Jeff Zucker kvelled about the program's "dynamic team."  Of course, every morning show crew that has ever existed has been labeled a dynamic team, even Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson and Brian Kilmeade of Fox & Friends on the Fox News Channel (a/k/a  The Cartoon Network), but Zucker was executive producer of the highly successful Today Show on NBC for 16 years, so "TUOL"'s morning radio-listening staff will cut him some slack.

CNN has not divulged the name of its exciting new morning show, but based on the ratings of its other non-newscast programming, it might consider Poison or Morning Sickness.

'So Long Dad' O'Brien: Anchor Expected to Leave CNN

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Soledad is Spanish for solitude. The New York Post is reporting that CNN morning anchor Soledad O'Brien may soon have plenty of "alone time" as she appears on her way out at CNN as part of the cable news network's personnel shake-up under new boss Jeff Zucker.

O'Brien, who has hosted Starting Point in the a.m. since January 2012, is being supplanted by Erin Burnett, who will take her place alongside recent CNN arrival Chris Cuomo, according to the Post article. O'Brien, who left NBC for CNN in 2003, has helmed documentaries such as Black in America and formerly hosted American Morning.

The Post indicated O'Brien's departure, in part, stems from her being miffed about not receiving a long-promised Prime Time slot on CNN. The network did not respond to the Post article.

Prognosticator Morris Has More Lives than a Cat, but not at Fox

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Political ouija board enthusiast Dick Morris, no longer red-faced over his unequivocal forecast of a Mitt Romney landslide victory in last November's presidential election, is out as a commentator for Fox News, the Washington Post reported.

True to form, the 63-year-old Morris didn't predict being jettisoned by Fox News, which apparently believes it is sufficiently covered in divorced-from-reality political prognostication by keeping Karl Rove on the payroll.  Fret not about the future of the former mainstay on The O'Reilly Factor and Hannity conservative gabfests, as the Washington Times reports that Morris will appear on Piers Morgan's talk show on CNN tonight and is bringing a steamer trunk and several suitcases with him. "TUOL" sees a Dick Morris hologram in CNN's future.

CNN Favoring Curry?

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Ann Curry, unceremoniously dumped by The Today Show, but still under contract to NBC News, is looking to jump to CNN, where she would be reunited with former boss Jeff Zucker, Inquisitr.com and other outlets report.

According to the Inquisitr and Radar Online blogs, Curry is asking out of her contract with NBC, but the Peacock Network appears disinclined to grant her request.  Were she just to quit, she reportedly would be constrained by a non-compete clause from joining CNN. Sources report that her attorney could opt to bring a breach of contract suit based on her changed status. Meanwhile, NBC has been trying to arrange a lunch with Curry and Today Show host Matt Lauer, who has been excoriated by the public and blamed for Curry's ouster from Today.

Those keeping score may find it difficult to discern which networks are currying favor and favoring Curry.

Where Ya' Been, Tapper? Talking to CNN...

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Jake Tapper, Senior White House  Correspondent for ABC News since 2008, will leave the network after nine years to join CNN, where he will host an afternoon news program, The New York Times reported today.

Tapper, who hosted a weekend gabfest called Take 5 for CNN in 2001, will begin anchoring a weekday afternoon program for CNN in a yet-to-be-disclosed time slot beginning in January 2013. Additionally, he will be the cable network's chief White House correspondent. His departure from ABC was expected after he was passed over as host of the Sunday morning news program This Week in favor of George Stephanopoulous.

CNN Zucker-Punched

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Jeff Zucker, 47, is the incoming president of CNN Worldwide, a new chapter in a career that has included stints as executive producer of  NBC's Today Show at age 26, head of NBC Universal and executive producer and co-owner of "Katie," Katie Couric's talkfest syndicated by Disney.

Zucker will take the helm of CNN in January, succeeding Jim Walton, who completes a nine-year run in the position. CNN, CNN International and HNL are among the entities Zucker will oversee, according to accounts in the New York Post, Bloomberg News and CNN. CNN reaches a 100 million U.S. households, but its prime-time programming attracts fewer than a third of the viewers who watch Fox News. Zucker will disassociate himself from "Katie," though don't be surprised if he tries to lure Her Royal Perkiness to CNN's Prime-time schedule.

He is an accomplished broadcasting executive, though during his five-year reign as NBC Universal's Majordomo, NBC has finished fourth in network ratings, trailing CBS, ABC, FOX and just edging out the Emergency Broadcast Signal. When Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice is a bright light of one's oeuvre, it's ok to feel a bit jumpy if you're a CNN shareholder.

Zucker will be right at home at CNN, which currently languishes in third place behind cable rivals Fox and MSNBC. It remains to be seen whether moves such as enlisting chef Anthony Bourdain to host a program will reverse CNN's recent series of missteps, that include Piers Morgan and  Parker & Spitzer.

CBS Taps Garrett to Be Chief White House Correspondent

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If last week's news cycle proved bad for generals, it was a boon for at least one Major.

CBS News has named Major Garrett its Chief White House Correspondent, filling a slot vacated by Norah O'Donnell when she assumed hosting duties at CBS This Morning. Garrett has spent more time at the White House than Franklin Delano Roosevelt, serving eight years as Chief White House Correspondent for Fox News, and covering the White House during two administrations for CNN.

Garrett did reporting on the Obama/Romney presidential race for CBS. He will continue to write a column for The National Journal, which he joined after leaving Fox News in 2010. Garrett has a solid newspaper background, having worked for The Houston Post, Washington Times, Las Vegas Review Journal and Amarillo Globe News. He also is a former Congressional beat writer for U.S. News & World Report.

'GPS' Host Loses Direction--Suspended by CNN/Time for Plagiarism

(Photo credit: marsmet541)Add Fareed Zakaria to the list of prominent media types tripped up by allegations of plagiarism.

The ubiquitous 48-year-old Zakaria, who hosts CNN foreign-affairs program GPS, is a Washington Post columnist and a Time Magazine editor at-large, admitted his recent Time column on gun control mirrored a more in-depth article on guns in America by Harvard University historian Jill Lepore that appeared in the April 23, 2012, issue of The New Yorker.

Zakaria's indiscretion was flagged by the NewsBusters conservative Web site and further disseminated by media columnist Jim Romanesko on his blog. Zakaria has been suspended indefinitely by CNN and for at least a month by Time pending further review of his past work. Both are Time Warner properties.

In reports by the Associated Press and The New York Times, Zakaria was quoted as saying: "I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time, and to my readers."

Zakaria, who holds degrees from Harvard and Yale, was taken to task earlier this year for delivering a commencement speech at Harvard very similar to one he previously gave at Duke University. The staff of "TUOL" thought the commencement flap a bit of a tempest in a teapot as both speeches were his words and views speakers who ride the college commencement gravy train as somewhat like touring stand-up comics who perform basically the same routines at clubs around the country. There are a limited number of ways, after all, to tell fresh-faced grads headed toward unemployment or Starbucks barista training to "make a difference."

Plagiarism, however, is no laughing matter to this blog. Laziness is a common factor in the offense, and often in the case of new journalists, ignorance plays a part, whereas hubris often is the downfall of more prominent media figures. Whatever the cause, it's theft and a fireable offense in the eyes of "TUOL."

It's sad to see an intelligent individual such as Zakaria take the walk of shame that author/science writer Jonah Lehrer took last month (see "TUOL" post 7/31/12) and  that cost Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Sari Horwitz her job at the Washington Post last year (see "TUOL" post 3/23/11).

Social Media Onslaught Causes N.D. Daily to Rethink Same-Sex Wedding Announcement Policy

(Photo credit: DaKohlmeyer)When the Fargo (N.D.) Forum said it would return the $25 publication fee to 31-year-old Fargo native Allison Johnson and declined to print her same-sex wedding announcement of her upcoming nuptials to 27-year-old Kelsey Smith, it touched off a social media firestorm, CNN reports.

After a four-year-long relationship, Johnson & Smith plan to marry in New York on August 1 and hold a reception August 4 in Fargo (parking is easier and those meaty smorgasbords and potato dumplings are hard to pass up). Johnson forwarded a screen shot of the Forum's e-mail rejection of her announcement to an online reporter buddy who posted it on Facebook, Twitter and other digital forums, according to the CNN story. The image was shared more than 600 times and triggered a petition on Change.org.

The couple has since met with the editor and publisher of the North Dakota daily, and the Fargo Forum's Facebook page indicates that its same-sex announcements policy is under review. Johnson has posted on Facebook her open letter to the Forum and Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker, which asks: "...WHY, in a city we call home, where we are days away from becoming homeowners in Fargo, where we support every person that does good for their community, are we excluded from being able to announce our wedding celebration? What makes two women or two men any different from other taxpaying married citizens of  Fargo, N.D.?"

It remains to be seen how far the Fargo Forum will go and whether it will forgo its policy which would go far toward answering the foregoing.

Hits Keep Coming to CNN Prime-Time Audience

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)The devoted staff of "TUOL" has dutifully tracked viewers' migration away from CNN's slate of evening programming over the years (see "TUOL" posts 5/3/12, 3/30/10, 12/17/09), but rock-bottom may have been reached by the cable giant as a New York Times article today reveals the network's prime-time ratings for the week ending May 14 were its lowest since September 1991.

CNN ("Collapsing Nobody Notices") drew on average only 395,000 prime-time viewers for the week in question. Not to pile on, but among the demographic group advertisers  crave--25 to 54 year olds--CNN yakker Piers Morgan could muster only 39,000 watchers.  A cat coughing up a fur ball on You Tube could draw that many viewers within 10 minutes, even without a British accent.

Billionaire Buys a King

Larry King (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Ora.TV, a digital network startup owned by 72-year-old Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, CEO of Telmex and America Movil telcom companies and the world's richest man, is set to debut what is expected to be a stable of talk shows this summer, through streaming and apps on its Web site and elsewhere.

And the "fresh" face that will launch Ora.TV? That would be 78-year-old Larry King, whose Larry King Now will be posted online daily at 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. for watching by viewers at their leisure, according to an Associated Press story today.

King hosted Larry King Live for 25 years on CNN before being less-than-gently ushered out the door to make room for Piers Morgan Tonight. No, really.  Unlike his hour-long CNN gabfest, Larry King Now will air for 30 minutes, though may run shorter or longer depending on the person being interviewed and presumably, King's bladder control.

The energetic, suspenders-wearing Brooklynite aims to attract A-listers to his new Ora.TV project, telling AP that he hopes to interview President Barack Obama and  prospective GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

As the saying goes, "you can't keep a good man down."  Or, apparently, Larry King either.