Barry Diller Goes On CNBC And Praises...Fox Business News!

Barry Diller, entertainment industry legend, recently appeared on Michael Eisner's "scratchy" CNBC talk show. The Cable Gamer didn't catch it there, of course, but happily, a little bird called "bizfan123" did catch it and was nice enough to put it on YouTube.

Diller must have known what he was doing--going on CNBC's air, and praising FBN. One wonders, of course, what Eisner was thinking, or expecting from his guest--and whether or not Diller will ever be invited back. And one wonders further how CNBC management will react.

Here's the good stuff: When Eisner asked Diller to assess FBN, Diller recalled that more than a decade ago, when Rupert Murdoch had told him about his plans to start a "Fox News Channel," Diller had dismissed the idea. And of course, Diller said with a smile, Murdoch had been proven right and he, Diller, had been proven wrong.

So now, when asked about Fox Business News, Diller saw things differently. He told Eisner that he gave FBN high marks "Because Roger Ailes is such a genuine talent...you can't discount what he'll be able to create."

For purposes of comparison, Eisner asked Diller what he would think about a business channel started up, by say, Time-Warner. And a look of horror came over Diller's face. "Oh no," he gasped.

The Last To Know?

NBC Universal's Jeff Zucker tells Crain's NY Business that NBCU is not for sale. Got that? Jeff is positive. So never mind the steady Wall Street buzz, about the de-conglomeratization of General Electric, just read Jeff's lips: No sale by GE of NBC--nosiree.

Of course, Zucker would be the last to know. That's always the case these days with CEO's on their way out. In all the big corporate defenestrations of recent years--Carly Fiorina of H-P, Hank Greenberg of AIG, Harry Stonecipher of Boeing, and, just today, Stan O'Neal of Merrill Lynch--the CEO was the last to know. That is, the board met, away from the CEO, made a decision, and then delivered the news.

Why? Because the CEO is always happy with the status quo--him or her being in charge, what's not to like? And since, typically, the CEO has a seat on the board, the firing majority needs to keep it a secret.

But note the weasel words that Zucker used, according to Crain's :

Speaking at a breakfast organized by Syracuse University's Newhouse School, Mr. Zucker said it made little sense for GE to sell NBC in coming months because of a variety of advertising opportunities that would become available.

Note the key phrase above: "it made little sense for GE to sell NBC in coming months." Well, heck, Jeff, talk about beating down a straw man!

Nobody is saying that GE is going to sell NBC tomorrow; they are saying, in fact, that GE would unload NBC after the Beijing Olympics, scheduled for August 8-24, 2008. And let's say that nothing would happen before the November '08 presidential election, either.

So The Cable Gamer predicts that Jeff has about a year to find something new to do--because that's when the other Jeff, Jeff Immelt, starts looking for a buyer.

Hint: Think a private equity player. They're all rich, but don't have the visibility to match their wealth. Buying a network using someone else's money? Now that's a plan!

"Sexist banter on CNBC" Where's The Outrage? Where's Anita Hill? Where's Media Matters?

That's the blunt headline atop Marisa Guthrie's tough-minded and well-researched story on CNBC's Dylan Ratigan in today's Broadcasting & Cable.

Or should it be Dylan RAT-igan? Guthrie (pictured above) reports, you decide:

On Friday morning’s edition of The Call, CNBC correspondent Melissa Francis, who was reporting on frenzied gasoline trading from NYMEX, asked Ratigan: “Is it as crazy on your exchange as it is here?”

Ratigan’s comeback: “I think if I was blond and beautiful I could draw a big crowd.”

Francis, visibly irked, responded: “That’s not what it is all about.”

As Guthrie observes, such pig-talk is part of a pattern at CNBC. Speaking of Ratigan, she writes, "He's been doing his best lately to alienate female viewers." She continues, "Sadly, such comments are hardly atypical from Ratigan and his band of merry he-men." Here's another one:

Thursday on Fast Money – CNBC’s signature market broadcast which was recently shifted to the high-profile 5 p.m. time slot to coincide with the close of the markets – Ratigan and Fast Money contributors Jeff Macke and Karen Finerman were discussing the upcoming auction season and Finerman’s adoration of investor Carl Icahn.

Finerman apparently bought a painting of Icahn at auction, paying several hundred thousand dollars for it. (Finerman can afford it. She runs a multimillion dollar hedge fund). Icahn joined the conversation via phone – and that’s when Macke took the discussion down several notches by suggesting that Finerman would have paid considerably more for a naked portrait of Icahn.

“She would have gone $2 million for a nude, Carl,” said Macke.

To which Icahn responded: “I would have bid that for (Finerman).”

After more back and forth about Finerman’s crush, Ratigan closed by thanking Icahn for “playing with us.”

But it's CNBC, and the liberals are rallying around CNBC--when they can. But we might wonder: What if these exact same words had been uttered on the Fox Business Channel? In that case, you can bet that Media Matters and all the other liberal pressure groups would have been all over this story.

But it wasn't Fox, it was CNBC, and so only a few gutsy reporters, such as Guthrie, are chasing after the story.

Fox's "Facing Reality: Choice": Fair & Balanced--But Don't Take My Word For It!

The Cable Gamer is kicking herself for missing "Facing Reality: Choice" on the Fox News Channel last night. It was, by all accounts, a fair-and-balanced look at arguably THE most controversial topic there is: abortion.

But don't take my word for it. The review The New York Daily News' David Bianculli is here. In that piece, Bianculli emphasized, "This one-hour documentary...doesn't pass judgment, and even gives the last word to one of the women, whose closing comment - about whether or not she would recommend abortion for others - is, just like the Fox News slogan, 'fair and balanced.'"

Another admiring review came from Conde Nast Portfolio's Jeff Bercovici , found here, in which he called the Fox special "thoughtful, understated."

And finally, here's Newsday's Verne Gay's take, equally positive: "Fox has, in fact, proven that it can undertake a subject of this emotional magnitude and handle in a manner that's both intelligent and sensitive."

I am sure that this special will be re-run again on Fox, and I will absolutely positively set my TiVo for it when it does run again--and I will let other Cable Gamers know, too. In the meantime, be on the lookout for YouTube!

If there's any justice, this special will be up for an award--producer Rachel Feldman deserves much of the credit for shepherding this project--but of course, what remains of the MSM seems determined to snub Fox.

Which makes The Cable Gamer think: One fine day, there will be a whole parallel system of awards and honors for fine shows that the MSM chooses to ignore.

Columbia Journalism Review -- Stupid? Arrogant? Or Just Lazy? I Report, You Decide

As first noted here at TCG on Thursday, The Columbia Journalism Review sets itself as the watchdog for the media. And yet CJR can't even watch over its own spelling. CJR pounds away at Fox News' Steve Doocy, but it does so in a singularly incompetent way. It misspells his name as "Doocey," and then repeats the error six times in the piece. And that piece was posted two days ago!

Yup, it was on Thursday morning that the erroneous article appeared. And now, two days later, as of Saturday morning, neither Liz Cox Barrett, nor her editors, have bothered to fix the error. Imagine, two full days after the pot called the kettle black, the pot is still black, and not only that, but the pot is fully oblivious to its own blackness, either through complacency, or arrogance or both.

It wasn't supposed to be this way: Here's CJR's ambitious"mission statement":

Columbia Journalism Review’s mission is to encourage and stimulate excellence in journalism in the service of a free society. It is both a watchdog and a friend of the press in all its forms, from newspapers to magazines to radio, television, and the Web. Founded in 1961 under the auspices of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, CJR examines day-to-day press performance as well as the forces that affect that performance. The magazine is published six times a year, and offers a deliberative mix of reporting, analysis, criticism, and commentary. CJR.org, our Web site, delivers real-time criticism and reporting, giving CJR a vital presence in the ongoing conversation about the media. Both online and in print, Columbia Journalism Review is in conversation with a community of people who share a commitment to high journalistic standards in the U.S. and the world.

Reading those high-minded words, The Cable Gamer might be induced to think that CJR was a cut above those relentlessly partisan (and Fox-bashing) outlets such as Media Matters. Yes, of course, TCG knew that CJR often used the guise of "media criticism" to blast conservative positions--especially the Iraq war, see the cover above, for example--but hey, that goes with the territory; this is the Ivy League after all, and Columbia U. was the school that invited Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to dispense his incendiary wisdom on campus.

But in addition to being liberal and partisan, CJR has also proven itself to be just as careless and incompetent in their writing craft.

Or maybe they're just lazy.

I report, you decide.

PS: TCG assumes, eventually, that CJR will correct this error. But just to help immortalize that error, TCG just did a Google search, using the search terms "steve doocey liz cox barrett." And of course, Google came back and asked "Did you mean: steve doocy liz cox barrett?" And I said "no thanks," of course, because I want "Doocy" spelled the way CJR spells Doocy. And of course, the first article that came up with the wrong-spelled search was Barrett's piece in CJR.

So if there's any justice on the Net, the CJR blunder--unfixed for two days and counting--will be cached forever inside Google, there to remind everyone that the mighty CJR has feet of clay--and quality control that's no better.

UPDATE: As of Sunday morning, the six errors are still not fixed! Mabye CJR is proud of itself for being stupid when it comes to Fox.

CNN "Pushes" A Story--And Its "Turner-ian" Agenda.

Matt Drudge, of course, is the true king of the New Media--always and forever. And so The Drudge Report is required clicking for Cable Gamers: A case in point is this leaked memo, from CNN prexy Jon Klein.

Here's the way Drudge summed it up:

According to notes from CNN's Monday news meeting network president Jon Klein tells employees to use the California fire tragedy to "push" their "Planet in Peril" special, but warns reporters not to "irresponsibly link" the fires to "Global Warming."

In other words, they are supposed to "push" the story, but not "irresponsibly." Does that mean that they have been acting irresponsibly heretofore? Just asking.

And in any case, where does CNN get off linking a fire story to an environmentally themed special, "Planet in Peril"? I thought that Ted Turner had retired. But evidently, his Fonda-fied radical-chic spirit still lingers, in Atlanta and of course NYC.

I mean, does CNN really believe that brush- and forest fires are something new? Do they expect us to believe that? CNN might wish to blame fire on the automobile and the oil companies, but it seems to me that fire goes back quite a long ways, way before humans.

So who is CNN going to blame--God? Uh oh, shouldn't give Turner & Co. ideas.

(And I guess it would be silly for The Cable Gamer to expect, say, the vaunted Columbia Journalism Review to take note of such an obvious journalistic infraction.)

UPDATE: As of 11 a.m. ET on Friday--more than 24 hours after the initial post-- CJR still hadn't bothered to correct its error.

Don't Close Your Eyes--To Red Eye!

This coming Saturday, 10/27, at 11 pm ET, FNC is featuring a special edition of "Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld."

Gutfeld has four guests: Julie Banderas, host of FNC's "The Big Story Weekend," Shandi Ren Finnessey, a beauty queen, and comedian Sherrod Small.

And oh yes: Tobin Bell. Tobin who? I didn't recognize the name, either, till I saw that he's "Jigsaw" in the ongoing series of "Saw" movies. In other words... Him! The bad guy that I have seen in
many slasher/serial killer films.

Since I feel like I already kinda know Tobin from so many movies and TV shows, I feel I should meet him--but just to be on the safe side, I am glad that he will be on the other side of the TV screen.

And as for the cast and crew on set in NYC--watch out!

That's him on the right, above, in "Saw III," with sidekick Amanda, played by Shawnee Smith. They should get her on, too!

Columbia Journalism Review Needs A Review! Maybe It Needs Better Spellers, Maybe It Needs More Editors, For Sure It Needs Less Arrogance!

Can anyone spell at the Columbia Journalism School? Can anyone fact check? Apparently not. More to the point, they do't seem to care. I guess that's how arrogant they are up in Manhattan--not that I would ever detect such arrogance in the MSM, which relies so heavily on Columbia's J School.

The Columbia Journalism Review, the allegedly distinguished media chronicler published by Columbia University, runs a regular feature called "Darts and Laurels." You know, "darts" for the bad guys, "laurels" for the good guys.

So I wonder if CJR will give itself a dart for this embarrassingly erroneous story, in which Liz Cox Barrett, identified as a writer for the magazine, couldn't manage to correctly spell the name of the person she was repeatedly lambasting, for alleged bad journalism--in this case, Fox News anchor Steve Doocy. You see, it's Doocy, not "Doocey," as Ms. Barrett miswrote six times in the piece.

More screamingly, as Cable Gamers can see from squinting at the screen-grab, featured above, CJR posted the story at 9:58 a.m. ET on Thursday, and as of the time of this posting, about 9 p.m. ET, nobody had caught the error, and nobody had bothered to change it. Again, if you squint, you can see "Doocey," as of Thursday evening. Although, of course, for all The Cable Gamer knows, CJR will leave it like that forever.

Maybe they're lazy at CJR, maybe they're careless, maybe their stupid. Most likely, they are just so arrogant that it's sort of beneath them to check their facts, especially concerning Fox News. After all, THEY know the truth, up there at CJR, and they are willing to share it with the hoi polloi, just so long as the masses don't ask too many questions.

Well, Ms. Barrett & CJR, the blogosophere is asking questions.

Including this one:

How can we trust you if you can't get basic facts right?

UPDATE: As of 11 a.m. ET on Friday--more than 24 hours after the initial post-- CJR still hadn't bothered to correct its error.

John Gibson Rips Olbermann, OK. But Gibbie Gobbles Gabler, Too! Man Bites Fox!!

It's not overly surprising when Fox News' John Gibson rips into MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. That's standard inter-network Cable Gaming.

But listen to what Gibson has to say says about FNC "News Watch" panelist Neal Gabler. Calls him all sorts of names, starting with "low life."

Now Gabler is about as left-wing--and, many would say, obnoxious--a figure as there is in The Cable Game. Yet there he is, every weekend, popping off on Fox.

Yes, Fox is heavy with O'Reilly and Hannity, but the channel makes room for Gabler, too--and then, of course, for Gibson to blast Gabler. Gibson routinely invites Gabler on the show; I hope that Gabler takes him up on it.

Say what you wish about Fox--they really do mean it when they say, "fair and balanced."

And it's interesting, as Gibson observes, that Media Matters never takes note of what Gabler says, in all its endless/tendentious fine-toothing of every word that is said on Fox. MM is listening, and recording, but not writing up.

Why not? Here's why. Because a left-winger blasting the right--and, frequently, Fox News itself--doesn't fit MM's preconceived ideo-partisan template, which holds that FNC is in the tank for the Bush admininistration and the neocons.

Thanks, of course, to Johnny Dollar for catching this audio item!

Cable Game Ad Wars -- CNBC vs. FBN

Variety's Michael Learmonth always gets the
good stuff--although, of course, he and all cable-beat reporters have a "target-rich environment" in which to do their work. In its blooming and buzzing abundance, The Cable Game is the game that keeps on giving! That's what keeps me in The Game.

A case in point is this go-round of advertisements. First, CNBC runs ads saying, "First in Business." Whereupon Fox Business News sallied back with ads saying, "First in Business. Soon."

Point. Counterpoint.

This Cable Game is fun!

Maria de la Soledad Teresa O'Brien

The Cable Gamer has newfound admiration for Soledad O'Brien after reading this article, by Joanne Fox, in The Sioux City Journal.

She spoke at a dinner to benefit Catholic schools in Iowa. That alone is enough to bring TCG around, but here's some interesting
Here's some good stuff from the piece:

"My first job interview was in Massachusetts and the manager told me I didn't look 'black' enough," she said. "I called my mother and cried and she told me, 'Lovey, get over it.'

"At another job interview they felt 'Soledad' was too difficult a name and would I consider changing it," O'Brien continued. "I told them my full name was Maria de la Soledad Teresa O'Brien, which means The Blessed Virgin Mary of Solitude, and I wasn't changing it. I called my mother crying again, and she again told me to get over it."

TCG always thought that Soledad got a bad deal from CNN when she was pushed off "American Morning" for that tramp, Kiran Chetry. Now she feels that way all the more so.

Hooray for MSNBC and Fox! Boo, CNN!!

Newsbuster's Matthew Balan did a great job of monitoring the news, and an even greater job of reminding us that our freedom--including freedom of the press--is not free. But let him tell the tale:

CNN decided to not to break away from its almost non-stop coverage of the California wildfires as President Bush formally awarded a Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan the Medal of Honor, as its competitors Fox News and MSNBC aired the ceremony at the White House live.

The Medal of Honor went to Lt. Michael Murphy of Patchogue, New York, who died in the line of duty in 2005 during operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Murphy received the first Medal of Honor awarded from Operation Enduring Freedom...

The ceremony started at 2:23 pm Eastern, and both of CNN’s rivals carried President Bush’s remarks, as well as the presentation of the medal to the deceased SEAL’s parents. It wasn’t until 2:43 pm Eastern, eight minutes after its rival networks concluded its live coverage of the award ceremony, that CNN aired a 3-minute long segment featuring some of President Bush’s remarks and a story by CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr on the 2005 battle in which Lt. Murphy was killed.

I guess CNN was too sick with worry about trees getting burned up, and maybe some extra CO2 going into the atmospher, to be concerned about a "mere" American hero.

But The Cable Gamer urges all of us to take a moment of silence, to honor the glorious memory of Michael Murphy.

And then, after a respectful interval, a raspberry to CNN!

Action Item: Get CNBC A Dictionary! Or Maybe A Lawyer!!

The Cable Gamer is not a big fan of Fortune magazine, because it tends to be sort of dull. But some of the blogs on its website are are oftentimes interesting. The best of them make no pretense of being fair and balanced--but they aren't dull!

A case in point is "The Browser," which declares, as its mission, "analyzing the tech biz." But the authors, who seem to prefer to anonymous--and that's fine with TCG!--are pretty handy with a stiletto, as well as a dictionary:

CNBC has been running ads touting its coverage as “unbiased.” Leaving aside whether you find that claim plausible - or even interesting - the actual full slogan is that CNBC provides “fast, accurate, actionable and unbiased business news”.

Perhaps we are on the crest of a new semantic wave, but does CNBC - a division of General Electric (GE) - really want to refer to its coverage as “actionable”? Every dictionary I have consulted uses as the primary definition for “actionable” some variation of “providing grounds for a lawsuit.” In fact, I can find only one dictionary that even includes a definition akin to the one I assume CNBC intends, i.e., leading to an action, or capable of being acted upon.

I suppose this is nitpicking, but as an editor it is my job to spot and (I hope!) weed out unintended ambiguities. And I’m hardly alone in insisting that, really, the legal meaning is the only meaning of the word actionable, and all other uses are unfortunate corporate malapropisms.

The picture above is an actual screen grab from the website, showing the dopily chosen words.

Interestingly, Fortune shares with its fellow Time-Warner company, CNN. As an aside, one wonders whether this particular posting is really from CNN.

If only CNN were so juicy on the air!

"CNBC Audience Slips"

Multichannel News' Mike Reynolds has the details, which aren't all bad for CNBC.

Mike reports, also, on something that TCG had been wondering about: Fox Business News won't be Nielsen-ed till next year.

"Rupert Murdoch sketches financial media assault"

That's the headline atop the story from Reuters' Kenneth Li, reporting the latest from the shareholders' meeting of The News Corporation. And here's the good stuff:

Rupert Murdoch sketched out his plans for the Fox Business Network on Friday, saying he will spend years nurturing the new channel to win over more than half of the business news audience.

The News Corp chairman and chief executive confirmed media reports that his media conglomerate intended to invest $150 million to $200 million over three years in FBN, including about $70 million in fiscal 2008.

Aiming to repeat the success of the Fox News Channel, which unseated CNN as the top cable news network four years after its launch, FBN is part of Murdoch's ambitions to build a global financial media powerhouse in print, the Internet and TV.

"I view FBN's growth in terms of years, not months," he told reporters following News Corp's annual shareholders meeting.

This is all cool, but when The Cable Gamer sees articles such as this, from The Hollywood Reporter, showing that Google is now triple the market cap of the News Corp., she wonders what the future landscape of the media landscape is going to be--and who will be assaulting whom.

Liz Claman to Fox Business News

Here's a writeup from The Hollywood Reporter.

In the meantime, the Cable Gamer is jealous of... Liz's sweaters.

Neal Gabler Comes On Strong--Deadly Strong

Media writer Neal Gabler has his own strong opinions on many topics, but those opinions don't come any stronger than they did on Saturday's "Fox News Watch," when Gabler kinda sorta wished for the deathin Iraq of Bill Kristol.

It's interesting that Fox has such a strong liberal voice--strong to the point of tastelessness--on its air. I guess that's to Fox's credit.

Thanks to Pundital for posting this on YouTube.

Gothamist Visits Fox & Friends

Gothamist is one of those cool websites that doesn't get enough attention in this crowded media market. But it always keeps up with entertainment, and it's always entertaining. A case in point is Toby von Meistersinger's item on Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends."

What Toby wrote was interesting and knowing enough to be repeated in some detail, below:

We recently visited Fox News Channel’s morning show Fox & Friends. Unlike most of the other morning shows it is a freewheeling kind of crazy romp that definitely has “Fox attitude”.

We don’t know if that “Fox attitude” is what gives a different on-set vibe compared to other news sets, but it did seem like less of a precision military operation than their competition at the Today Show. It could be that the show is unscripted, so the anchors are thinking on their feet making the show seem more organic than other shows (which are almost all tightly scripted).

Another differentiating characteristic is its interactive component: Viewers e-mail, call in and become a part of the show, and the people outside the studio are “bit players,” too. They average about 1000 e-mails per day and the anchors log on during the breaks to get instant feedback on what they've done.

Watching this sausage get made was not as dull as being on other sets, and both cast and crew seem to be having genuine fun getting the show on air. The anchors are also just as fun and crazy when the cameras are not rolling, which might be why they have been the #1 cable news morning show for over five years and in some places even beat out the CBS Early Show.

The show and network has some critics (like Media Matters) and provides fodder for comedians (like Stephen Colbert). But how do those being criticized and made fun of like it? The show’s news anchor, Alisyn Camerota says, “We’re helping them out.” Anchor Steve Doocy told us, “I love it. It is free publicity for us because it is to a whole new audience that doesn’t watch news a lot. They get their news from the phony news channels.”

Obviously the "F&F" hosts have figured out how to deal with their critics, including Media Matters, those professional nitpickers.

The picture, above, is one of many from Gothamist--the site has a pretty slick "slide show" feature. But his pic shows how casual and loose the show is--and that comes across, even to those of us not lucky enough to hang around on set!

NBC: 99.2% Democratic? The Huffington Post (Which Ought To Know!) Reports, You Decide. Although It's Hard To Argue With Data!

According to The Huffington Post, not exactly a hotbed of conservatism, NBC employees (and NBC sub-units, including CNBC and Telemundo), gave $31,251 to presidential candidates in what Huffpo calls "Fundrace 2008." Of that campaign cash, $31,000 went to Democratic presidential hopefuls, and $251 went to Republicans.

That's 99.2 percent for the Dems.

Is it possible that such a 100:1 skew in political donations will signify bias NBC's political coverage, this year and next?

Aside, of course, from the enormous--and unquantifiable--in-kind political contributions made to the Dems by Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, David Shuster, Dan Abrams, and the rest of the gang at "MSDNC."

Rupert Murdoch: The Power Behind Fox Business News/In The Converged Future, The New York Times, As Well As CNBC, Needs To Be Afraid, Very Afraid

The Cable Gamer thinks that Fox Business News is pretty cool, but TCG also thinks that we ain't seen nothin' yet--and neither haveThe New York Times or CNBC!

That is, Rupert Murdoch is going to dramatically modernize and upgrade The Wall Street Journal--which Murdoch's News Corporation purchased earlier this year--making it more of a threat to the NYT. And then some day relatively soon, FBN is going to crack open even more latent value in the WSJ. And when that FBN + WSJ synergy comes, look out!

Specifically, look out, NYT and CNBC! The WSJ, turbocharged by FBN--and the likes of super-newsmen/showmen Murdoch and Roger Ailes--will blow the Times away in newspapering, and CNBC in television-ing (or whatever news-delivery is called five or ten years hence). That's TCG's prediction, based on watching these various media properties over the past 10 years or so. I mean, look at how little value CNBC got out of its existing relationship with the Journal. Even now, it was Fox News, not CNBC, that had the brains to turn the legendary Journal editoral page into a TV show, the "Journal Editorial Report."

So now the Times' sun is setting; the era in which it could set much of the national agenda--in a liberal-left direction, of course--is coming to an end.

And I am not the only one who sees it this way: Here's a hot headline in the latest The New York Observer: "Murdoch To Times: I Will Bury You! Keller Bristles." Now perhaps ace NYO reporter Michael Calderone doesn't quite like that header, since it's so inflammatory, but it's certainly accurate.

("Keller," btw, refers to Bill Keller, the managing editor of the Times, who reports to the Times' heir-CEO, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., a Certified Upper Class Twit--nobody cares what "Pinch" Sulzberger thinks, except to make fun of him.)

Calderone speculates on what Murdoch and the WSJ--and down the road, WSJ/FBN might do to the NYT, which makes the Observer-man's piece compelling read, as we all look ahead to the Converged Future, when all media are found on one screen.

And as a helpful data point, or data points, we might consider this chart above, showing that Murdoch's News Corp. stock (the red line) is up more than 125 percent in the last five years, while NYT stock (the blue line) is down more than 58 percent in the same period.

Pretty cool, huh? It's from Google Finance, and if TCG can figure out how to do it, anyone can!

So the Times is toast. But TCG can't help but think: If Google ever decided to get into the Cable Game--that would be something.

Joe Scarborough, Your Cup O' Joe Is Emptying

Inside Cable News has the hard Nielsen numbers on the decline of the post-Don Imus show on MSNBC.

"Fox Business Network blazes new trail" -- CNBC and Wall Street vs. FBN and Main Street

That was the headline across USA Today, which, of course, knows something about blazing new journalistic trails.

Speaking of trailblazers, here's another one speaking: "CNBC is a financial channel for Wall Street. We're for Main Street." And that was Rupert Murdoch, last month, talking about the difference between CNBC and Fox Business News.

USA Today's David Lieberman provides a fascinating take on FBN, thanks to Neil Cavuto and also a blast from Cable Games past, Myron Kandel.

Cavuto, the anchor-in-chief for FBN, added a future-oriented tidbit, suggesting that FBN's investigative reporting would be oriented toward investigating the government:

"We will focus a lot more on policy and policymaking and following people's tax dollars and how they're spent. These are going to be superseding issues for this network."

Now that's something that you never saw from CNBC--although, of course, given CNBC's imitative track record, Cable Gamers shouldn't be surprised to see CNBC go scurrying off with some whistle-blowing investigation, however half-hearted it might be.

Also Lieberman snagged some insight from a venerable TV figure: Myron Kandel, CNN's founding financial editor, who told the paper:

"There's definitely an audience out there for business news that's relevant to the desire of individual Americans to be informed about investments, interest rates, employment trends, retirement issues, college and home costs."

That sounds like good advice to me. Now we'll have to see who gets their firstest with the mostest--and whether, over at CNBC, Erin Burnett will once again beat out Maria Bartiromo.

Jossip Resorts to Reruns--This Is Not Hot!

The Cable Gamer likes gossip as much as the next girl. Gossip is good--but Jossip? I'm not so sure about that site any more. Not when Jossip runs an 11-day-old left-over, using such sloppy seconds, as an excuse to bitchslap Fox Business News. For doing that, Jossip itself deserves a spanking. At least.

It's perfectly fair to criticize Fox Business News. For example, Rachel Sklar, the fun-loving brunette who posts for The Huffington Post, offered a piece on Monday headlined,“Launched! Fox Biz Network Goes Live (With Bloopers).” That's fine: If Rachel catches a blooper, she is free to run with it. If, for example, Jenna Lee (another brunette, yay!)gets something wrong, as Jenna did when she said that Starbucks gives away free WiFi--it doesn't--that's fair game for fact-checking bloggers, such as, in this case, Rachel. Indeed, such flyspecking is actually healthy, in the sense of providing a good feedback loop for on-air talent and for keeping everyone on his or her toes. (TCG appreciates such constructive criticism, too, btw-it's good for all of us!)

But here's the point: Rachel was doing her homework! She was watching FBN--that's how she caught the error about Starbucks.

But apparently, Jossip can't be bothered! Instead, Jossip just ran a nasty item, which passed off an 11-day old item from The Deal.com as if it were something fresh. Now, Cable Gamers, let us reason together: With FBN on the air, there to be watched and critiqued, why would Jossip hang its sparsely worded, unwittily bitchy hat on a peg that's nearly two weeks old? Mostly dismissing an amusing piece in Tuesday's The New York Times by Allesandra Stanley, which referred to FBN as "perky," a place where "the fun never stops." By contrast, The Deal piece was nasty, and yet it was the Deal that Jossip relied on for its own posting. And yet I am sure that even TheDeal doesn't think that an attempted preview of FBN dated October 5 has much validity after FBN has been on the air for the better part of two whole days.

Oh, of course, Jossip made another mention of FBN, citing the same Stanley piece in the NYT; this equally brief and unfunny Jossip item dwelt on the supposedly "gravity-defying bosoms" of Fox anchors. It's worth pointing out that Stanley made no reference, whatsoever to "gravity-defying bosoms," the quote is entirely the making of some Jossipist.

So what's going on here? What is it with such sloppy and lazily fact-free gossip? Why would Jossipprefer to get its tone from a stale piece in an obscure publication such as TheDeal, as opposed to a fresh piece in The New York Times? The Times, is still, after all, despite its many flaws, the numero uno media outlet in the country.

For perspective on this perverse choice by Jossip, Cable Gamers must turn their attention away, briefly, from cable news. We must look over into the realm of new media in New York City. And our guide will be Vanessa Grigoriadis. Specifically, she has written a knowingly brilliant article in the new issue of New York magazine, entitled, "Everybody Sucks: Gawker and the rage of the creative underclass." The headline tells the tale, although the entire 6000-word piece deserves close consideration. Grigoriadis looks piercingly into the hyper-competitive, hyper-nasty world of blogs and bloggers, in which underpaid and overworked 20-somethings compete with each other to be nastier and edger. And so everyone is "annoying," or "slutty," or a "douchebag."

What a rotten, wicked bunch these bloggers are--at least for as long as they are doing what they are doing. Maybe they will clean up their act and shift away from the dark side, but so long as they work for the likes of Gawker's owner, Nick Denton, Grigoriadis is saying, they will be dwelling in websites of slime and sliminess.

And that's Gawker.

Jossip, of course, is a notch even below Gawker, in terms of reputation and revenue.

Which explains everything about this stupid post, whose malicious intent is exceeded only by its maladroit journalism.

Update: Jossip has a new item, on Joe Scarborough's reaction to FBN, here.

Cavuto: "We don't accept it as a given that business news is inherently boring"

The Los Angeles Times' Matea Gold offers yet another take on FBN,
here. As Neal Cavuto says, business news doesn't have to be boring. (He is pictured above, with co-anchor Alexis Glick.)

After allowing that some might not like Fox's breezily populist style, Neal adds, in his uniquely humble-yet-authoritative manner: "But the greater audience that wants to get the bigger picture, I hope they'll come to Fox."

Indeed.

Reuters on Fox Business News

Reuters offers a pretty good little video news service, featuring, among others the lovely and lively Bobbi Rebell. Here, she gets some good stuff out of FBN's Neal Cavuto.

Whenever I listen to Neal, I usually find myself nodding in agreement. As in, I think, "I knew that." But of course, it was Neal saying it first that got me thinking it! And so, for example, in the course of telling Bobbi that FBN would be "jargon free," he gives a terrific f'rinstance. Is the mortgage market in "meltdown," as we keep hearing? Well, no, Neal sez, 96 percent of mortgages are being paid on time. That's news, that 4 percent are delinquent, but that no meltdown.

And that's the sort of calm insight that we expect from Neal, and now from FBN. And hurray for Rebell and Reuters, for simply letting Neal speak!

Daily News to America: "FBN hit the ground running yesterday"

The New York Daily News' TV pundit, David Hinckley, weighs in on FBN, the the review is pretty good! Here's a taste:

FBN hit the ground running yesterday. Its production was polished, despite a few small glitches like flashing a Coke/Pepsi graphic at the wrong moment, and it conveyed a clear sense of what it intends to be.

Specifically, it's aiming for as breezy and upbeat a presentation as its upbeat airstaff can wring out of news that necessarily involves a lot of charts and numbers.

The kickoff shows ' "Fox Business Morning," 5-6 a.m, cohosted by Lee and Nicole Petallides, then "Money for Breakfast," cohosted by Peter Barnes and Alexis Glick ' kept their segments short, breaking up international market reports with sports news, weather and even a scattering of celebrity chat and references.

AP on FBN--Thumbs Up!

The Associated Press's Jeremy Herron files a thoughtful assessment of the first day of Fox Business News. And what his sources told him was pretty good. Here, for example, is the verdict of Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University:

"They went on the air, played it straight and people were giving information whenever I tuned in - that's about as successful as you can be on your first day,"

And here's the word from Porter Bibb, managing partner at Mediatech Capital Partners:

"They said they wanted to entertain people and I think they're succeeding."

The photo above shows FBN morning co-anchor Jenna Lee, courtesy of The Charlotte Observer, which, among many other papers, of course, ran Jeremy's full story.

The Murdoch Vision: A Global Business Information Goliath.

Even those who hate Rupert Murdoch the most have to admit that he's a visionary. And he's willing to put his money where his eyes are. Two cases in point are his purchase of The Wall Street Journal, earlier this year, and now the start-up of th Fox Business Channel, led by Cable Game champion Roger Ailes.

The Cable Gamer got a lot out of Tim Arango's Fortune profile of Murdoch, Ailes, and FBN, as seen in earlier posts, but here are the most important grafs of the whole piece:

The reason is that Fox Business, whose planning fell to Roger Ailes, the television genius who took Fox News from laughingstock to top-rated cable news network, is more than a challenge to just CNBC's monopoly here in the U.S.: It is the first brick in Rupert Murdoch's attempt to build a global business information Goliath.

Fox Business is launching as another key piece in this strategy, the Wall Street Journal, is entering the News Corp. fold. The $5 billion acquisition of Dow Jones by News Corp., which was announced Aug. 1, should be a fait accompli by November or December (if the perfunctory shareholder votes and regulatory approval go as planned).

Add the Wall Street Journal to Murdoch's $72 billion media conglomerate - which spans the globe from Hollywood's 20th Century Fox to the Asian satellite service Star and its European version, Sky - and it is easy to see how Willard and Gomez's barroom banter are the first steps toward an empire that could one day beam a Fox Business channel into China via Star or launch local channels in India and Eastern Europe. It is likely that will happen gradually over the next few years. "There have been inquiries but no negotiations yet," Murdoch told Fortune in a recent interview in his eighth-floor office at News Corp.'s Manhattan headquarters.

Murdoch believes that the time is now to launch a global business channel, as emerging markets are minting new investors and entrepreneurs every day. He wants to be the go-to programmer for these new capitalists. "There's this constant growth of wealth," he says. "You have 100 million people joining the world economy every year. This is the biggest development in the history of the planet almost - the speed at which this is happening. And while there certainly will be bumps, it's going to go on for another 30 years. Living standards everywhere are going to be better."

If Murdoch is correct--that we are on the edge of a global capitalist revolution, bigger than the one we've already seen in the last 30 years--then his purchase of the WSJ and his creation of FBN will look brilliant and profound indeed.

That's the thing about visionaries who wield real power, as Murdoch does: they have ideas, and they also have the power to put those ideas into action.

Stay tuned!

CNBC Steals Ideas From FBN--Oh Well, At Least They Confess!

CNBC admits to ripping off a show idea from the Fox Business News, according to Fortune magazine's Tim Arango. OK, so it's not a federal crime to steal an idea, even if it is, of course, a show biz no-no. But one might ask: "Why is CNBC so weak, or so nervous, that they would do such a thing?" I mean, CNBC has been around for 20 years--you'd think that they would know themselves, and not need to cup their collective ear, craning their corporate necks, so as to hear the slightest a whisper from Roger Ailes, and then to jump accordingly. Let's just hope, for CNBC's sake, that Ailes doesn't ever say the word "fire"! There'd be mass panic and mass window-jumping, by CNBC-ers.

Here's the way Fortune's Tim Arango sets up CNBC's theft:

It's Oct. 5, exactly ten days before the launch of Fox Business Network, and the two hosts are working on their new show, called "Happy Hour." Already there have been headaches. When the leading business channel, CNBC, got wind of the show's format, executives at that network fired a salvo across Fox's bow by having CNBC's "Fast Money" broadcast a new live segment from Moran's, a popular Wall Street watering hole. CNBC called it ... "Happy Hour."

Deeper in Arango's article, CNBC prexy Mark Hoffman 'fesses up. According to Arango:

He doesn't deny copying Fox's idea but says it was hardly a novel one. "This isn't actually a breakthrough idea - interviewing people at a bar after the game," he says.

OK, maybe the idea of people sitting around a bar is as old as "Cheers," but to do it now, all of a sudden, on a news network, and call it "Happy Hour"? That would seem to be pretty frankly, and rankly, imitative.

So score one big "momentum point" for Fox. Actually, come to think of it, Fox has already been scoring; as Arango notes, Fox News Channel has been clobbering CNBC even before FBN went on the air:

Fox News already has the top five business news shows on cable - programs like "Bulls & Bears," "Cavuto on Business," and "Cashin In," which all bring in more viewers than any show on CNBC. For example, in the third quarter Fox News' Saturday morning show "Bulls & Bears" averaged 833,000 viewers, according to Nielsen. CNBC's highest-rated program in the third quarter was the game show "Deal or No Deal," an NBC program that CNBC replays in the evening, which averaged 415,000 viewers.

That last point is worth dwelling on: CNBC's highest-rated show is a game show, borrowed from NBC.

A note on the picture, above: Shown are Kevin Magee, Steve Goodman and Diane Kay. Magee, interestingly, used to work at CNBC--a decade or more ago. Come to think of it, so did Roger Ailes, back in the early 90s. Indeed, as TCG has been reporting for some time now, lots of talent at CNBC can't wait to jump.

So maybe what we are seeing now is the loop coming full circle: CNBC will collapse into FBN, as all the talent--what's left of it at CNBC.

FiOS + FBN--The Convergent Future

The Cable Gamer doesn't pretend to understand all the ins and outs of cable/Internet technology. But she knows that FiOS, the super-hot Internet service from Verizon, is totally cool. And so it was interesting to see FiOS embracing Fox Business News.

And to see Roger Ailes, chief of FBN and the Fox News Channel, saying off-handedly to Fortune magazine's Tim Arango:

"We're basically launching two channels on Oct. 15. We're launching a cable channel and an Internet channel. You can't tell me that five years from now the Internet site might not be more valuable."

In other words, the Net is ultimately the place to be: Right now, Kable is Kool, and separate from the Net. But over the long run, the The Cable Game will eventually be folded into The Internet Game. People will still sit back and "watch," of course, as they do with TV, but the "pipeline" will be Net-based.

And so writer Arango adds of Ailes, "He may be right about the website's eventually being worth more, since advertising in this sector is booming."

For all The Cable Gamer knows, something better and faster than FiOS will come along. But for now, FiOS is at the cutting edge, and FBN is there.

FBN -- The First Day

The Cable Gamer thinks that the "look" of FBN owes something to the "look" of the Apple iPhone--which is totally cool, in the opinion of this diehard Mac-fan.(Admit it, p.c.-ers, you want one!)

Here, for posterity, is a screen grab from that moment--actually a YouTube grab, thanks to BizFanatic22, a true Cable Gamer.

Have a click, and meet Nicole Petallides and Jenna Lee.

Meanwhile, of course, there's plenty of discussion of FBN: here, here, here, here, and, last but not least, here!

FBN Sticks It To CNBC--The Fox Chases The Peacock, All The Way To New Jersey!

FBN's Peter Barnes and Liz MacDonald had some fun at CNBC's expense this morning. But the point that they were getting at was no laughing matter, in terms of business coverage.

Peter anchored from FBN's studios in midtown Manhattan--you know, the financial hub of the planet--while poor Liz out there, somewhere, in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Peter asked Liz if it was "hunting season" out there; Liz answered, yeah, "hunting peacocks." The joke, of course, was on CNBC, which had its headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, way up and over from Manhattan, across the Hudson River in the Garden State. Under pressure from FBN, CNBC has both downsized and relocated, back to NYC. But for two decades, NBC was too cheap to give CNBC a real presence in New York--that's the sort of journalistic "daylight" that FBN has gone running through.

As Liz said, tongue-in-cheekily to Peter on the air this morning, "Who would have thought that anybody could cover the stock market out here?" Good question! But those days are over now, and journalism is already getting better.

Thanks to BizFanatic22 for capturing the moment on YouTube.

It's Here! Fox Business News!!

CNBC--Betwixt, Between, Bereft

But don't take The Cable Gamer's word for it, about CNBC being at sea. Here's the headline atop blogger Chris Roush's piece, posted earlier today: "CNBC can’t decide between Wall Street or Main Street."

After recalling that CNBC had long spun itself as a NYC-oriented investor's network, Roush recently noted the network's sudden attempt to broaden its appeal, shifting to the homey language of "Main Street." Roush asks:

So, why is it that CNBC is increasingly putting a “Main Street” focus on its coverage?

And then Roush suggests the answer:

Could it be that Fox Business Network — which will launch on Monday — has the leader running scared because it says it will focus on business news for “Main Street”?

Roush is blogging for a group that the Cable Gamer had not heard of before: The Society of American Business Editors and Writers, or SABEW.

Well, Chris Roush and SABEW, welcome to the Cable Game! The more the merrier!

"GE to decide on NBC after Olympics"--And We Know What That Means! Soon, Keith, Chris, and Dan Will Have To Get Paid Directly By The DNC!!

NBC is in play. GE wants to get rid of it.

Now that The Financial Times is on top of this story, everyone across country--from TV execs, to fee-hungry Wall Streeters, to humble viewers, such as yours truly--is going to be buzzing about the impending spinooff. It'll be a great story for FBN, even if, I am willing to predict, CNBC doesn't pay it too much mind!

The Cable Gamer has been on this story since July, because even she could figure out that GE's ownership of NBC was an artifact of a different time in American corporate history. And so now it makes sense to break open the conglomerate first founded by Thomas Edison, especially when some familiar sub-units of GE/NBC have violated the legendary Jack Welch's fundamental rule of management: If a GE operating division can't be first or second in its field, then get out of that field.

And closer to TCG's area of expertise, she knew darn well that MSNBC and CNBC were not being well run. How could those little networks be well managed from GE HQ in Fairfield, CT? No offense to Jeff Immelt, but what does he know about TV? He's a plastics guy! Nothing wrong with plastic, of course, or finance, or business, but TV is its own unique industry--that's why ex-GE-er Bob Wright made such a fool of himself before he was shuffled off to golden-parachuted retirement, he didn't know squat about TV, and yet he thought that he did.

(As as aside, much to the embittered bemusement of his underlings, Wright in his heyday was famous for not being able to understand the pitches of producers. That is, they would explain the "high concept" of their show or game show to Wright, and then they would have to explain it, and explain it, and explain it. And then, time would be up, Wright would be off to his Next Important Meeting, with no decision being made. And so the show would go elsewhere, along with, of course, its ratings.)

Microsoft got suckered into MSNBC deal,but then bailed, leaving GE/NBC to pick up the continuing tab for that #3 turkey. But eventually, Welch's Wisdom--be #1 or #2 or nothing!--has begun to reassert itself. Close observers have been sensing this for months, which is why GE stock has been rising.

And now, this big story in The Financial Times offering a deeply sourced story--three reporters, Francesco Guerrera, Joshua Chaffin and Aline Van Duyn sharing the byline--detailing General Electric's plans for NBC. Here, in their own words:

NBC...has been the subject of repeated sale rumours because of its lagging performance and the awkward fit with the rest of GE’s industrial and financial businesses.

OK, but here's the punchline:

People close to the situation say that Jeffrey Immelt, GE’s chairman and chief executive, will not consider the future of GE’s 80 per cent stake in NBC – which had sales of $16.2bn and profits of $2.9bn last year – before the Olympics.

Now the FT is a careful, cautious, and sober-minded newspaper. But The Cable Gamer, with a little help from her friends--thanks, DWS!--can translate this verbiage, because this story, complete with the date-linkage of "after the Olympics" is dyn-o-mite.

The FT story means, at minimum, that GE is going to seek out suitors for NBC, with the proposed price of around $40 billion.

And that will bring out the raiders, private-equity-ers and would-be media moguls, all circling around NBC. No doubt Jeff Zucker will try to pull together his own takeover team, to save his job-- and it's possible that Zucker can sucker some "greater fool" into buying the company, with Zucker still at the helm.

But it's hard to imagine that even that great of a greater fool would keep CNBC and MSNBC as they are, especially when MSNBC has chosen to antagonize so much of Middle America with its Bush-bashing, and when CNBC is destined to get buried further by FBN. And so TCG's headline: If Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and Dan Abrams want to continue getting paid, they will have to get their moolah directly from the Democratic National Committee. Because GE shareholders are tired of being a slush fund for lefty politics.

"The Recently Demoted Dan Abrams" If He Helped MSNBC So Much, How Come He Got Kicked Downstairs? Answer: Because The #3 Net Is Still The #3 Net!

TCG has always thought that John Gibson is an underestimated member of the Fox News team. He has a clear voice--editorially as well as physically--and no inhibitions as to speaking out. That's one reason why Gibbie's radio show is so much fun, because he and his producers are so deft at mixing and juxtaposing tape, with John cutting in, cuttingly.

Here, for example, he takes to the radiowaves to clobber a deserving target MSNBC's Dan Abrams, the architect of the #3 channel's leftward lurch--a leftward lurch that left the channel #3.

Yes, it was Abrams who unleashed Keith Olbermann to begin his lefty jihad, and who encouraged Chris Matthews to drink more before he started speaking.

And because Abrams, Olbermann, and Matthews are all liberals, they get kid-glove treatment from the MSM and the lefty blogosphere.

The only problem, of course, is that in The Cable Game, it's ratings that ultimately matter, not buzz. And Abrams couldn't deliver on ratings. Which is why Abrams has been demoted, just as Gibson sez. It's back to on-air only for Abrams, no more management duties.

It's amusing, of course, to see Abrams' replacement at MSNBC, Phil Griffin, talking through his hat when he told The Hollywood Reporter's Paul J. Gough last month, "I don't think MSNBC has been in as good a position in some time." Huh!? What's new at MSNBC nowadays? And what's good about its position? The network has been in third place for 11 years, with no prospect for improvement in sight.

Abrams didn't help things one bit--indeed, he probably hurt the network, by stamping it as Bush-bashing, as well as amateurish and dumb.

Maria Bartiromo Does Damage Control, Assisted by TV Newswer

Is Maria Bartiromo trying to insulate herself from the "blowback" that came Chris Matthews' way in the wake of his thuggish remarks at a DC party last week?

That was the chatter on "Fox & Friends," which consistently amazes me with its incisive commentary on Beltway politics, as well as what's happening in the media industry. Yes, Gretchen Carlson, Steve Doocy, and Brian Kilmeade live way outside of Washington, and yes they keep the show light and airy--with plenty of showbiz-y guests and "how to" segments, but at the same time, the Terrific Trio is always able to keep their collective 30 fingers on the pulse of DC, as well as NYC.

The Cable Gamer has always understood that "F&F" is the show most after Roger Ailes' own heart--that is, it's the show that most reflects his own personality: funny and fast-moving, entertaining, but at the same time, makes serious points.

Alas, TCG can't watch everything, and so, thanks to blogger Johnny Dollar, I was able to catch Gretchen, Steve, and Brian analyzing Bartiromo's behavior pattern. And you can, too!

And this item, from TV Newser, illustrates the lengths that Maria is willing to go to try to soften her image. As an aside, it's bad enough that MB would seek to puff herself up like this--but it's worse that TVN would "print" it: "Bartiromo's Busy Week"?

What kind of headline is that? What sort of news is that? Who doesn't have a busy week in The Cable Game? For her part, when TCG has nothing to say, she is silent as Nefertiti--you know, the famous bust, in which the ancient Egyptian queen has gazed at us, coolly, for three thousand years. I don't feel the need to fill in the empty spaces with empty filler. But as discussed here in the past, TVN doesn't see things that way. They use seemingly everything, and that makes the site busy (which is good), but cluttered (which is bad) and leaves one thinking that maybe p.r. types overly influence the site (which is really bad).

The Cable Game Exclusive! Roger Ailes Un-Cut!! The TV King Speaks Out On Politics!!! And On The Keys To Success!!! And, Remembering an Old Friend.

In all modesty, I've got some HOT STUFF here:

Roger Ailes on Alan Greenspan, and how the former Federal Reserve honcho plans to sell lots of books, through the cheap tactic of clobbering the man who reappointed him, Greenspan, to his job: George W. Bush.

*Ailes on the Democratic Party, and its association with Moveon.org, and on the Republican Party, and its need to rejuvenate itself.

*Ailes on how to succeed in business--by really trying. And by avoiding the NYC social circuit!

*Ailes on his own future, and what the future might hold for him, post-Fox.

*Ailes on the sovereignty issue, which is the topic that's even bigger than immigration, looming out there as the sleeper issue of the 21st century.

*And also, most personally and movingly, Ailes talks about his late friend and mentor, Chet Collier--and the huge impact that Chet had on Roger, from 1962 all the way to 2007.

Earlier today, The Cable Game published what she thought was a pretty interesting interview in The Wall Street Journal with FNC/FBN chieftain Ailes.

I didn't know the half of it--literally. The Journal interview, conducted perfectly ably by Rebecca Dana, was around 3500 words. That's a healthy-sized piece, but what The Cable Gamer has discovered only this afternoon is that the actual full transcript is more than two-and-a-half times as long, and TCG has the whole thing in her hot little--make that dainty!--hand. And, aside from the fact that the whole interview, more than 8700 words long, reads like Ailes talks, TCG has, in addition, been able to verify its authenticity.

TCG isn't mad at the WSJ, The WSJwasn't being deceptive; the transcript in the paper was clearly listed as "portions."

But in TCG's humble opinion, some of the best stuff was left out.

Such as Ailes on how Greenspan has taken the easy path to garnering a big advance and guaranteeing good reviewss:

WSJ: What do you think of Alan Greenspan's recent criticisms of President Bush?

MR. AILES: You can't sell a book in America if you don't dump on Bush. That's the cheapest shot in the world. You cannot get an advance, and you can't sell a book because the publishers are all people who hate Bush and hate Republicans. The quickest way to get an advance and to get a lot of money. Once he did it -- I know Alan. Here's a guy who's worked for Republicans all his life, but he couldn't get a book deal, so he said, "Hey, Bush'll understand. I'm gonna make several million dollars here; I gotta get the dough." Alan understands money, and therefore, I don't, you know, look -- everybody's gotta do their thing. For the next 50 years, anybody who dumps on Bush will get a higher advance.

Take that, Alan, you snaky ingrate!

Ailes on the Democrats:

WSJ: What do you think about the state of the Democratic Party right now?

MR. AILES: I don't have a view of politics. The only thing I would say is that we've had the Whig Party and the Know-Nothing Party and a lot of different parties in America, and you've got to be very careful or you could turn into the moveon.org party. If you're going to take orders from them, that's who you will become.

Ailes on the Republicans:

WSJ: What do you think of the state of the Republican Party?

MR. AILES: I don't think they have any chance of losing their name or their compass. As you know, politics is split on both sides: economic, socials, that kind of stuff. Any time you come to the end of two terms of any party, there's a certain period of running out of gas and revival and so on, and those are cyclical changes that in my judgment are good for the country because they strengthen the two-party system. It gives everybody a chance to strengthen their ideas and move on themselves.

As an observer, you know, I think we're in another cyclical pattern. We've had seven years of a pretty good economy. It wouldn't surprise people if we had a little dip.

WSJ: There was a front-page story in the Journal recently about how the Republicans are losing their identity as the party of business. Is that a perspective that informs the Fox Business Network at all?

MR. AILES: Well, if I look at the political fundraising, it seems to be very high on the Democrat side, so there are obviously a whole lot of rich Democrats somewhere that never get any press coverage. The truth is the Democrats do very well, but rich gets sort of listed with Republicans. I remember Katie Couric asked me why there are so many rich Republicans. I said, "I love rich people. Any time I needed a job, I went to a rich person. I like poor people, but they never had a job for me." So I really can't get involved in class warfare because I've known people who needed charity and they went to rich people. I don't resent rich Democrats or rich Republicans. I think everybody wants their kid to grow up and have a piece of the action.

TCG comment on Ailes' comments: If Republicans remember who they are, and what they stand for--the party that helps people get ahead--then the GOP will do fine. And of course, if the Democrats shake their association with lefty billionaires and bloggers, then they, too, could do fine. Free advice to one or both parties, from a man who has been at or near the center of the political action for 40 years, since he helped guide Richard Nixon to the White House in 1968.

Now as to what might come next, showing his characteristic self-deprecating humor:

WSJ: Do you think you'll ever retire or move on to do something else?

MR. AILES: Probably. Probably I'll get thrown out someday. I have other priorities in my life, my family, people have asked me to write a book. Actually, three books. I'm considering that. I can't do anything while I'm doing these jobs. I am worried about the future of the country. If I suddenly saw a way to affect that, I might. There's nothing on the table. I'm not going to retire. I don't want to sit around and go fishing.

OK, no life of idleness for Ailes, ever.

Almost as an aside, Ailes talks, colorfully and pungently, about how he was successful in the media biz:

People say, "How can you? You didn't go to Columbia Journalism School, how can you run a news organization? I say, "I have two qualifications: One, I didn't go to Columbia Journalism School, so there's a chance I'll be fair, and, two, I never want to go to a party in this town, so there's nobody's ass I have to kiss. Those are very important qualifications for people who run news organizations."

OK, take that, Columbia Journalism School! Take that Fifth Avenue smart set!

So what real issues does he worry about most?

MR. AILES: I just think -- Americans have got to come together. Almost every issue we're discussing in the world today can be settled between the 40-yard lines.

WSJ: Do you mean going back into politics in some capacity?

MR. AILES: No, maybe a think tank or maybe writing or doing something else. I'm not thinking about going into politics. I'm not really as partisan as people have tried to make me out to be over the last few years. I'm really about -- as I say, every issue can be negotiated between the 40-yard lines. In the end, the government has no money. The only money it has it takes out of the pockets of the citizens. And to the extent the citizens tolerate the government taking money of their pockets, they go along with it, and at some point they say, "That's enough money out of my pocket!" Then they change and fire somebody and do something else. The one issue that's not between the 40-yard lines is the sovereignty and security of the United States of America. If America goes down, the world goes down. Both parties are going to have to get on board with that pretty soon and understand that we have a right to be a sovereign nation because we have fed more and freed more people than any country ever throughout the history of mankind, and that will go away if the United States goes away. So, we've got to stop piling on every time somebody wants to be anti-American and start piling on us. There's only one number they carry around with them, and that's the number of the White House of the United States because if they get in trouble, guess who they're going to call? Americans.

Ailes is saying something pretty important here, when he talks about SOVEREIGNTY--how the United States of America will have to struggle to keep its identity and independence in a world full of globalists and one-worlders, pushing agendas on behalf of the Kyoto Treaty, The United Nations, The European Union, The North American Union, and whatever globalopolistic scheme the likes of George Soros, Bill & Hillary Clinton, and Kofi Annan can agree upon as they are sitting around in Davos--or The White House.

Ailes is echoing what Ronald Reagan always said about the good ol' US of A--that America "is the last best hope for mankind." We're worth arguing for, even fighting for! No wonder Ailes is so active and outspoken, even now that he is in his mid-60s. Too bad that the WSJ left this passage out!

Finally, Roger talking about Chet Collier:

WSJ: Your best friend and longtime colleague, Chet Collier, died recently. What are some of the things you learned from Chet -- either about the television business or about business in general?

MR. AILES: I learned a lot about what I know about talent. He said two things: "One, your job is to protect the talent and make them look good, and nobody ever tuned in to see you, if you're an executive or a producer, they tune in to see the talent; so, remember that. And, No. 2., the talent will never let you down; they will always look out for themselves." The reason is they're out there being exposed. They get the criticism. So you have to understand, it's a very complex relationship. So, I love talent, and I protect talent, but I have to negotiate with talent, which is difficult. I learned a lot about the talent business from him. The other thing I learned was, if you have a choice between qualifications and personal qualities when it comes to hiring people, go with personal qualities. You can teach them the job; you can get them the qualifications; you can't teach them the qualities they're going to need. You can't teach integrity, a drive for excellence, refusal to quit under pressure. It's too late to build that into people you're going to hire. He taught me to look for the personal qualities. Those are the two things. Chet and I were in and out of each other's lives for 42 years. He gave me my first job, and I did his memorial service two weeks ago … Chet was a Boston liberal, but he was my friend. And we argued for 45 years about everything, but in the end we stuck together … He affected so many lives in television: Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, Steve Allen …

WSJ: Did you ever talk to him about Fox Business?

MR. AILES: As a matter of fact, I did. About a week before he died, he said, "Send all the tapes to me, I'll help you pick the talent. Some of those dumb bastards don't know what they're doing." So, he was looking at tapes. He was watching Fox News every day in Florida. He was hooked up to dialysis but he would watch it 10, 12 hours a day … I got fired twice, and he saved me twice. It was a good relationship. It was about the product. And no excuses. That's the school I went to, so I probably, that's a bit of my management style today. A lot of it I learned from him. Some of it, I guess, is just instinct, life experience. I've been in entertainment, politics, business, business coaching, public affairs, documentaries, programming, news, theater. So, there aren't many things I see that I haven't seen something like that before. Requires the same kind of judgment to come to a decision. I worry about the kids who come out of journalism schools. Not only do they not have life experience, but they don't see past their professors. Most of their professors have fairly limited views and ... the other thing you always have to remember is, you look at people and they might look like a failure but there's often a narrow thing they do very well.

That's a sweet signoff to Chet Collier, who was never well known outside of the industry, but was held in uniform high regard by Cable Gamers. One is reminded of St. Paul's injunction to the Romans, in the New Testament: "Be kindly affectioned one to another, with brotherly love, in honour preferring one another."

I think it's great that Ailes chose to honor his late friend so strongly.

And it's not just TCG that likes Ailes. As TCG was going to press--OK, make that, as I was about to hit the "publish post" button, I noticed that Gawker.com had picked up on the WSJ interview, with the opening line, "It's hard not to love Roger Ailes..."

Fox Business News About To Leapfrog CNBC?

Broadcasting & Cable is an authoritative publication for industry insiders. The Cable Gamer knows this because she barely understands articles such as this piece, by Glen Dickson, outlining what's ahead with Fox Business News.

But it looks to TGG as if FBN is about to leap over CNBC, big time, on the technology front. Under the headline, "Fox Gets Down to Hi-def Business," here's Dickson, quoting Fox VP Warren Vandeveer, talking about what we'll be seeing--now just a week away!

Fox will be offering a wider and potentially fresher take on the financial world come Oct. 15.

That's when Fox Business Network (FBN) launches to some 30 million homes served by DirecTV, Charter, Comcast, Time Warner and AT&T, giving new competition to established financial network CNBC—and when a high-definition simulcast of FBN debuts on DirecTV.

FBN's hi-def service, which will be produced and transmitted in the 720-line-progressive scan (720p) format, will differentiate itself from CNBC's hi-def service, which also launches this month on DirecTV, by offering a true widescreen 16:9 picture. CNBC HD+, on the other hand, is taking a different tack by placing its existing 4:3 picture on the left-hand side of the HD screen and filling the right side with graphics. Since both HD networks are fighting to get carriage on capacity-starved cable systems, it will be interesting to see how initial viewers on DirecTV respond.

For FBN, the decision to go HD from the start was an easy choice, as Fox had to build a brand-new technical facility to support the network to begin with. Fox's entertainment and sports entities have also proved the production model of creating a single, widescreen high-definition program and then deriving a standard-definition, 4:3 feed to serve analog viewers.

While HD equipment might represent a 25%-35% cost premium over standard-def gear, it didn't make sense to invest in new SD equipment with an all-HD world looming on the horizon, says Warren Vandeveer, senior VP of operations and engineering for Fox News.

“It's kind of irrelevant, because I don't think anybody's building an SD facility anymore,” says Vandeveer. “So whatever it costs, you have to do it. Even if you said, 'I'm going to invest in a new facility, and I'm going to make it SD, because not everything's HD yet'—well, then the life of your facility is just going to be a few years, because eventually you're going to have to do it. So you might as well figure out how to do it cost-effectively now, and at least get yourself into HD, as opposed to having to redo it all later.”

TCG can sorta follow the story up to that point. Then it gets pretty dense, of interest only to geeks--and, I suppose, to folks who want to kick major butt in cable news:

The new high-definition production control rooms (two), master control room and technical infrastructure for FBN are located in space that used to be a garage and lower-level retail stores underneath News Corp. headquarters at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New York.

Construction of the hi-def plant began in April. A team averaging some 50 people has been working to make the channel's Oct. 15 launch, including on-site personnel from system integrators Ascent Media and National TeleConsultants. Last week, technical personnel were still busy filling equipment racks, hooking up cables and putting the finishing touches on the set.

Key equipment includes Evertz monitoring technology, upconverters, digital-to-analog converters and other infrastructure gear; a Thomson Grass Valley Trinix router, configured to handle up to 150 incoming feeds; a Sony production switcher; a Calrec audio console; Omneon playout servers for master-control functions; Tamuz LCD monitors; Miranda master control software; VizRT graphics systems; Harris Nexio servers for graphics playout; and DNF news automation software.

The centerpiece of FBN's production strategy is a tapeless newsroom system that keeps content in the file-based domain and allows journalists to make low-res edits on the desktop that are then replicated in high resolution on the server. It consists of Omneon servers that both ingest material and play back finished packages and an IBM central storage system with some 4,000 hours of storage, which interface with Avid's iNews newsroom computer system and Apple Final Cut editing software. The tapeless system, which is controlled by Ardendo asset management software and Pebble Beach playout software, links to a scalable IBM robotic data-tape archive. A first for Fox, the tapeless system will eventually be expanded to support Fox News Channel as well.

In its spacious street-level studio, FBN is using five Ikegami studio cameras to capture the on-air talent. They are complemented by a host of visual aids including two Christie HD projectors, two 103” Panasonic plasma displays, a circular LED display that wraps around a structural column, and a bevy of flat-panel displays. The myriad displays are controlled by a small Sony production switcher and driven by a Vista Spyder video processing system that can show any possible configuration of video and graphics.

Integrated Delivery Systems

“The VizRT technology and all the graphics systems within the technology are allowing the sets to become more information delivery systems, instead of just places to deliver the news,” says Greg Ahlquist, senior network director and project manager, Digital Newsroom Integration, for Fox News. “So the graphics that are created for onscreen can be integrated into the set displays, and it's all very seamless at this point.”

FBN won't be doing a lot of field production, but when it does, it will rely on Panasonic P2 solid-state camcorders, which Fox is gradually deploying across all of its news properties. At FBN, a handful of P2 HD camcorders will be used to shoot both HD packages and widescreen SD video that will be upconverted for broadcast. While FBN cameramen are still in rehearsals, says Vandeveer, they have warmed to P2's file-based workflow, which stores video on removable memory cards that allow content to be easily transferred to the tapeless storage system.

In addition to the tapeless storage system, Fox will also repurpose the HD router and digital infrastructure gear it has installed for FBN to support Fox News Channel's future move to HDTV, which should happen next year. In a space adjacent to the FBN facilities, Fox has already begun building new high-definition control rooms for its established corporate cousin—all part of its master plan for hi-def news.

“We've picked the design, and unless we find during rehearsals we totally missed on something, the control rooms are going to be identical, and the technology is going to be identical,” says Vandeveer. “The idea is we want people walking into a control room to be as comfortable and as flexible as possible. So we can put any production, be it an election or a pre-tape for a show, into a control room, and they're all going to have the same capabilities.”

The Cable Gamer doesn't pretend to understand all this--but I will be watching, and maybe, some day, I will get to New York and gawk in on Greg Ahlquist for myself!

"Prepare to deal with the snake"--The Snake Being Chris Matthews.

Herman Cain (yay!) squares off with Ellis Henican (boo!), and then Jim Pinkerton (yay, too!) squares off Ellen Ratner (boo, too!), on the subject of Matthews-gate. That is, the bias against Republicans shown by Chris Matthews. And all Cable Game-cheering and razzing aside--I love you both, Ellis and Ellen, for your plucky good humor, even if it's not always intentional!--Matthews deserves a genuine booing for his boorish bias. And he also deserves to be bounced from tomorrow night's GOP presidential debate.

Not that the MSM seems to care. Happily, the rest of us have
Johnny Dollar to keep track of everything!

PS: The Cable Gamer just had a thought. Why not replace Matthews, as a debate co-moderator, with Erin Burnett? It would be fun to see the all-about-Eve-y Burnett butting elbows, and maybe heads, with the other debate moderator, Maria Bartiromo. If so, the fireworks would not be contained just to the Republican debaters.

Roger Ailes Speaks Out On Fox Business News--And That's Just For Openers!

The Cable Gamer is still marveling over a fascinating interview with Roger Ailes , chief of Fox News Channel and the forthcoming Fox Business News, in this morning's Wall Street Journal.

Ailes covered many topics, from strategy to gossip. In strategy, he drew upon parallels ranging from the Civil War to the Lebanon War to the network news wars. And on the gossip front, he hasd juicy things to say about Jim Cramer, Maria Bartiromo, Erin Burnett, Jeff Zucker. And so I decided to simply post the entire interview here:

Wall Street Journal: The Fox Business Network launches on Oct. 15 after two years of speculation and, to use your word, "disinformation." I want to know what will viewers see.

MR. AILES: So do I. We're working on it. I'm trying to get it up on my TV so I can watch rehearsals. We're in rehearsals. I stopped down in the studio this morning. Needless to say we didn't put out a program schedule because everything we suggested we were gonna do or CNBC thought we were gonna do over the last two years they've gone ahead and done in anticipation and preemption. So we're really not saying much. There's a big audience out there. We think economic news is probably broader than what CNBC has been presenting. We intend to cover the markets and cover wall street as effectively as they do, maybe more, and add additional value.

Beyond that, there's no sense in me talking about it because this is a launch, and it's a competitive launch. We don't see them as the only competitor. We compete with everybody who has a television on in the sense that we're trying to get more viewers. So I think the CNBC Fox Business Network so-called rivalry could be overblown. It certainly has been in their minds because they've spent an enormous amount of money putting on the screen what they think I'm gonna do. I just think we're gonna launch a very credible business network and I will call a lot of audibles at the line once the play starts. I will not stand around the sidelines with a gamebook and a set of plays that I'll stick to. I'll change many things in the first year I'm sure.

WSJ: What specific things has CNBC done in anticipation of Fox Business?

MR. AILES: The first thing they did was to say well, Ailes seems to be patriotic, so we'll name it America's Business Network and take that away from Ailes.

WSJ: Did they make any programming changes?

MR. AILES: They did that last week in anticipation of our schedule which we haven't put out yet.

They reached out to talent to give it a fresher look. They're still living on shows that in many cases I oversaw the development of 12 years ago when I was there. You know, Squawk Box and Power Lunch. I even built them their set before I left. Their newsroom. Now they've changed it because they went to the new building.

They've embraced capitalism suddenly. They've put on shows: what? Capitalism's good! What a plan.

I've made them extremely uncomfortable because they used to just be uncomfortable with corporations and profits because they always only wanted to embrace capitalism on the day they negotiated their own contracts, and they've been forced now to see that it's probably a good idea over all and it creates a lot of charity and a lot of jobs for people and is a good thing. So, if nothing else, it's dragged some of them kicking and screaming toward reality.

WSJ: You helped create CNBC.

MR. AILES: I was there for six years, but it was about to be folded. And I was probably responsible for turning it around.

WSJ: How has the network changed since you left?

MR. AILES: It's gone down in ratings dramatically. I checked the numbers of the fourth calendar quarter in 95, my last year there. Their total day is down 5 percent and their demographic is down 15 percent. Prime time is down 61 percent and prime time demo is down 53 percent. So, it's changed quite a bit since I was there.

WSJ: Has the perspective of the network changed?

MR. AILES: They are, let's be honest, there aren't a lot of. They probably don't reflect the business community in terms of their own economic and political views in many cases. Not that they should, but they should be able to report on it accurately and I think that they've you know, look, they got burned. They rode the bubble up. They flogged the bubble. They got burned. They got tied to a sort of day traders and good market information and it blew up on them and they didn't know quite how to scramble out of that. And rather than come up with a new way of covering it, they blamed the economy and the bubble and all of that for their woes.

I mean, there are some very good individual reporters, anchors and talent at CNBC. I found that when I went there. Everybody thought I would go in there and fire everybody and clean house. It turned out there were a lot of good people there. They lacked a mission and a focus and leadership. Oftentimes that's the case. I think they've improved. They're better. They've certainly had two years to figure out what we might do.

They've had The Wall Street Journal for seven, eight years. So I'm expecting them to come out of the gate the day we launch with some brilliant programming based on The Wall Street Journal. They've been holding it in reserve I think and they're gonna flood me with a tsunami of brilliant ideas and programming on Day One.

They have a tremendous advantage. They're in 90 million homes. They have a 17 year head start. I put them on track 12 years ago. They've got GE. They've got all the money they need. They've got a brand new building. And we've announced when we're gonna come with our programming in our 30 million little pathetic homes. If they can't kill us in the crib now, it's only gonna get worse for them day to day.

WSJ: How will you surmount that?

MR. AILES: Well. If you study history, the victories did not always go to the people with the great resources. Stonewall Jackson seemed to be undermanned in every campaign and won. McClelland had plenty of resources in every fight and lost. That isn't always what matters. It's, well, I'm not gonna tell them what it is.

They're winning. Because they're a monopoly. They're winning the same way CNN was winning when we came on the scene with Fox News. CNN was winning. It was a world-wide brand. They had no competition. That's how you win. Once you have competition it's a different kind of fight. It's like putting one football team on the field. You know what? They'll win. They can run up and down the field all day, score 100 touchdowns in four quarters. As soon as you put somebody out there to tackle them and run the ball themselves, life changes. So we'll see how they adapt.

WSJ: What are the particular strengths of your football team?

MR. AILES: Good people. In the end, almost everything I do is related to my ability to hire good people. I don't take much of the credit myself. I think I have a good eye. I think I have a good eye for talent. I think I'm smart enough to figure out what the mission is and achieve it. I achieve it by hiring good people, and I'm very confident in the management team. Very confident in the on-air people. That's the whole secret to everything, it's having people who love to work where they're working and want to win. We're getting a lot of resumes from people who don't love to work where they're working.

BRIAN LEWIS (Mr. Ailes's communications director): Can I interrupt one second? Jeff Zucker was on Squawk Box.

MR. AILES: When?

MR. LEWIS: This morning.

MR. AILES: Good. He has nothing else to do.

MR. LEWIS: This is, well, you can read it yourself (quoting): "News Corp is an intense competitor but I could not feel more confident about CNBC. I don't think in the 20 years we've been around that CNBC has been in a stronger position. We've made a ton of changes in the last 2 years. Some of them have been on this program, Squawk Box, and I don't think this program has ever been in stronger shape. We welcome competition but we're not scared by it."

MR. AILES: That's the right thing to say. I think they have been in better shape. They were in better shape at one time. Somebody should have prepped him for that interview. They're competitors. I know Jeff, in the old days when I was on the Today Show, he was a producer. We all know each other in this business. We all know that – and everybody thinks they have everybody else's playbook, and they don't necessarily.

It's not unlike – I use the Civil War analogy because it's relevant here. In the Civil War a lot of those young men came out of West Point in the class of '46 and went to Mexico and fought together. General Grant and General Lee fought on the same side. General Longstreet, who was Lee's number two, was best man at Grant's wedding. They all knew each other from class. They knew who could ride a horse, who could draw a battlefield, who could command troops in the field. They knew how things worked. Everybody in television knows each other and on any given day some people play better than others, some people get lucky, whatever. What that does is it makes the margin of success a very narrow field.

We're going into a 90-million-home competitor with a 17-year head start who has spent the last two years making decisions to get ready for us. You know, the Germans had the high ground at Normandy and you know what? Our guys did alright. I just figure, you know, the fight will begin. I feel confident our folks are ready for it.

We're not particularly targeting CNBC. CNBC does a narrow kind of programming. Unless they do what they could do which is jump us with a whole lot of Wall Street Journal stuff, programming. If they do that, the good stuff will eventually become mine. Cause they're my R and D department.

WSJ: What will become of the WSJ-CNBC deal?

MR. AILES: Unclear. I think that's being sorted out right now. Clearly we're being blocked from using it, but they've enforced that so strongly in the last seven years that they haven't even used it. So, it must be a real tough enforcement.

* * *
WSJ: Why did it take two years and two weeks?

MR. AILES: I think the first year there was feasibility studies looking at it. I didn't want to launch until we had 30 million homes. I made that very clear to him, that I thought that was a mistake, and he respected that. And we fought our way through. We had to do the renegotiation of Fox News channel, which was our top priority, and we didn't want to get that muddled up with – we'll give you a business channel but you can't get your price for Fox News, because Fox News was such a valuable asset. So we had to separate that.

Rupert is, well, he's probably the best entrepreneur and media visionary in history and has the strongest company because of it. He sees things other people don't see and tells you to go take the hill.

WSJ: In August, Mr. Murdoch said he expects the Fox Business Network to surpass CNBC's estimated $4 billion value "in short order." How long do you think it will take to do that, and how will you do it?

MR. AILES: I never predict offensive goals. I think that was Israel's problem in Lebanon. Look, there are too many variables: is there gonna be a recession? Will that affect the ratings on either channel? Will CNBC suddenly get better? Will something work out with The Wall Street Journal? Will we be better than expected? Is it gonna rain? There are just too many variables. So you don't go out there and say: I'm gonna do this.

I believe we will beat them, and I believe the asset value of Fox Business Network will grow relatively rapidly. But people have to remember that because Fox News right now is seen as a success and that sets the expectation level pretty high, but they forget that for the first two years, we struggled with Fox News. We couldn't get clearance in NYC with Time Warner, we weren't on analog, we didn't have any hit shows. CNN had it all. They had all the world-wide news-gathering capability. We had no video news capabilities, even at our station level really.

We had to build our infrastructure. And it took us four years to tie CNN. I would not be surprised if the fox news model were replicated here, and that certainly would be a goal.

As it turned out, the Fox News Channel was one of the greatest success stories in the history of cable television. Maybe the greatest because, you know, there are other channels that are done very well but they didn't have – MTV at that time had no competition, or the History Channel, or any of the great channels. We had to come into a generic product: news. With people ahead of us in resources, time and distribution and take down the leaders from behind. I'm not sure that's ever been done. I think doing it in business news will be difficult, but possible.

WSJ: Is it more difficult than with general news?

MR. AILES: Well, there's a broader audience with general news. It's probably easier to market general news, and there are more events that drive ratings in general news. You know, 9/11 was huge. CNN made its bones back in the Gulf War when they were out there by themselves and suddenly we were getting an inside look at warfare on a cable channel. So, major elections and you know major events, terrorist attack in Europe or whatever. Events often drive general news. The events that drive business news tend to be either the stock market really hit a record today or we're headed into a recession, we really got a problem.

WSJ: Or the sub-prime collapse.

MR. AILES: Yeah, the sub-prime thing, which nobody understood. You go out on the street and say to somebody, how's your sub-prime? They think you're talking dirty to them. They don't know what you're saying.

You gotta explain all that as you go. It's a little more difficult although the education level and income level for business news is quite high, that's why the advertisers have always been there, and we believe the advertiser base is there, and we're finding real advertiser acceptance in the market for Fox Business Channel already. We've already made sales based on not explaining our programming.

* * *
WSJ: One of the reasons CNBC is so lucrative for General Electric is that, although the network has a small audience, it is an extremely affluent one, and CNBC is able to charge advertisers very high rates. If Fox Business Network targets a more mainstream audience, how will it make money?

MR. AILES: With high CPMs. Fox News has a very high income audience, and I think that any business channel automatically draws that. When I say Main Street, most of the jobs in America are in small business. That doesn't mean they're poor; they're just in small business. What I'm suggesting there is we're not gonna reach for a lower financial demographic. I don't think that happens. I think automatically if you say business network you'll have a higher income, higher demographic, so I think we'll be quite competitive on that.

WSJ: It seems like the sensibility you're striving for with the network is embodied by CNBC's Jim Cramer. Would you like to have him on your air?

MR. AILES: He used to work for me. I like Jim. Jim's like driving down the highway and watching the wreck across the guardrail. You never know what he's gonna do, which makes him interesting. Jim understands that being surprising as a talent, people will watch. That is not what we're aspiring to. Jim has an encyclopedic knowledge of the stock market. Anybody who sits with Jim, whether they like him or don't like him, know that he's a) smart and b) studies this stuff and knows what he's talking about.

His presentational style is not what I'd call what I'm reaching for. It's entertaining at times. At times it's annoying, you know. And anybody that has children understands that when they run around and break things at dinnertime it's, like, annoying. It's an acquired taste. But most people get mad and whack their kids on the butt. And in fact, that show would be better if someone just ran in from off camera sometimes and whacked him on the butt and said, let's get back to business here.

But Jim's an entertaining guy, and I like Jim, but he's not what we're aspiring to.

WSJ: Is there anyone from CNBC you'd like to hire?

MR. AILES: Look, I'm the one who put Maria Bartiromo on the air. She's a fine talent. This new woman that they're overusing because she's on now 15 hours a day, Erin Burnett, is a good talent. But she's gonna age. She'll only last another year the way they're working her. Like Anderson Cooper at CNN. They've been figuring out how to replace Larry King, so they've been flogging poor Anderson. He's actually a pretty good journalist and a good guy.

I think sometimes the management of talent misuses talent. Erin Burnett will be – look, she'll look 75 in the next six months if they keep working her as hard as they're working her. So, I hope, at some point she steps up and says I need water, I need a little break here.

WSJ: Are there gonna be any Bill O'Reilly's on the Fox Business Network?

MR. AILES: There will be, but I won't name them today.

WSJ: Why not?

MR. AILES: Because I'm not crazy. I'm not gonna put pressure on the talent. I'm not gonna put pressure on their colleagues.

WSJ: Will there be Bill O'Reilly-like stars on Fox Business Network?

MR. AILES: Who's like Bill O'Reilly? If there was somebody like Bill O'Reilly, they'd be out there getting ratings. No matter how much the mainstream press dumps on him, the guy constantly delivers an interesting show. He's unique. What I look for more are unique – Shep Smith. Shep Smith's probably the best general news anchor in America. Brit Hume! What I think I find are people who have some unique ability they bring to the screen. I set up a structure so they can do that every day. And I encourage and support their talent. Will I find unique talent, will unique talent break through? Yes. It's all in the developmental stage for me now because I have to decide who's gonna be the breakthrough talent and how are we gonna nurture them. And I'm in the process of doing that as we speak.

WSJ: How important is the Fox Business Web site?

MR. AILES: It's extremely important. It so important that we have Ray Hennessy of Dow Jones heading that up for us. We've hired some incredibly skilled people. And I can't say in five years, is the television or the Web site going to be more valuable? They're both growing. We had a -- Just in ad sales on foxnews.com, our percentage of growth was more than 20 percent higher than the national average in terms of percentage of ad growth. We believe we'll be able to accomplish that on foxbusiness.com.

* * *
WSJ: Anything else you can tell me about what's going to be on the air of the Fox Business Network?

MR. AILES: No. I mean, we're gonna present business news. I think the people we have presenting it will be interesting and good at doing it. I think we will present information in a more clear manner, we'll have -- I think, look, the truth is, by week 2, they'll be copying what we do. That's what happened with Fox News. They'll look at our screen and say we need one of those! Aww god, we need -- that bug's gotta be bigger. Ohhh, let's put the Dow over on the left, let's put it on the left, they got it on the right. They'll twist themselves up in their underwear for a couple of weeks trying to match what we do. And there'll be this little dance going on until we get into 50 or 60 million homes and hopefully people will see, oh, geez, two choices here, they'll choose us. That's what I'm hoping for, and I believe we'll achieve. Meanwhile, I think they're going to get twisted up in their shorts for awhile.

They already are. We haven't even launched and they're making crazy statements about it. This is ready fire aim over there. Why don't you wait till the guy shows up on the battlefield before you start shooting at him?

Imus In The Morning--But Whose Morning?

What's going to happen to Don Imus? Obviously he's controversial, but controversies have a way of blowing themselves out. So as detailed here, here, and here, and probably most definitively,
here, Imus is clearly reaching toward some sort of new-media deal, and is lunching around with big shots, including Roger Ailes.

Still, The Cable Gamer would be surprised if he ends up at Fox--and we know that he won't be back at MSNBC. And not CNBC. That leaves CNN, and I just don't see it there--not with all their p.c.

Chris Matthews Tests NBC--Will A Self-Declared News Organization--And Publicly Traded Corporation!--Stand By A Rabid Partisan? Answer: Not Forever!

Is NBC News, the once-august organization that gave the world such TV giants as Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, John Chancellor, and Tom Brokaw, really going to let its reputation be besmirched, even destroyed, by one little attack-weasel, Chris Matthews? Or maybe make that one attack-weasel, and one trampy fox--Maria Bartiromo. Here's the lede: Matthews should not be moderating the Republican debate next Tuesday. If he does, it's bad for fairness in journalism, and it's bad for NBC's brand.

As every Cable Gamer knows by now, Matthews let 'it rip in DC on Thursday night, slandering George W. Bush and the rest of the Bush adminisration. I believe that The Washington Examiner's dynamic gossip duo, Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin, were the ones who got the story first, quoting Matthews saying that the Bush administration has "finally been caught in their criminality." But now every observer and blogger knows all about it. So the question is: What to do about Chris, whose motor-mouth has finally gotten the best of what little remained of his judgment.

Now of course, as a citizen, Matthews is entitled to his opinions, whatever they might be. But at the same time,the rest of us citizens have a right to expect fairness and balance in news-gathering. And it's,uh, certainly fair to say that Matthews has revealed himself, bias-wise. If he is so obviously biased--and nasty in expressing those biases, to the point of libel and slander--then he ought not to be a reporter. And certainly not a presidential debate-moderator.

Although Jossip boldly adds the detail that Chris was sloshed during his rant, the Cable Gamer thinks that he might be taking in more than mere booze.

Everybody knows that Matthews is a drinker, and weirdly proud of it--I have heard him say it on "Hardball"; he likes to brag about his boozing, becuase such tipling (learned from Tip O'Neill?) proves that he is an authentic Irishman, retaining lots of street cred, even if he makes a couple mil a year and lives in Northwest DC, not Northeast Philly. (But boy-o, take it from me, there are better ways to show loyalty to the Old Sod!)

Still, The Cable Gamer believes that while Matthews might well be drinking to excess, there's still a career-move method in his alkie-madness: MSNBC has shifted dramatically to the left, under the leadership of Dan Abrams, and Matthews must feel the need to keep up with the likes of Keith Olbermann.

But of course, it still makes sense that Matthews might well be drinking heavily; I'd be looking for oblivion, too, if I had gotten clobbered earlier this week by Jon Stewart, in one of the of faux news history. (And if Matthews really thinks he won that debate with Stewart, as Dufour & Gavin report, then he REALLY must be seriously far gone, all the way into the land of the pink elephants!)

The Cable Gamer will return to that "Daily Show" confrontation in some future posting, but in the meantime, there's a more pressing media matter: Whether or not NBC wishes to defend its editorial integrity from being chewed out from within. Specifically, NBC and its two corporate children, MSNBC and CNBC, are hosting a Republican presidential debate in Michigan this coming Tuesday, October 9th. And the hosts are Matthews and Bartiromo! (And we'll come back to Bartiromo, the soured-up "money honey," some other time, as well.)

But for the here and now we can ask: Is it right, is it fair, to have Matthews host a debate among Republicans, after he having said that the leader of the party, President Bush, is a criminal? Or at least that 43 is the head of a "revealed" criminal conspiracy?

I don't think so!

Obviously the Republicans should boycott this 10/9 debate. The Republican hopeful who writes a strong letter to NBC announcing his non-attendance will be an immediate hero to rank-and-file Republicans, the ones who know that the MSM deck is stacked against them.

But whether the GOPers do that or not, NBC should have the decency to yank Matthews and replace him with a fair-minded reporter--sorry, not you, David Gregory! When I say "fair," I mean, really fair, assuming that NBC can find such a reporter!!

By contrast, Fox has plenty of opinionated personalities--but it never uses them in such debate situations. Fox has never used Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity as debate moderators, because they are clearly commentators--as distinct from news reporters. It wouldn't be fair for Fox to do it, and so Roger Ailes doesn't do it. That's a bit of journalistic scrupulosity that obviously has evaded NBC and its two subsidiaries, MSNBC and CNBC.

So then the question is, What happens next? Will NBC and parent company GE really allow this Matthews travesty to take place? Will they sit on their haunches this weekend, as Matthews gets kicked around, and as all of the NBC media empire suffers from tarnish-by-association? Will NBC really put Matthews on the air on Tuesday? (And will Matthews stay sober in the meantime?)

As an aside, it'll be interesting to see if any group of activists or citizens starts up a boycott against MSNBC/CNBC/NBC/GE. No doubt the Moveon.org crowd is cheering Matthews, and I wouldn't be surprised if lefty billionaire George Soros has given Jeff Zucker and Jeff Immelt nice "attaboys." But such "blue" lefties don't speak for America--in fact, they don't even speak for the overall market.

But speaking of high-finance, Soros isn't the only big player out there. The really big player, which will determine the fate of all these media outfits, is the stock market itself. And the market, as TCG has noted in the past, doesn't think much of GE management, including its media properties--that's why the stock is down by a third from its highs at the beginning of this decade.

And those media properties will only do worse if consumers get the impression that MSNBC, in particular, is a hotbed of undisciplined--and never disciplined--lefty hit men. Such obviously partisanship and ideological-on-the-sleeving is ultimately not good for business. Yes, The Daily Kos loves it, but mainstream advertisers, even if they quietly lean to the left, will always shy away from a raging controversy and an overt confrontation with Middle America.

In fact, a Wall Street-driven reckoning is coming. TCG hears that the new plan is for GE to spin off NBC after the 2008 Beijing Olympics. If so, then it's hard to imagine that a spun off NBC will continue to be run the way that it's been run. The new owners will likely be a lot tougher on Matthews-type media bias. In fact, they probably won't tolerate such left-leaning at all.

So enjoy the party while it lasts, Chris! The Two Jeffs, Zucker and Immelt, are picking up your bar tab now, but they probably won't be there for you in a couple of years.

"Fox News Sunday" Gets The Most Buzz

Frankly, this one surprised me. According to a Friday item Fishbowl DC, Chris Wallace's "FNS" has gotten the most mentions so far in 2007, which is to say, the most of that most precious of media commodities, BUZZ!!!.

But hey, they report, you decide:

If you take a look at the six major national papers with dedicated political coverage year to date (LA Times, NY Times, WSJ, Washington Post, Washington Times, USA Today), Wallace and his FOX News Sunday crew are leading the pack, with ABC's "This Week" placing second.

2007 Numbers (thru 9/30)
FNS: 172
ABC: 158
CBS: 120
MTP: 113
CNN: 75

The data above is a count of the number of mentions each Sunday Show gets in the six major national newspapers every week--specifically counting mentions in reference to that week's show as opposed to just generic mentions.

Hey Rachel Sklar! Learn Something About The TV Business, Already!!

The Cable Gamer has always kinda liked The Huffington Post's Rachel Sklar.

For two reasons:

First, she edits her section of "Huffpo" with a light touch--allowing plenty of room for wit and humor, in contrast to the politics section, which seems to consist mostly of unemployed Hollywood screenwriters who hate George W. Bush.

Second, she's a brunette, who has resisted the temptation to go blonde, even when the peroxide siren of TV started calling her.

So go, girl!

However, Ms. Sklar does have a few things to learn about The Cable Game. A case in point is this "Eat the Press" item of hers today.

Like all liberals these days, Sklar shills for MSNBC every chance she gets. That's fine, but she needs to know her facts. In her original post, she had fun with the fact that the new Fox Business NETWORK (FBN), not CHANNEL (FBC)--that's fact-correction #1--was advertising on MSNBC.

But what Rachel didn't understand is that such advertising, called a "local avail" occurs when time is bought on local cable systems. It is extremely common in media--all cable media. And in any case, the money for the ad did not go to MSNBC, but rather to the cable operator.

Interestingly, if you scroll through to the end of her post, Sklar acknowledges, sort of, that she got it wrong--in response to a challenge from Fox Business NEWS. So that's fact-correction #2.

Sklar didn't quite admit that she'd made a mistake, but she was, at least, nice enough to thank Fox for the "clarification." More like "correction," Rachel--but we'll let it go.

Just be more careful next time, because The Cable Gamer is always eager to like an honest brunette!

Scratch "The Big Idea." Please!

The Cable Gamer has never thought much of Donny Deutsch. I mean, he was pretty good at inheriting an advertising agency from his father, but as a TV personality, he always struck me as too smug and to full of himself.

And the proof that he's no good on TV, of course, is that CNBC hired him.

But don't take my word for it: scratch--I mean, click--here.

Juan Williams Says CNN "Should have the decency to do something"

NPR's Juan Williams is still hopping mad about the way he was treated by CNN, especially "Reckless Rick" Sanchez. Juan's comments to The Hill newspaper's Betsy Rothstein.

Juan's words, appearing in Betsy's "In The Know" column, are worth repeating here in full. In particular, it's revealing that she refers to him as a "liberal." That's a useful reminder, as to how quickly the left turns on its own when it senses a chance to mug Fox News:

Juan Williams, the liberal-leaning pundit of Fox News and NPR, is not a happy camper these days — the word “happy” being the source of his ire.

Last week a guest on CNN, author and professor Boyce Watkins, referred to Williams as “the eternal happy Negro,” and the comment has the pundit hopping mad. The remark came in reaction to Williams’s spot on Fox News host Bill O’Reilly’s radio show in which Williams defended O’Reilly’s take on black people.

The comment in question: “The fact of the matter is that, when Bill O’Reilly gets Juan Williams, the eternal happy Negro, on his show to congratulate him on his racism, that’s like Hugh Hefner getting a stripper to come on the show and tell him that he’s not a sexist,” Watkins said.

Williams wrote an op-ed on the matter at Time.com this week. He said people are calling and writing him about it. Even at church on Sunday, he said, folks approached and told him the remark was “outrageous.”

Rick Sanchez of CNN, who hosted the show, appeared on Howard Kurtz’s “Reliable Sources” and was asked why he didn’t challenge the comment. Sanchez called Williams a “professional,” and said he wishes Watkins hadn’t made the remark.

Williams told ITK that he’s angry CNN did nothing to counter Watkins’s remark. “I know people at CNN,” said Williams, who worked at CNN before moving over to Fox News. “I have a reputation in this town. I have written books that chronicle the civil rights movement. [CNN] should have the decency to do something. … It’s not for me to go begging them.

“I find it deeply offensive, but I think it’s typical of people who would rather attack my character and essentially call me an Uncle Tom rather than engage [in] the debate of what’s happening with race relations in this country.”

Williams was not offended when O’Reilly said his grandmother was afraid of black people. “Don’t say your grandmother’s prejudiced,” Williams assured. “She’s acting on the information she has been given.”

CNN: The Most Trusted Name in Book-Cooking! And Say It Ain't So, TV Newser!!

TV Newser has many strengths, but one of its weaknesses is that it is so eager to put up lots of content on its busy website that quality control--the editorial judgment that distinguishes a valuable news operation from a forgettable press-release operation--sometimes slips.

A case in point is this post from Wednesday, in which eager-beaver flacksters at CNN, who obviously majored in creative accounting, attempted to sell the world on new metrics for CNN ratingzzz.

Cable Gamers know that it is absurd for CNN to brag about its "cume/reach" (that is, the cumulative number of viewers, aggregated, over a length of time). Cume/reach might be a good metric for marketers trying to build overall brand awareness and institutional identity--think McDonald's and its Golden Arches--but TV advertisers don't care about such long-term notions: advertisers care about eyeballs in front of the tube in immediate here and now.

There are no ad dollars tied to cume, so the statistic is pointless, a way for losers to feel like winners--even if they are still, in fact, losers.

Yet TV Newser curiously highlighted CNN's "cume" numbers from the network's ratings press release. Nice going TVN; maybe you all need an editor!

Highlighting this Loch Ness Monster of a notional number has been CNN's talking point for years now since they've become a dinosaur that's constantly being trampled on by its competitors. Since they're a #2--sometimes #3--network and no longer a Nielsen favorite, cume is the only thing they have to highlight. But TVN's, um, friends at MSNBC shouldn't be happy about excessive shilling and spinning for CNN.

And feeds into a pet theory of The Cable Gamer: that the proliferation of ratings metrics over the years was a scheme by the ratings outfits, plus their customers, to make everyone a winner. Sort of like in summer camp; when I was just a little Cable Gamerette, I was awkward and uncoordinated; yet at summer camp, I still managed to win trophies--the fix was in, if my parents paid good money for me to go camp, I was going to win something! Similarly, in the old days, in sports, it was obvious who won and who lost--somebody won the AL pennant, and somebody won the NL pennant. But that wasn't good enough for MLB: there was more money to be made in division playoffs, and "wild cards" and all the rest. Now the seasons in pro sports go on a lot longer, and half the teams, it would appear, are somehow still in competition, even after losing in the final season. And so it is with ratings: with all the numbers chopped up and served up in so many different ways, everybody can be a winner, kind of, in some intellectual hothouse of a number crunching derby. OK, end of rant on that!

In the meantime, CNN should be embarrassed to tout the cume because what it really means is that people are surfing by CNN but then surfing away so quickly that Nielsen doesn't even calculate people's nano-viewing of CNN programming.

Once again, I am mostly a fan of TV Newser. But if TVN wants to preserve its status as a must-read for the Cable Game, let alone the overall News Game, then it will have to serve its readers better by pointing out the real inside story, not just repackaging a CNN press release.

Mark Levin Was Right! -- Come On, Media Matters, Sue Him!! Inquiring Minds Want To Discover The Hillary Clinton Connection!!!

So is Hillary Rodham Clinton part of the vast left-wing conspiracy? It sure seems that way! But don't take my word for it--look and listen to Clinton herself
talking about helping to start up various liberal groups, including Media Matters.

On Sunday, The Cable Gamer took note of what Mark Levin's words about Media Matters. Not to put too fine a point on it, Levin accused MM of being a bunch of criminals. In other words, he practically begged MM to sue him for libel. Why? Because as Levin said last week, during the course of that lawsuit, the "discovery" process would open up a lot of cans of a lot of worms, about possible IRS violations by MM. That was Levin's claim; the fact that there's been no law suit from MM suggests that maybe Levin had it pegged.

And now it's interesting--another data point--to hear Hillary bragging about her role in the creation of MM, among other liberal groups, as captured by The Washington Times:

"We are righting the balance ... and really putting together a network in the blogosphere and a lot of the new progressive infrastructure, institutions that I helped start and support like Media Matters and the Center for American Progress."

It seems to the Cable Gamer that these words of Hillary's are, if not quite a smoking gun, then a pretty good indicator that there's some legal fire under this political smoke.

Olbermann Tanks NBC Sports, as well as MSNBC "News"

The Cable Gamer keeps reading that Keith Olbermann is kicking butt in the ratings. For example, I see this headline, from blogger John Hoard, dated September 12: "Olbermann Defeats O'Reilly in the Ratings." And yet as Bill Gorman keeps pointing out, Bill O'Reilly is still comfortably ahead in the cable news wars.

Call me conspiratorial, but I think that liberals--led, of course, by The New York Times--are trying to "talk up" Olbermann and "talk down" Fox. I mean, is that even a controversial statement? That the MSM would seek to displace the verdict of the viewers with their own elitist predilections? Why I even see attempts at outright hagiography, even if KO is distinctly un-saint-like.

But here's something interesting, from the world of broadcast sports: NBC is down now that Olbermann is on the air, providing commentary for "Football Night in America."

This is significant because MSNBC has claimed that Olbermann's appearance on NBC is helping the NBC networks "in the demo"--that is, among the younger-viewer demographic. But if that's true, if Olbermann is so great, then why are they down week to week? Down 21 percent among 18-49-year-olds and down 16 percent among 25-54s?

MSNBC is making this a point of interest by trying to exploit his NBC appearances and saying how that translates into viewership for MSNBC. But that doesn't compute, as the numbers--laboriously put together by your Cable Gamer--clearly show. (Although I am sorry if the data look so small on the screen; I will have a talk with Blogspot about that!)

So in any case, no dice, MSNBC, on the Olbermann overhype!

But maybe it makes MSNBCers feel better to know that KO is a hero to some liberal YouTubers. Now all they have to do is figure out how to Nielsen-ize YouTube views. And if MSNBC can't do that, well, then, they've just got themselves another overhyped and underperforming egomaniac on their payroll.

GE and NBC Splitting--The Whispers Keep Coming

The latest pundit to put his data-based imagination to work is Fortune magazine's Andy Serwer. He asks on his blog:

Do you think G.E. will hold on to NBC forever?

And then he provides the answer:

No!

GE stock has crept up a little bit, along with the market, but while the overall market is at record highs, GE is still a third off its peak in 2000. That's why TCG keeps hearing rumors about GE going its separate ways from NBC and its Cable Game stepchildren, MSNBC and CNBC.

Foxes on Fox

I report, you decide!

The Axis of Liberalism: Sy Hersh, The New Yorker, and CNN

Every now and then we Outside-The-Beltway types get a glimpse of how things really work in Washington--and it's always interesting, if sometimes disturbing.

A case in point is the fast chute that exists among liberals. It's always been kind of a mystery to me, how news could go so quickly from one lefty beehive to all the other lefty beehives. But now I am getting a better understanding, thanks to White House press secretary Dana Perino. Here she is--looking cute as a button, as always--responding to reporters' questions on Monday about possible administration action to forestall Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Note the prominent role, in the liberal food chain, that Dana assigns to CNN:

Look, you know, I'm glad you brought it up. Every two months or so, Sy Hersh writes an article in The New Yorker magazine, and CNN provides him a forum in which to talk about his article and all the anonymous sources that are quoted in it.

Thanks CNN! You are officially now on the same ideological team as Hersh and The New Yorker. Which is to say, whenever any of you have the chance to side with American non-proliferation, or side with the helping the nuclear weapons-building terrorists--you always lean toward the terrorists!

Campbell Brown Discovers the High Price of Loyalty--And Decides That CNN Isn't Worth It

I wonder what CNN prexy Jon Klein is thinking about his new hire, Campbell Brown? I think I know: Klein is thinking to himself, "Campbell, you bitch! We pay you all this money, give you a primetime showcase on our network, rescuing you from a dead-end gig at NBC, and yet you throw us under the media bus before you get on the air!"

Probably something like that is going through Klein's mind. Here's the back story on Klein vs. Campbell, as reported by The St. Petersburg Times' hardhitting media pundit, Eric Deggans: It seems that Brown was scheduled to speak at an event today at the University of South Florida.

But Deggans and other journalists were told that Brown would not be answering any questions from reporters. In other words, Brown is going to whisk down to south, offer a speech of platitudes about "giving back," and then pack herself to New York City. Which is to say, Brown is dodging possible questions about public policy, as well as questions about the media--such, as for example, why and how CNN is part of the Media Matter-ized lynch mob against Bill O'Reilly and now, Rush Limbaugh. No, Brown won't be answering any questions.

But here's where it gets interesting: As Deggans made plain in his original report, Brown was determined to put the blame for her silence on her new employer, CNN, as opposed to herself. Don't blame me, she hinting strongly, blame those suits, led by Klein, up at the CNN Center in Atlanta and at the Time-Warner Center in Manhattan.

Why would CNN do this? Easy. They want to "save" her for the rollout in November, and also, of course, they want to make sure that she has had enough time to adequately internalize all the CNN propaganda.

Later on Monday, Deggans updated his blog-posting:

Campbell herself told me today its her new employer, CNN, which seems to have promised exclusives to certain news organizations barring her from commenting to anyone else until those stories are published. Which is their right. But also places one of CNN's top journalists in the hypocritical position of giving public speeches but refusing to talk with the press before or afterward.

In other words, buzz off local press corps. Translation: Don't call us, we'll call you--when we think you can help us! Not a very good attitude to begin the new phase of Brown's career.

And so Deggans concludes:

Don't know why that bugs me so much. But bug me, it does....

Speaking of "bugged," Klein must be more than a little irked--and stained. Brown's desire to keep any blame for attempted media manipulation from sticking to her means that she wiped it off herself and wiped it onto Klein.

Thanks, Campbell, the notorioiusly thin-skinned Klein must be thinking to himself. There's little doubt in The Cable Gamer's mind that he will find a way to get his revenge on her.

The beginning of a beautiful friendship--not!