Former Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons was on Bloomberg talking about Rupert Murdoch's bid to buy Time Warner. Parsons thinks that Time Warner is worth so much money that it is unlikely that anyone will buy it.
Let's go to the clip:
Variety pens a long piece about the battle going on between NBC's Today Show and ABC's Good Morning America.
The piece is like hundreds of others that you have read. NBC lost their ratings crown and wants to back. GMA is doing all they can to keep the lead...blah, blah, blah.
Here are some of the more interesting quotes from the prime players in the battle for number one:
“Never take for granted being No. 1,” says “GMA” co-anchor Robin Roberts. “The sports person in me says that once you do that, you get yourself in trouble. … My mother always said, ‘When you strut, you stumble.’ ”
“The viewers aren’t just going to come overnight. It’s going to take them a while to recognize that it’s time to come back,” says Don Nash, “Today” executive producer. “We have built it, and now we just need the viewers to come. And they will.”
We also learn in the story, what time all the key players get up in the morning.
It should come as no surprise that Matt Lauer is the last one to get out of bed in the morning:
If you're interested in more you can read the full story here.
Forget the conflict in the middle east, the problems in Iraq, the heavy rain in Motown, because comedian Robin Williams has died.
You can be sure that presidents and kings have gotten less airtime than network morning television devoted Tuesday morning to the death of Robin Williams.
The NY Daily News writes that all three major network morning shows - "Good Morning America" on ABC, "The Today Show" on NBC and "CBS This Morning" on CBS - made Williams the dominant theme of their Tuesday programs.
Each had "Robin Williams" logos and Williams photos for backdrops. Each also focused on his career, not on the details of his death, which was suicide at the age of 63.
"He was one of the titans of television," said Charlie Rose on "CBS This Morning." "He was impossible to categorize. . . a guaranteed laugh."
Robin Roberts of "Good Morning America," one of numerous hosts who had clips of previous interviews with Williams, called him an unmatched guest who "kept you on your toes" with his rapid-fire answers and riffs.
Television devoted so much time to Williams Tuesday morning that eventually some of the hosts and guests ran low on things to say. At that point they let Williams take over, falling back on multiple clips from his movies and TV appearances.
When Matt Lauer of "Today" interviewed Meryl Streep about her new movie, he first asked about Williams.
A return to raglan news is expected Today.
This screen shot from Gawker just has to bring a smile to your face. If you care, here is the details as to why?
KNXV Weekend morning Anchor Christopher Sign is being bumped up.
Sign is moving to the weekday morning newscasts at the station, joining Dan Spindle & Connie Colla. Sources tell FTVLive that Sign signed a new contract last week.
KNXV GM Anita Helt posted Sign's promotion on her Twitter page:
When it comes to tasteless actions, you will have to go pretty low to stoop to ABC News' level.
ABC promoted on their website that you could watch live ariel footage of Robin Williams house. Williams was found dead in the home earlier in the day and his family asked for privacy. ABC did not oblige the request:
After getting lit up on social media, ABC released a statement saying what everyone else already knew. The ariel pictures of Williams' home had absolutely no news value what-so-ever.
“When we realized there was no news value to the live stream, we took it down immediately," ABC News said in a statement. “Our intention was not to be insensitive to his family, friends and fans, and for that we apologize."
H/T HuffPo
When news broke yesterday that comedian Robin Williams was found dead, the cable news stations went into overdrive covering the story.
Word came down that Robin Williams had committed suicide and Fox News Shepard Smith wondered if he took the coward's way out?
Smith was talking about Robin Williams' love for his 3 children and then added, "but something inside you is so horrible, or you’re such a coward, or whatever the reason, that you decide you have to end it. Robin Williams, at 63, did that today.”
Smith echoed what many people say after someone kills themselves that they are taking the "coward's way out." In reality, maybe Williams or others that take their life just don't want to live anymore? Sometimes, things get so bad you just want to check out. It's sad but it is not cowardly in our opinion .
Here's the video from Fox News:
After catching flack for his comments, Smith tried to back track from what he said. “The last thing I would ever suggest about a man I know nothing about personally, is that he’s a coward,” Smith tells TVNewser. “That goes against everything I am. If those words, I used so innocently, offended his family, from the bottom of my heart, I could not be more sorry.”
Another Day.....another TV person is arrested.
Cops clamped the cuffs on KRGV (Rio Grand Valley, TX) Reporter Kirk Chaisson on drug charges.
McAllen police arrested Chaisson on Sunday morning after they say they caught with marijuana and drug paraphernalia. Details on how much marijuana Chaisson was in possession of were not immediately available.
The Reporter was booked into the Hidalgo County Jail after the arrest. The 54-year-old was given a $2,000 PR bond.
Calls were made to KRGV where station manager John Kittleman issued a statement saying it was an internal personnel matter.
Of course it is.
Maybe it was someone that wasn't happy with Sinclair taking over.....
Word is that some idiot through a pipe through the lobby door of WJLA in Washington, DC over the weekend.
No one was injured.
Mike Zambelli did what a lot of Reporters have wanted to do a number of times.
Zambelli, the Sports Director for a Lehigh cable station was going live from a festival, when some idiot jumped into the live shot and started ranting.
Zambelli slugged the guy!
"He startled me, so I reacted," Zambelli said. "He ran off …. It's not a big deal."
Let's go to the video:
We're not sure why she cares or how this is a news story, but WBOC (Salisbury) Reporter Maxine Bentzel (right)really wants to find video of a women that was dancing on a pole over the weekend.
Bentzel has even taken to the station's Facebook page to try and find the pole dancing video.
Although the comments to her post are not very helpful to her, they are kind of funny:
KABB Weekend Anchor Ted Garcia is bolting the station after 4 years and headed back to SoCal.
Garcia is headed to talk radio in San Diego.
“I’ll miss my Fox family,” Garcia, who’s been called a dead ringer for Donny Osmond, said to the San Antonio Express News . “We’ve been through many ups and downs in my four years here. I’m very proud of the work that we’ve produced. It was great coming back to S.A. Many viewers remembered me from my KSAT days, which always surprised me.”
However, he added, “the opportunity I’m taking was too good to pass up.”
Garcia anchored on San Antonio’s ABC affiliate in the 1990s, before spending a decade reporting for KTLA in Los Angeles. While there, he also appeared in movies, also as a reporter, in everything from “Bruce Almighty” to the TV series, “Six Feet Under.”
He left the West Coast to take his most recent job as weekend anchor on the Fox affiliate here in 2010.
You can stick a fork in KARE Morning Anchor Tim McNiff.
He's done.
After more than two decades at KARE, Tim McNiff is saying goodbye to the station and the TV business.
McNiff announced earlier this summer he was leaving to become executive director of media relations for the Minnetonka-based communications firm Media Minefield. He signs off from the station on Friday.
"I look at this as I grew up wanting to be on TV here in the Twin Cities and I accomplished that and I lived that dream," he said. "Now I'm going to be able to go into the business world, and I'm going to help people accomplish their dreams."
He added: "I just want people to understand, nobody's running me out the door (at KARE); nobody was kicking me out," he said. "I made a conscious decision to move on and try something else. I'm really looking forward to it.
Like all morning anchors that leave that shift, McNiff says the one thing he will not miss about the job is getting up at 2AM.
We don't blame him.
H/T Pioneer Press
The objectivity of CNN's coverage of the Middle East conflict is being called into question when it was revealed that CNN launched a paid “advertising feature” section for Qatar, the major funder of Hamas, including links to a magazine and a feature program about Qatar to be broadcast on CNN.
The Jewish site Algemeiner says that CNN's website links to a Qatar-focused magazine called ‘The Foundation‘ and describes ‘Inside the Middle East,’ ”a 30-minute monthly feature program on CNN that seeks to capture the dynamism and broad range of cultural diversity in countries across the Middle East.”
Blogger Elder of Ziyon, who flagged the connection on Sunday, wrote, “Does anyone at CNN have a problem taking money from the country that bankrolls Hamas? Is there any question that this will affect CNN’s already poor objectivity?”
CNN’s New York City office was picketed last week by throngs of Israel supporters who called out the broadcaster for the continual spin in its reporting to somehow favor Hamas.
The Baltimore Sun's Media Critic David Zurawik takes some mighty swipes and Fox News host Sean Hannity.
t's not often that Hannity leaves the studio and Zurawik thinks maybe he should just stay put.
You can read the article here, but let me share with you how it ends. Zurawik writes to Hannity, you were and are a ridiculous, self-promoting, hustler of a TV "personality" trying to generate a little buzz for your show. So, really, and I mean this in the most constructive way: Shut up about CNN, CBS and NBC News. And go back to doing your silly propaganda five nights a week for Fox News and the Republican Party.
Ouch!
I wonder how he really feels?
On Friday, FTVLive told you about Fox News host Bill O'Reilly getting a letter from a viewer that was pissed off that Fox News allows liberals on their show.
“I’m aggravated when I see smug liberals like Kirsten Powers and Alan Colmes on the air. Enough already with these leftists,” viewer Ed Ortelli wrote.
Old Ed hates the fact that liberals are somehow getting on Fox News and he doesn't like it.
Doing some Internet searching shows that there is an Ed Ortelli in Monroe, LA and get this, he's the President and GM of KNOE. Before that he was the General Sales Manager at WTEN in Albany and at KPRC in Houston.
Is this the same Ed Ortelli that hates the left?
Hmmmmm?
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