News

Fox News is on track to have its most-watched year ever, showing significant ratings growth despite having just come off a highflying election year.

With the second quarter coming to a close, Fox News averaged about the same number of viewers as the top three other cable news networks combined. And while rivals including CNN (-22%) and MSNBC (-18%) took hits following last quarter's inauguration-fueled boost, Fox News (-3%) remained nearly steady.

Compared with last year, the Fox News (averaging 2.1 million viewers, 509,000 adults 25-54 quarter-to-date) is up 35% over last year in primetime viewers and 48% in the demo. CNN (805,000 viewers, 210,000 in demo) fell 16% in viewers and 29% in the demo. MSNBC (787,000 viewers, 259,000 in demo) climbed 15% in viewers and about on par, -3%, in the demo. And CNN Headline News (553,000, 201,000) showed very strong growth, up 39% and 37%, respectively, and is on track for its best second quarter.

The new standings are strong enough to...

By Lee Pfeiffer

Charles Grodin has long been known for his wit and sarcastic sense of humor since his star-making role in The Heartbreak Kid.. Both were were evident last week when the liberal Grodin appeared as a guest on the talk show hosted by conservative Fox News personality Sean Hannity. The two men good-naturedly sparred over whether waterboarding techniques employed on suspected terrorists constituted torture. Hannity has blasted President Obama for denouncing these techniques and promising not to employ them in his administration. Hannity, like his fellow Fox News show host Bill O'Reilly, has referred to the practice of waterboarding as "dunking" - implying it's virtually identical to a game played at a county fair. When Hannity continued to maintain that waterboarding is not torture, Grodin then challenged him to undergo the procedure. Hannity said he would be happy to do so, if it were done for a charity that benefited U.

You wouldn’t necessarily think that the right wing would want to distinguish itself by its enthusiasm for torture, but that’s clearly the message Sean Hannity is gleefully sending by his offer to be waterboarded. Before getting to torture’s attractions, let me make two points: My colleague at Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens, who is sometimes partial to right-wing positions, has already had himself waterboarded and written about it to vivid effect. So, Hannity knows he can do this with little risk. But the second point is that Hannity will never do it. I once filled in for the hapless Alan Colmes on the Hannity and Colmes Show, and Hannity spent the whole show completely obsessed with the placement of every strand of his hair. That guy's not going underwater (even for a major ratings coup). Oh, and a third point: If he is going to do this, we...

Upon reflection--reflection nourished by the experience of just having been outside--i have decided to table my plans to infiltrate a Tea Party and turn the 'baggers against each other through the use of ventriloquism and other occult arts. It's just too gray, glum, rain-spattering, and plain numbing cold out there. It reminded me of sitting in the upper deck of the old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore for a night game in April and feeling God had abandoned me. So I have decided to monitor Tea Party Day at home headquarters using the resources of television, radio, the World Wide Web, and a handy little device I like to call "my mind." Rest assured however that this does not signify the shuttering of Operation Mess with Their Minds. No, that remains fully operational until a reasonable amount of chaos and enmity has been sown. Sharpay! ...related: The wry urbanity of an...

New York -- Maybe Sean Hannity shouldn't hold his breath. During a town-hall meeting Monday afternoon in Elkhart, Ind., carried live by the cable news channels, President Barack Obama said that he hadn't heard that the Fox News Channel host had invited him on "Hannity." An audience member asked him about it during the Q&A, which was carried live by cable news channels.

"I'll take that under advisement," Obama said.

Hannity, along with other conservative talk show hosts, hasn't been holding back in his criticisms of the president's first month in office. And Obama has shown a willingness to take on such critics in public, including telling Republicans on Capitol Hill: "You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done."

Hannity has also been an Obama target during the presidential campaign. "His opinion of me isn't very high, but I'm always good for a beer," Obama told the Indiana audience.

New York -- The liberal voice of "Hannity & Colmes" is leaving the high-rated Fox News Channel program at year's end.

"With Barack Obama and a Democratic House and Senate, my work is done," Alan Colmes joked to The Hollywood Reporter on Monday. "It's a perfect time for the transition."

Colmes had gone to senior vp Bill Shine earlier this year to tell him of his intention to leave "Hannity & Colmes" to go in another direction with his career. Colmes has partnered with Sean Hannity since the show premiered on Fox News Channel 12 years ago. It's the second-highest-rated show in cable news behind Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor."

Shine had urged him to stay until after the election, which he agreed to do. Colmes said that his contract was up "a while ago" and that it didn't have to do with his contract.

"We worked it out in terms of timing,...

NEW YORK -- Rosie O'Donnell, the former moderator of The View, is in negotiations to return to television with her own weeknight talk show on MSNBC.

O'Donnell left View in the spring after a stormy one-year tenure and has since been courted by other networks. If a deal is reached -- and one is not at all certain -- O'Donnell might get the 9 p.m. slot that would put her up against Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes and CNN's Larry King Live. News of the talks was first reported in the New York Times.

"It's far from a done deal", said an executive familiar with some of the discussions. Money apparently is one of the sticking points.

Neither of the two most recent MSNBC counterprograms, Live With Dan Abrams or Scarborough Country, could make much headway at 9 p.m. against Hannity or Larry King. Abrams relinquished his post as GM of MSNBC to focus on the9 p.m. program that he inherited.

MSNBC declined comment; a representative of O'Donnell couldn't be reached Monday.

NEW YORK -- Sean Hannity, the conservative half of the highly rated cable debate show Hannity & Colmes, is getting a new gig.

Sunday marks the debut of Hannity's America, a weekly live, hourlong show on the Fox News Channel that will blend the debate style that Hannity is noted for on TV and syndicated radio with an opportunity to do much more than that. He'll remain on "Hannity & Colmes" as well as his daily radio show, which is syndicated by ABC Radio.

"We love what we're doing with 'Hannity & Colmes' -- we're really happy," Hannity said in a recent interview. "It's the second-highest-rated show on cable. It's just that for a long time I've wanted to branch out and do a couple of other things, and an opportunity has come up."

Hannity's America will be run by senior producer John Finley, who also is in charge of "Hannity & Colmes." It follows a successful pilot that Hannity did a few months ago with "man on the street" interviews like the ones he does on his radio show from time to time.

Hannity said there will be a debate element to the show but that's not all it's going to be.

MSNBC is moving The Situation with Tucker Carlson to 11 p.m. ET to make way for Rita Cosby's new show and also open up a West Coast front in the cable news war. The former Crossfire co-host moved to MSNBC this year after a well-publicized break with CNN after Carlson said the channel wouldn't give him an 11 p.m. slot. The Situation arrived at MSNBC in June to ratings at 9 p.m. ET that haven't matched Fox News' Hannity & Colmes or even CNN's top-rated show, Larry King Live. But MSNBC president Rick Kaplan said Friday that ratings weren't a factor in relocating The Situation to the final of six hours of live primetime programming in cable news. Kaplan said and 11 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT live show has been in the plan since well before The Situation debuted. At that time, Fox News reruns The O'Reilly Factor and CNN airs Lou Dobbs Tonight for the West Coast.

NEW YORK -- On the Record With Greta Van Susteren caught fire this month, with the show's constant focus on the disappearance of an Alabama teenager in the Caribbean island nation of Aruba leading the show to second place in the ratings behind fellow Fox News Channel show The O'Reilly Factor. Host Greta Van Susteren's show had its highest-viewed month of the year in June, according to data released Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research. It averaged 1.8 million viewers for the month, up 45% from year-ago levels. That gave it a slight edge on Hannity & Colmes, its lead-in, which averaged 1.8 million viewers during the month. The cable news leader remains The O'Reilly Factor, which averaged 2.2 million viewers in June.

NEW YORK -- After a year of disappointing ratings, TV news veteran Deborah Norville is calling it quits on her primetime MSNBC talk show. In a letter to MSNBC employees Friday, network chief Rick Kaplan said Norville would be leaving her hourlong program sometime in mid-January. That's when a new show will debut, but MSNBC has declined to discuss specifics. "We're looking forward to developing new, compelling programming for the 9 p.m. time period," Kaplan said. The move was widely expected. Deborah Norville Tonight wasn't able to compete at 9 p.m., regularly coming in third against Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes and CNN's Larry King Live. But in a letter released Friday, Norville said she couldn't do the syndicated daily Inside Edition and the MSNBC show. "This decision comes down to one issue: time," she said. "With my pre-existing commitments to King World's 'Inside Edition' and to my husband and three children, there simply are not enough hours in the day to do justice to my colleagues at MSNBC and the program we aspire to do."...

NEW YORK -- Cable news ratings took a dramatic dive in October from a year ago as no major story replaced last year's rash of sniper killings around the Washington D.C. area, but the figures are not as bad as they look at first glance. While news viewership took a steep 33% fall from October 2002, it fell only 6% from last month when the there was no competition from Fox's red-hot baseball playoffs -- programming that appeals to the same older audience as the news channels. Average primetime viewership fell from 3.68 million across the five cable news services a year ago to 2.47 million this year. Viewership was 2.63 million in September. CNN's Larry King Live scored a rare victory over Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes at 9 p.m. for the month as King landed a series of high-profile celebrity interviews as well as one with Siegfried Fischbacher (of Siegfried and Roy).

NEW YORK -- Fox News Channel drew 7.63 million viewers for its coverage of President Bush's speech Monday night, the highest average hour in its history. The momentum continued into a 9 p.m. edition of The O'Reilly Factor, which drew 5.73 million viewers, while Hannity & Colmes followed at 10 p.m. with 3.87 million viewers, both records for the shows, according to Nielsen Media Research. CNN averaged 4.74 million viewers for Bush's speech, while MSNBC attracted 1.83 million.

NEW YORK -- With the Washington-area sniper shootings hogging much of the news coverage for most of the month, October may prove to be an anomalous ratings period, but it marked the first time ever that Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes beat CNN's Larry King Live at 9 p.m. ET. The Fox show averaged 1.65 million viewers during the month, compared with 1.58 million for the CNN show. Fox senior producer Bill Shine said King's increasing reliance on celebrity interviews instead of hard news has hurt the CNN show, adding that Hannity & Colmes has been "sneaking up on him ever so slowly." "While we're giving people the news of the day, Mr. King is putting on Carol Channing and Dr. Phil," Shine said. CNN blamed the defeat on the strength of Fox's O'Reilly Factor -- which had a record month with 2.52 million viewers -- saying that "Hannity & Colmes" essentially rode on the show's coattails, while King grew by 60% from his lead-in, Connie Chung Tonight. The sniper story helped lift all the cable networks as Fox said that five of its shows had their highest viewership ever. All the networks picked up strong gains from September as Fox grew by 37%, MSNBC by 33% and CNN by 42% (with one day remaining on the ratings period).