FNC's ratings were the most dramatic yesterday:

In total day, FNC averaged 3 million viewers, while CNN had 1.6 million and MSNBC had 695,000.

In primetime, FNC averaged 4.2 million, while CNN had 1.4 million and MSNBC had 624,000.

Individual shows, in millions of viewers: Hume: 3.1 / Shep: 3.1 / O'Reilly: 5.4 / H&C: 4.7 / Greta: 2.6 ... Zahn: 1.2 / King: 1.6 / Brown: 1.3 ... Matthews 7pm: 791,000 / Olbermann: 596,000 / Matthews 9pm: 491,000 / Scarborough: 786,000

Will all those extra viewers stick around?...

Another sign that CNBC is moving away from news: 'Meet The Press' used to repeat on the network, but beginning Sunday, November 14, it will reair on MSNBC, an insider says...

For a time during his press conference today, President Bush seemed to forget about the viewers at home. "I'm willing to reach out to everybody, including the White House press corps," he said as he began his statement. Then, as he concluded: "I want to thank you all for your hard work on the campaign. I told you that he other day and you probably thought I was just seeking votes. But now that you've voted, I really meant it. I appreciate the hard work of the press corps. We all put in long hours, and you were away from your families for a long period of time. But the country's better off when we have a vigorous and free press covering our elections, and thanks for your work. With that over-pandering, I'll answer some questions."

"Someone should tell Andrew Heyward it's safe to call Ohio now," a Fox insider said today. The source explained how Heyward was out spinning to the TV press yesterday about why CBS didn't call Ohio after it was clear Bush was winning by more in Ohio than in Nevada. Heyward also dutifully followed Howard Wolfson's plea not to call Ohio, as detailed in today's New York Times:

"Howard Wolfson, a strategist, burst into the 'boiler room' in Washington where the brain trust was huddled and said, 'we have 30 seconds' to stop the other networks" from calling Ohio for Bush after FNC did. "The campaign's pollster, Mark Mellman, and the renowned organizer Michael Whouley quickly dialed ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC -- and all but the last refrained from calling the race through the night."

New York Times writer Jacques Steinberg spent election night at FNC headquarters: "It was 2:16 on Wednesday morning when Michael Barone...wheeled around in his chair and faced the four people charged with calling the presidential race on behalf of the network. 'I just got some spin from [Karl] Rove on New Mexico,' Mr. Barone said.

The response from John Moody, senior vice president news-editorial for Fox News and the ultimate arbiter, came swiftly. 'Not yet,' Mr. Moody said." A must-read...

In Ohio, "Did Fox and NBC make gutsy calls and then cave? Or were their rivals overly cautious?" Verne Gay asks the networks those questions. FNC's Marty Ryan says the network didn't call Nevada because "because we had issues with [data] from Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico." Marcy McGinnis says CBS was "had a different mindset from previous elections, when we didn't let the fact that someone else had called it bother us."

Journalists are "grappling with the prospect of four more years of Bush," Howie Kurtz writes this morning, and quotes CNN's Tucker Carlson: "I don't know a single journalist who voted for Bush, not one. The consensus in journalism is that he is not a good president."

Quoting the WP's Lisa de Moraes: "Collectively, the broadcast networks fumbled about 8 million of the viewers who had watched their prime time on election night in 2000. Ironically, the only broadcast network that can boast an increase is Fox, which doesn't even have a news division...Much, but not all, of the slack was taken up by Fox News Channel."

"News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch said Wednesday that he’ll launch a business channel in the 'foreseeable future,'" Multichannel News reports. “Distribution will be a factor," he said. "CNNfn was never a factor in our thinking at all. CNBC is. We expect to go ahead with that in the foreseeable future. I can't give you a date because it depends on negotiations that are only just beginning for distribution."