An aside by Tucker Carlson on Crossfire today perked up the ears of CNN fans. "This, by the way, is the last day James and I are on television together. I want you to know that I'm enjoying every moment of it," Carlson said. A few minutes later, Rahm Emanuel suggested Carlson invite John Kerry on the show "before you leave CNN."

But it wasn't necessarily an indication that Carlson is leaving CNN. Carlson's last day on Crossfire is coming this Thursday. Today was his last day with Carville; Paula Begala will be "on the left" tomorrow and Thursday. Klein may offer Carlson a deal to stay at CNN later this week -- but it won't be on Crossfire.

> "The wait is excruciating -- even worse than the show itself!," Wonkette smirks.

> Matt Taibbi's essay about Tucker Carlson in the New York Press turns from funny to downright mean about halfway through.

FNC's Steve Doocy & Alisyn Camerota were more popular than CNN's Anderson Cooper on New Years Eve. FNC's broadcast delivered a 1.1 and 1,486,000 viewers, while CNN came in second with a 0.9 rating and 1,147,000 viewers. Cooper attracted only 123,000 viewers in the 18-34 demo, even though Cooper is supposedly CNN's "hip" anchor; I'm guessing younger viewers were watching MTV or ABC...

> Dan Rather is "in the strike zone," a promo on CBS said today. He's working on a report for 60 Minutes Wednesday.

> NBC's Brian Williams anchored the Nightly News from Banda Aceh, with Lester Holt contributing from NYC. The NBC crew's local guide, Ashari, was shown crying over the loss of his sister. "One scene -- the routine, almost rough handling of the bodies -- is too much for Ashari, who can't stand the thought that his sister may have been among them," BW narrated. "She could be anywhere in this city of dead bodies and debris."

> CNN "hasn't been able to resist trying to sum up the tragedy in slogans of three words or less," CJR Daily says, referring to its "Turning The Tide" title. How about FNC's "Killer Wave?"

> The Note notes: "The greatest immediate political effect of the tsunami has been the displacement of Iraq from the front pages and out of the leads, which as Dan Bartlett knows, is probably a plus for Mr. Bush right now."

REWRITE from the 5:07pm version of this post--

Monday: CNN #'s were solid on Monday, but FNC continued to beat CNN and MSNBC combined. FNC averaged 1,021,000 viewers during the total day, while CNN averaged 512,000 and MSNBC averaged 221,000. (The 1 FNC = 2 CNN's and 1 CNN = 2 MSNBC's rule is in effect.) In primetime, FNC delivered a 1.7 rating, while CNN had a 1.0 and MSNBC had a 0.2. Among total viewers, Hume, Fox Report, O'Reilly, H&C and Greta all beat Larry King Live, which was CNN's highest-rated show. The rest of CNN's primetime special report averaged a 0.9. MSNBC's 9pm special report earned only 194,000 viewers.

Saturday: CNN's decision to air wall-to-wall tsunami coverage on New Year's Day resulted in a rare ratings win for the network. In primetime on Saturday, CNN beat FNC among both total viewers and the 25-54 demo. (FNC had only one hour of live programming on Saturday night.) In total day, CNN beat FNC in the 25-54 demo, but FNC still had more total viewers.

Last week: CNN "narrowed the gap" with FNC among total viewers by 73% last week, the network noted today. FNC's advantage throughout the month of December was 1,267,000 viewers, but last week, they averaged only 342,000 more viewers than CNN. In the 25-54 demo, CNN almost beat FNC last week: CNN averaged only 27,000 fewer demo viewers than FNC last week.

Between Dec. 26 and Jan. 1, FNC averaged a 0.9 rating and 971,000 viewers, up about 30% from the year before. During the same time span, CNN averaged a 0.6 rating and 679,000 viewers, up 20% and 41% from the year before, respectively. MSNBC averaged a 0.2 rating and 216,000 viewers.

> "In typical form, CNN is attempting to take a victory lap over dead bodies and they're not even remotely winning the ratings war," a cable news insider remarked. "They can continue to lay claim to beating MSNBC."

> Update: 8pm: "CNN's ratings are the closest they have been in ages when it comes to the ratings war with Fox," an e-mailer asserts. "This new year may bring new life to CNN."

> 8:57pm: From Monday, Dec. 27 to Sunday, Jan. 2, CNN averaged 684,000 viewers, "up 81% over its December 2004 Monday-Sunday average and up 46% versus the same week a year ago."

> 9:03pm: Greta Van Susteren cut her vacation short to host a live On The Record on Thursday. Delivering a 1.6, it was the highest-rated hour on FNC that night. (The other big names were out.) Greta's Sunday night 9pm special beat Larry King, too.

Today's spin from Fox News: Nations in the Middle East are being "stingy" with tsunami relief contributions. During The Big Story, FNC showed a graphic listing the millions while Adam Housley narrated from Thailand: "Saudi Arabia has only contributed $30 million," and so on, he reported during The Big Story. "Many of these nations have made in execess of $10 billion due to the gas price increase," he noted. "It's a growing controversy here when those numbers came out today. People are talking about them," Housley concluded.

But Fox isn't the only network pointing out the disparity today, an e-mailer notes. Jack Cafferty said this on CNN's American Morning: "A little conspicuous by their absence in that world pitching in thing are many of the Arab countries. The question we're asking, are they doing enough to aid the tsunami victims?"

> Update: 8pm: "NBC went even further on Nightly News tonight," Jonathan notes, "exposing how some Arabic media are blaming the United States for the tsunami. I was surprised but quite pleased to see NBC covering Fox-like stories without Fox-like ranting."

World News Tonight tied the NBC Nightly News "with a 3.1/11 rating in the key Adult 25-54 demographic," an ABC press release says today. It was the broadcast's "best week in the key demo since the week of January 5, 2004."

But Nightly News is #1 overall. "The Williams-led broadcast attracted 11.247 million viewers, 8% (+ 856,000) more than ABC "World News Tonight's" 10.391 million, and a 38% (+3,107,000) advantage over CBS "Evening News'" 8.140 million," NBC's press release says. New Year's Eve did not count in the week averages...

MSNBC has officially announced that Kristine Johnson will begin anchoring for the network later this month. (NewsBlues broke the story in August.) "Prior to joining MSNBC, Johnson served as the weeknight news anchor and reporter for WPRI/WNAC-TV in Providence, RI where she reported on live breaking news in the Providence market," the press release says.

On Larry King Live last night, President Bill Clinton offered King an idea for a show:

CLINTON: ...I think that you could have a profoundly positive program, if you would get representatives of the faiths of the people who have been affected by this tragedy, bring a Buddhist, bring a Hindu, bring a Muslim, bring a Christian on your program from Sri Lanka or the other countries affected, and ask them how their faith teaches them to deal with this kind of tragedy. Ask them. I'll bet you'd have a huge audience of people who would like to know how the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Muslims, Christians deal with this differently, and come to the same place and you could do a great service for the world if you did that. KING: We are doing such a show like that on Friday. By the way, do you want a job as a producer? CLINTON: You know, sure.

Clinton also praised the media's coverage of the disaster: "I think it's been terrific, and I couldn't be more positive in my feelings about it." More...

Andrew Tyndall's network news year-in-review is out: "Until the final week of the year, only two stories interested the networks during 2004: Iraq and the Presidential election campaign. Fully 37% of the networks' entire weekday nightly newshole was assigned to just those two topics; they accounted for 11 of the Top 20 stories. Then a single week on the tsunami caused by the earthquake off Indonesia propelled that to the #9 spot for the entire year." Other highlights:

> John Kerry's "Presidential bid accounted for a record-tying 18% of all campaign
coverage, more minutes than any single candidate since 1992."

> CBS Baghdad correspondent Kimberly Dozier was the "breakthrough reporter of the year." CBS filed the most reports from a foreign dateline.

> The full report will be online later this week at TyndallReport.com...

> An anonymous CBS exec says there was "nothing remarkable" about the Heyward/Bartlett meeting; the Hollywood Reporter has more.

> "I'm told the 'whip' will be making a comeback in the new year," an insider says. "Apparently Aaron was just experimenting with the show to see what it would be like without it."

> Occasional MSNBC contributor Sumi Das will freelance for CNN in DC beginning January 10th, FTVLive reports.

> FNC's lower-thirds have been tweaked. "They are the same layout...just a little cleaner and 'fresh,'" a viewer notes.

> NewsBlues says: "We're not exactly sure when in the arc of time it became necessary for television news anchors to rush to the source of 10-day-old news. We're not sure exactly why they do it or what their bosses think it adds to the scope of coverage. But they're all doing it."

> From an e-mailer: "This morning on the Today Show, Katie led off with sort of a 'whip,' highlighting pieces by Anne Curry, Brian Williams, and Hoda Kotbe. Then -- when going to their reports -- that's the order she went in...Curry, Williams, Kotbe. Isn't that odd? Your 'face of the network' Brian Williams gets 2nd billing to Ann Curry -- when he is in the most damaged area..." UPDATE: From an NBC producer: "Why was Williams second on Today Show? His picture froze at source at 7:01am -- Ann was the next one up, so she went first." One example of the challenges news crews are facing in the region...

> Bush 41 and Clinton did the morning show trifecta today: NBC, ABC, CBS.

> Drudge says NBC Nightly News easily won the ratings race on Monday night, with "Brian in Banda" earning a 9.2 rating while ABC captured a 7.4 and CBS had a 5.4.

> MSNBC will air 9pm tsunami special reports all week long, an e-mailer says.

> Several Fox News anchors offered to travel to Southeast Asia, but programming VP Kevin Magee says the network is "happy, delighted, extremely impressed" with its two dozen field producers and reporters. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

"Odds are 60-40" that CNN's Tucker Carlson will replace Deborah Norville at 9pm, an anonymous MSNBC executive tells the Philadelphia Inquirer. But "Klein is hot to keep Carlson:" "I needed to see the full range of Tucker's capabilities, instead of him just sitting across a desk and yelling at some guy," Klein says of Carlson's NewsNight gig last week. "He wants to grow, as anyone does."
> Update: 12:25pm: Hollywood Reporter: "Klein said Monday afternoon that he would speak to Tucker Carlson sometime this week..."

ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff, in Sri Lanka: "This is the kind of reporting where you don't make phone calls and set up interviews. You walk down the street and come into peoples' lives who have just gone through horrible events. You just try to put yourselves in their shoes — to see and hear and to some extent feel what they did, and reinvent that somehow on TV." There's more in this USA Today story...

From a must-read Hollywood Reporter story about media coverage of the disaster: "Reporters like CBS' Lee Cowan are living on the ground in tents and sleeping bags in Banda Aceh. ABC's Nick Watt and his crew are sleeping on the floor in the back of a cafe there. Williams and his crew are staying with a family whose home survived the devastation; the lodging was found with the help of an on-the-ground 'fixer' who helped NBC News find the family and smooth obstacles."

For CNN president Jon Klein, this is a war: "We're upping the ante by sending more troops to the scene," he tells the Philadelphia Inquirer. He made the media rounds on Monday to spotlight CNN's disaster coverage:

> Storytelling: "There are going to be no end to the stories that are emerging. We are just peeling back the layers of the onion," he told the Hollywood Reporter. "We're learning more about the scope of the tragedy. That's going to continue for a while."

> "We plan to keep our foot on the accelerator — but be very sensitive to when enough is enough," he told USA Today.