A Fox News spokesperson responds to Ted Turner's comments today: "Ted is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network, and now his mind. We wish him well." (Via B&C)
> "They don't call Turner the loudmouth of the South for nothing. Way to go Ted, CNN PR needs your spunk!," an e-mailer jokes.

The NBC Nightly News "was the dominant network evening newscast" last week, "winning the week of January 17 -- 21, 2005 in all categories," a press release says today. Overall, NBC's ratings were 11% higher than ABC's. On inauguration day last Thursday, NBC's newscast beat ABC by 24 percent -- more than 2.3 million viewers.

> ABC notes that WNT is the only evening newscast to display "year-to-year growth among adult 25-54 viewers." Versus 2004, ABC's newscast is up 3%, NBC's is down 3% and CBS's is down 8%.

Larry King's look back at Johnny Carson's life delivered more than 2.4 million viewers on Monday night, according to Nielsen data. The program averaged 2,474,000 viewers and was the #2 program on cable news last night (behind O'Reilly's 2,643,000 viewers). Larry King Live beat FNC's Hannity & Colmes, which averaged 1.8 million viewers. By the way, King outperformed O'Reilly in the P25-54 demo, with 735,000 viewers to O'Reilly's 671,000.

Broadcasting & Cable summarizes Ted Turner's comments about Fox News at NATPE today: "While Fox may be the largest news network [and has overtaken Turner's CNN], it's not the best, Turner said. He followed up by pointing out that Adolph Hitler got the most votes when he was elected to run Germany prior to WWII. He said the network is the propaganda tool for the Bush Administration. 'There's nothing wrong with that. It's certainly legal. But it does pose problems for our democracy. Particularly when the news is dumbed down,' leaving voters without critical information on politics and world events and overloaded with fluff, he said."

Staffers at both CNN and MSNBC received good Nielsen ratings news today: CNN handily beat FNC in prime-time on Sunday night, and Sharon Tay's MSNBC debut was popular in the coveted 25-54 demo.

Between 8 and 11pm, CNN averaged 1,071,000 viewers on Sunday, compared to 632,000 for Fox News Channel. In the 25-54 demo, CNN averaged 302,000 viewers, compared to FNC's 186,000. CNN's coverage of Johnny Carson's death was extensive, including a taped Larry King interview with the comedian. An insider noted that Sunday marked FNC's least watched prime-time of 2005.

MSNBC earned a 0.4 rating in primetime on Sunday. New entertainment host Sharon Tay was rushed onto the air for a Carson special, and some viewers were turned off by her lack of poise. But the ratings showed otherwise: Tay's show earned a 0.3 and 292,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo, just shy of CNN's 334,000 demo viewers.

The Tufts Daily profiles alum Matt Singerman, the executive producer of Fox & Friends. "We're the anti-Today Show,'" Singerman says. "Our audience is interested in hard news and politics." The story focuses on the success of FNC's morning show: "Rather than the 'light' and 'friendly' talk of 'The Today Show,' the three 'Fox & Friends' co-hosts express what they think, no matter the consequences," it says...

In a recent interview, CNNfan.com asked president Jon Klein what CNN's strengths and weaknesses are. CNN's strengths, of course are its staff, history, global reach and big budget. The weakness:

"A weakness has been that the power of our organization has been diffused - that is, we don't concentrate our fire in one particular place. So we do a little of everything, therefore not having as great an impact as we might if we focused more. For instance, this weekend, we were doing the big snow storms as just another news story, giving equal weight to all the other things going on in the world. When in fact, the biggest storms of the year affect far more people than most anything else we might cover. We corrected that quickly - throwing more reporters and crews into the breach - because the organization responds extremely nimbly. But it shows that we're not yet at the point where we instinctively train our fire on a few select areas. That is fast changing."

What's Happening At CNN also has an interview with Klein...

> The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch returned to CNBC last night. Did anyone notice?

> In a TV Week guest commentary, former NBC News prexy Reuven Frank says "Only Pro Reporters Get The Full Story."

> In the Denver Post, Joanne Ostrow writes about the eternal topic: "The changing face of network news."

> Kelly Cobiella and Trish Regan have been named N.Y.-based correspondents for CBS News, Michael Starr notes.

David Shuster's MSNBC.com blog-to-Baghdad continues to be a must-read: "This evening we learned that our flight out tomorrow will include colleagues who couldn't get into Baghdad on flights earlier today. Apparently, there were "issues" today at the Baghdad International Airport. One issue was a nasty sandstorm. Another issue was that for a brief part of the day, the airport was under mortar attack."

Political polls, town hall meetings, dramatic interviews: The Iraqi elections will get intense American-style coverage, even as security concerns mount for U.S. broadcasters," the Washington Times leads. "We want to tell the story of democracy in action," FNC's John Stack says. He adds: "There's a security situation here. We'll do our best; we're hoping for a peaceful day, [but] there's always a fear of violence. But we'll tell the good with the bad."

"Authorities said Monday they are investigating leaks about the child molestation case against Michael Jackson that appeared in news reports," the Associated Press reports. ABC Primetime Live quoted from 1,900 pages of grand jury testimony earlier this month. "ABC has not revealed how it received" the documents...