"CNN will launch two new weekend business programs, Dolans Unscripted with hosts Ken and Daria Dolan and Open House with host Gerri Willis," on February 5, the network announced today. The former CNNfn programs went off the air in December. On CNN, Open House will air from 9:30 to 10am Saturday. Unscripted will air live from CNN NY on Saturdays from 10 to 11am. "Weekends are typically a time for focusing on family matters, including money and home issues," Jon Klein says.  "Dolans Unscripted and Open House will be an invaluable destination for viewers seeking answers to their financial and real estate questions."

"President Bush on Wednesday said a controversial decision by the Department of Education to give Armstrong Williams $241,000 to promote the No Child Left Behind Act with advertisements and commentaries on TV was a mistake, one the president said he had made clear that other federal agencies should not repeat," TV Week says.

> BCBeat: "Mediacom's always colorful chairman, Jon Mandel, did not disappoint Tuesday at a NATPE panel with ad industry execs. When CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo asked Mandel how you can build buzz for a new product, Mandel quipped, 'Like the federal government, you pay people,' a not-so-subtle jab at commentator Armstrong Williams' schilling for the Department of Education."

> Update: 2:35pm: This Palm Beach Post columnist says Katie Couric "got caught secretly taping the Trump shindig with a lipstick camera," but insiders tell TVNewser the story was blown completely out of proportion. “This item is complete nonsense,” an insider said this afternoon. "Katie had approval by Mr Trump himself to bring the camera in and disclosed to every guest she encountered that she had a camera." It would have been a fun 007-style segment on Today -- but, as Apprentice publicist Jim Dowd told the Post, "we didn't realize Donald didn't tell his bride" that Couric had the camera. I guess gossip isn't easy to come by in Palm Beach...

It's a very tight squeeze in the White House Briefing Room this morning. From the AP:

Joe Hagan reviews Iraqi Election Day dangers for journalists, including a "media-access policy" that requires that all news organizations "mark their vehicles with press decals to identify themselves -- on a day when only authorized cars are allowed on the road. Insurgents will certainly be watching." And: "The rules also state that TV crews 'may only approach and enter one of the specifically enabled electronic media approved polling centers,' which means that satellite trucks will be parked outside select and well-publicized voting sites."

As ABC correspondent David Wright says: "If you've got a satellite truck in front of a school for three days, and it's known in advance where TV cameras are going to be, where do you think the bombers are going to go?"

"A document examiner involved in the flawed '60 Minutes Wednesday' report on George W. Bush's National Guard service claims that he was defamed and his reputation damaged by the recent report from an independent review panel that investigated the show's reporting practices," Editor & Publisher reports this morning. Here are the details. Louis Boccardi says he is aware of Marcel Matley's complaints, but had no further comment...

Katie Couric says the speculation about her future is "pretty darn boring," but certainly doesn't reject the possibility of replacing Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News.

"I love NBC. They've been so great to me," Couric told the Associated Press. "I'm focusing on that."

Of course she's focusing on that -- her contract continues for another year and a half. But she's reserving a lot of space for more speculation...

Slate's Mickey Kaus criticizes Jon Klein's plan to "flood the zone" on major stories, and calls it "Topic-Aism." It has "long been a depressing reality of the Web," he says. And Klein "apparently wants to transport this Web logic to television. If CNN is good on crisis days and falters on normal days, then make every day a crisis day! Focus on the One Big Story and milk it for all it's worth!"

But he lists all the "obvious problems:" "Sometimes there isn't One Big Story ... Sometimes the One Big Story lasts only a few hours, time enough for the Web to react but not necessarily for cable TV to react... Sometimes the One Big Story isn't very big. .. Sometimes the One Big Story doesn't have a 'compelling central character.'" More...

The ink is drying on a new two-year deal for Inside Edition host Deborah Norville, Broadcasting & Cable notes. "I hear that CBS (King World) would not give her the new deal unless she agreed to leave her show at NBC," an anonymous tipster says. Her MSNBC paycheck was smaller -- and her ratings were awful to boot, so leaving MS was a no-brainer...

"Jake Haselkorn has been named chief of CBS News' Asia bureau," TV Week reports. "Haselkorn has been a freelance producer in Asia since 2000, handling assignments for NBC News, National Geographic Television, Granada TV-New York Times Television and Discovery Channel Asia, among other outlets. Prior to that, he was Beijing bureau chief for ABC News for six years, the third of his three stints with that news division..."

Lisa de Moraes says "Dateline" and "FNC Thursday" were two ratings winners last week. "Sunday's 'Dateline' tribute to NBC's long-running late-night host Johnny Carson averaged more than 11 million viewers, the second largest Sunday 'Dateline' audience this season, trailing only the Jan. 2 edition, which had focused on the tsunami and averaged 12.8 million." And FNC "averaged 2.4 million viewers Thursday night, nearly a million viewers more than it had clocked in presidential inauguration prime time 2001."

Drudge has posted Monday night's cable news ratings. O'Reilly was #1 with 2,643,000 viewers, Larry King was second with 2,474,000, and Hannity & Colmes was third with 1,800,000. Brit had 1,604,000, Shep had 1,446,000 and Greta had 1,390,000. Aaron Brown averaged 1,058,000, Paula Zahn delivered 837,000, Cooper in Baghdad had 506,000. On MSNBC, Hardball had 454,000, Olbermann had 340,000 and Scarborough had 335,000.