25-54 demographic (Live +SD)

• Total day: FNC: 228 | MSNBC: 123 | CNN: 106 | HLN: 131

• Primetime: FNC: 255 | MSNBC: 112 | CNN: 121 | HLN: 178

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When Al Jazeera purchased Current TV, Time Warner Cable removed the channel from its lineup, citing the new ownership and the fact that they would be paying for a different product than the one they originally negotiated.

Now, it seems that Al Jazeera America may get another chance to launch in WTC households. The Huffington Post’s Michael Calderone reports that negotiations between the two companies are negotiating. There is no sure thing, but it certainly sounds as though AJAM may at some point return to the channel space it lost when Current was acquired.

Elsewhere, USA Today looks in-depth at AJAM’s launch, and asks whether American TV news viewers are interested in the product.

After Mike Viqueira was hired as White House correspondent for Al Jazeera’s new American television venture, the former NBC News veteran braced for a barrage of negative reaction on Twitter.

“I expected some comments from people unfamiliar with Al Jazeera,” Viqueira says. “Out of 300 comments I had on Twitter, there were maybe two that hinted at that.”

“That,” of course, refers to the lingering perception that Middle East-based Al Jazeera is anti-U.S. and a mouthpiece for terrorists, sentiments that took hold when it aired numerous Osama bin Laden videos in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and stories that were critical of the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq War. Indeed, for many Americans, the only encounter with the Al Jazeera brand came during those years.

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Just after 2 PM, the jury in the “Whitey” Bulger trial in Boston revealed their verdict, and it appears as though the former Massachusetts Mob boss will be spending the remainder of his life behind bars.

Bulger was found guilty on multiple counts of racketeering and conspiracy, as well as number of murders… though not all of the murders he was charged with.

The first of the verdicts was reported at 2:03 PM on MSNBC and FNC, according to TVEyes, with CNN less than 30 second later just after 2:04 PM. CNN also brought in “Legal View” anchor Ashleigh Banfield to discuss the case. Banfield’s new legal-focused show started this morning at 11 AM. Martha MacCallum anchored for FNC, and Thomas Roberts was on MSNBC.

• TheBlaze has named Amy Holmes anchor of “The Hot List” on TheBlaze.com. She will be stepping aside from her role at “Real News.” Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth will join “Real News” as a contributor.

• Time is making a big push in the video journalism space, launching Red Border Films. The documentary film unit will live on an interactive site of Time.com, and will produce films of varying lengths and topics. Time journalists and photojournalists and will produce at least one short documentary per month and two expanded projects a year. Details below.

• At The Wrap, Sara Morrison writes that Al Jazeera America and PBS are diversifying their on-air talent, and wonders if others will follow suit.

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The news that Al Jazeera America was hiring former NBC News anchor and correspondent John Seigenthaler took many in the business by surprise. Seigenthaler has been out of the public eye since leaving NBC in 2007, working as media consultant.

“I really didn’t have any intention of going back into journalism,” Seigenthaler tells TVNewser. “I was very happy with the consulting business that I had worked out with my family members.

Al Jazeera came to me and explained to me what they were doing, explained to me they were starting this new national news channel in the United States, and that they were opening 12 bureaus in the U.S., and they told me about their 70 bureaus worldwide, and their commitment to unbiased, serious reporting of the news and that they weren’t interested in the ratings,” he added. “As a journalist for 27 years, that is a dream come true.”

Jumping in he is. Later this month Seigenthaler will make his AJAM debut as the primetime news anchor, a big job for the nascent channel. Of course, there is still a lot of work to be done. When asked what his news program will look like, Seigenthaler laughs.

“I have been here for four days,” he says. “You know better than anyone, over the last five or six years, what we have seen is cutbacks, news organizations have cut back reporters and producers and editors, we have also seen a turn toward tabloid journalism. I think that Al Jazeera will be something very different than what you see on your traditional cable news channels or the networks on this country.”

Seigenthaler joins a “who’s who” list of journalists at AJAM, including former CNNers Ali Velshi and Soledad O’Brien, as well as veterans Joie Chen and Sheila MacVicar.

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This morning NBC News announced that it had acquired Stringwire, a user-generated live video service that lets news organizations request video footage, and have that live feed pushed directly to their control rooms, website, or wherever it needs to be. Stringwire founder Phil Groman will be joining NBC News as a product lead, based out of San Francisco.

The NY Times‘ Brian Stelter broke the story last night, and interviewed NBC News chief digital officer Vivian Schiller about it:

“You could get 30 people all feeding video, holding up their smartphones, and then we could look at that,” she said in an interview by phone. “We’ll be able to publish and broadcast some of them.”
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“Wherever you see a swarm of eyewitnesses on Twitter, that’s the sweet spot for Stringwire,” she said, citing the July 6 crash-landing of an Asiana jet in San Francisco. That day, photos from a passenger and a short YouTube video from the terminal were the primary images on television until a local news helicopter arrived.

The move is an important one for NBC, as the battle among TV news organizations slowly continues its shift online, and user-generated content continues to make itself a vital part of any newsgathering operation.

While UGC has been featured on TV newscasts for years, live video is the one area that is yet to break through. User-generated photos and videos really first proved their worth during coverage of the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, with dozens of students taking photos and video of the aftermath. CNN’s iReport was the biggest beneficiary, and to this day it remains the largest and most robust of the user-generated content initiatives that TV organizations have built.
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The fact that Fox Television Studios, a sister company to Fox News under the 21st Century Fox umbrella, is in talks to produce the Hillary Clinton miniseries for NBC hasn’t changed the opinion of RNC chairman Reince Priebus, who is threatening a 2016 debate boycott of CNN and NBC if they don’t cancel their Clinton programs.

On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Priebus told Candy Crowley that the fact that FTVS is the likely producer of the miniseries is irrelevant.

“The big question for me is, which company is putting it on the air? Who is doing the work?” Priebus said. “I’m not interested if they are using the same caterer, or they are both drinking Diet Coke, I am not boycotting Diane Lane. I am going to boycott the company that puts the miniseries and the documentaries on the air for the American people to view.”

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Former TVNewser editor Brian Stelter guest-hosted CNN’s “Reliable Sources” today, and while Amazon founder Jeff Bezos‘ purchase of the Washington Post was the big story, there was plenty of TV news to go around as well.

For starters, there was this segment about new NBC News president Deborah Turness, which featured a shout-out to this humble blog.

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Stelter also interviewed ESPN president John Skipper about the threat posed by Fox Sports 1, which launches next week.

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It has been a rough few days in the games department for the team from “Today.”

Savannah Guthrie interviewed “Late Night” host Jimmy Fallon, and the pair played one of his trademark games, “Rock, Paper, Scissors, Pie.” It went horribly awry:

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On NBC’s primetime game show “Hollywood Game Night,” Al Roker was kicked off the comfy couch by comedian Will Sasso… though he did get some revenge.

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A month ago, “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade threw a basketball in a toddler’s face.

It wasn’t intentional, but it sparked a storm of controversy. The child, “Trick Shot” Titus Ashby, just wasn’t the same. As a new YouTube video posted by the boy’s father shows, he has had to overcome a lot since the Kilmeade incident.

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The YouTube video actually got some play on “Fox & Friends.” Watch their reaction here.