The NBC News Group, including NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC, held an upfront presentation today at the New York Public library in midtown Manhattan. The Celeste Bartos Forum in the Library was lit up in shades of purple and blue, as media buyers and advertisers mingled with NBC News executives and talent.

Newly-minted MSNBC 8 PM host Chris Hayes was there, as was Matt Lauer, the co-anchor of “Today” who has been at the center of a number of news stories of late. He seemed to take the stories in stride, joking with Savannah Guthrie onstage:

“I would like to tackle what might be a teeny white elephant in the room,” Lauer said to laughter from the crowd. “We all love covering the news,  we hate being the news, and so I would like to say on that subject–from the bottom of my heart–that I promise to spend all of my time and energy over the next several months trying to keep Savannah out of the headlines. ”

We want to go back to the most-watched morning program and the least talked about morning program,” he added.

Lauer sat next to NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke during the lunch, and “Today” was the final NBC News property pitched during the presentation, emphasizing how important the show is to the network.

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TVNewser hears that new Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is going to be giving his first TV interviews since assuming the post to CNBC, Fox Business Network and Bloomberg TV. All of the interviews are being pre-taped, and will air on all three networks at 4:15 PM, after the markets close.

Steve Liesman will talk to Lew for CNBC, Peter Barnes for Fox Business and Peter Cook for Bloomberg.

The interviews can be seen as an effort to speak to the Wall Street and business communities. Obviously each interview will be slightly different, but the financial focus of the networks means that the questions will likely be focused on fiscal policy.

The chairman of the NBC News Group, Pat Fili-Krushel, talks to Joe Flint at the LA Times about what’s ahead for NBC News, CNBC and MSNBC. There are a handful of clear priorities: fixing “Today,” finding a new president for NBC News leading the way.

“When you are No. 1, it’s easy to stop taking chances,” Fili-Krushel said [of "Today"]. “I think we just stopped innovating.”

…

Despite the concerns about the Lauer-Guthrie pairing, Fili-Krushel gave them a strong endorsement. “They are the ones who will take us back to No. 1,” the executive said.

Also on her list: making sure NBC News is digital-forward, and making sure that there is real, meaningful collaboration between the NBC, CNBC and MSNBC teams.
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It isn’t very often that talent on one cable news channel breaks news about talent at another cable news channel. But Fox Business Network’s Charlie Gasparino did just that this morning.

Gasparino, a former correspondent for CNBC, reported that his former colleague, CNBC’s capital markets editor Gary Kaminsky would be leaving the cable news channel to join Morgan Stanley as vice chair of its brokerage unit. He hedged his wording a bit, noting that talks were ongoing and it was “not a done deal,” but the message was clear:

Update: It’s official, Morgan Stanley’s internal announcement, below.
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There was good news and not-so-good news for CNBC in the ratings for its debut of “CNBC Prime,” its new primetime entertainment programming block.

On Tuesday the network launched the first two shows for the block, “mantiquing” show “Treasure Detectives” and car flipping show “The Car Chasers.” At 9PM “Treasure” drew 279,000 total viewers, including 62,000 adults 25-54. At 10 PM “Car Chasers” drew 210,000 viewers, including 64,000 A25-54.

“Treasure Detectives” was up substantially from the previous week (195,000 viewers, 49,000 A25-54), where an episode of “60 Minutes on CNBC” had the slot. “Car Chasers” was down double digits from the previous week, when an episode of “American Greed” aired there (281,000 viewers, 82,000 A25-54. “American Greed” is the second-most popular show on the channel in total viewers, and is the top show on CNBC in the demo. In other words, both CNBC Prime programs will likely be among CNBC’s highest-rated when all is said and done, even though one of them is down from the week prior.

If you were a Time Warner Cable subscriber in New York checking out CNBC’s new “CNBC Prime” block, you may have seen an ad… for Fox Business:

Yes, FBN made a local ad buy with Time Warner Cable to place ads on CNBC during its new entertainment block. CNBC had no say in the airing of the ads, but it was a little way for FBN to poke its competition a little bit. FBN also released another house ad taking aim at the CNBC Prime block.

“The reality is business doesn’t keep office hours, so we stay on the job,” a voiceover says, making light of CNBC’s decision to feature entertainment programming on Tuesday nights.

WATCH:

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The stars of CNBC Prime’s “Car Chasers”

Tonight at 9 PM, CNBC will launch its new primetime entertainment block, CNBC Prime. In a stark departure from CNBC’s daytime programming, Tuesday evenings will become dedicated to unscripted reality shows, albeit with a business twist.

“At first I looked at shows that I thought would be organic to CNBC, ‘could I do shows set in the Wall Street space?’ I instantly felt that it might be tough, because it isn’t that visual,” Jim Ackerman, senior VP of primetime alternative programming tells TVNewser. “I came across a pitch about these guys that are flipping cars, and I thought that what these guys do is very much akin to what a commodity broker does, but their commodity happens to be very visual, that commodity has a back-story, that commodity has an emotional impact on the people buying and selling it, and I thought, this could work for us.”

That show is “Car Chasers,” which will kick off the Prime block tonight alongside “Treasure Detectives.” CNBC plans to launch eight or nine series by the end of 2013. Still, regular CNBC or business news viewers may be caught off-guard that a network with such a lucrative dayside news schedule would branch out into entertainment.

“We had been building out vertically, business-related content into primetime for the last couple of years,” says Brian Steel, CNBC’s senior VP of public relations. “We have been successful with the long-form documentaries, and some of the out-of-house produced shows like “American Greed,” and candidly, we were coming off the sixth consecutive year of record operating profit, and we thought it was time to try something different, to try and broaden the audience that we already had.”
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Today marks the one-year anniversary of “Post 9,” CNBC’s set on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (check out our guided tour of the set here). NYSE Euronext CEO Duncan Nederauer appeared on set to commemorate the anniversary with cupcakes.

“What we have done with you guys in the last six months, taking advantage of the spot, is that you bring the camera right into everyone’s living room,” Nederauer said. “It is all about transparency, and this gives us that opportunity.”

WATCH:

Fox Business Network has released a house ad taking aim at cable business leader CNBC, while tooting its own horn. The impetus behind the ad was the “booking wars” back and forth last week, which saw a CNBC policy that forbids guests from appearing on FBN or Bloomberg come to light.

The ad quotes from the CNBC policy, and ends with the FBN logo and the tagline “We know how to talk to business leaders.”

Investor Place follows up on the CNBC booking policy story. The author, Jeff Reeves, is a regular guest on cable business news himself, and he talks to other guests and TV executives.

He praises CNBC for the quality of the programming, but also argues that the old days when CNBC was the only game in town are over.

CEOs have a choice of TV networks (even if CNBC is still the big dog) but can also publish their thoughts themselves, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently did responding to a New York Times review.

If I were in the booking department of CNBC, I would think twice about some of this lest big-time CEOs and hedge fund managers tire of the whole affair.

Or as Kevin Magee, the executive vice president of Fox Business Network, said to me more bluntly, “Business leaders are not going to be blackmailed, much less be dictated to by some booker in Englewood Cliffs.”

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