Generalities

Last night was the final night of the “Jeopardy!” “Power Players” week, with journalists and Washington DC-types competing for their favorite charities. The final three players were CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, NBC White House correspondent Kelly O’Donnell and New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman.

As usual, each player had one category that was a play on their name or profession. One category was “‘A.C.’” with each answer having one word starting with an “A” and a second word starting with a “C.” “Here’s to the Irish,” in honor of Ms. O’Donenll’s heritage, and “Cold, Hilly and Empty,” a play on Friedman’s last book Hot, Flat and Crowded.

Cooper showed the most personality, and was the strongest player. He cracked jokes and literally jumped in the air in mock joy after ending the first segment as the only player not in negatives.

Going into Final Jeopardy! Cooper had a substantial, but not insurmountable, lead. None of the players were able to get the question correct however (it was Eli Whitney), but smart wagering gave Cooper the win, and $50,000 for his charity.

It’s a May Friday, which would usually mean a slow news day… but not today. Facebook has gone public, and is now trading on the NASDAQ. CEO Mark Zuckerberg rang the opening bell from Menlo Park, CA this morning.

After  some drama and a brief delay in trading, apparently due to overwhelming demand for orders, the stock started to trade at 11:30 AM. Not surprisingly, cable news has been eating it up, the business networks in particular:

For reporters covering the IPO, it was all about finding unique angles on the story. Take CNBC’s Brian Sullivan, for example:

U2′s Bono will make multiples more on Facebook IPO than in entire 30+year music career: bit.ly/JVNv1n

— Brian Sullivan (@SullyCNBC) May 18, 2012

Likewise, Bloomberg’s Dominic Chu used Twitter to provide some interesting background information on the trade:

Reminder…circuit breakers are still in effect…so if there is a sharp move in #Facebook stock, trading halts will kick in $$ $FB

— Dominic Chu (@The_Domino) May 18, 2012

Not to be outdone, even the “big three” cable news channels were sure to cover the news:

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Last night was night four of the “Jeopardy!” “Power Players” week, which features journalists and Washington D.C. elites playing for charity. The contestants were “Daily Show” regular and comedian Lewis Black, NBC News White House correspondent and MSNBC “Daily Rundown” anchor Chuck Todd, and columnist Clarence Page.

As usual, the “Jeopardy! writers had some fun with the categories, which included “The Daily Rundown” (about important days), “Page Turners” (about books and authors) and “Fade to ‘Black’” (clues where the answer had “black” in the name.

All three were strong competitors, with no real missteps, though Todd this miss a fairly obvious answer in the “Daily Rundown” category about Thanksgiving.

The final category was “Sporting Events,” which seemingly gave an edge to Todd, given his history with outlets such as Sports Business Daily. Nonetheless, every player failed to guess the correct answer, The Kentucky Derby, with Todd and Black guessing the U.S. Open.

Todd had garnered just enough of  a lead over Page so as he couldn’t be caught, even with the wrong answer in Final Jeopardy!, and the result was $50,000 for his charity.

The business networks are gearing up for tomorrow’s Facebook IPO, which begins trading on the NASDAQ when the markets open tomorrow morning.

Bloomberg TV is kicking off coverage at 5pmET today with “Facebook: The Public Network,” a live three-hour special anchored by Emily Chang and Cory Johnson in San Francisco, Betty Liu in New York and Jon Erlichman at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, CA. At 8pmET, Matt Miller will anchor a live one-hour special, followed by an updated version of Bloomberg’s “Game Changers” on Mark Zuckerberg at 9pmET.

CNBC devoted the 1pmET hour this afternoon to the IPO with a special anchored by Carl Quintanilla. He and Julia Boorstin will also report from Facebook’s headquarters tomorrow. Tomorrow morning, CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” will broadcast from the NASDAQ, where Facebook will be trading, instead of their usual perch at the NYSE.

On Fox Business Network, Stuart Varney will host a special “Varney & Co.” tomorrow morning to cover the market open and the IPO launch. Shibani Joshi will be live from Facebook’s headquarters and Lauren Simonetti will be at the NASDAQ.

Last night was night three of “Jeopardy!” “Power Players” week, which features powerful Washington political types, celebrities and TV news personalities playing on the show for their favorite charities. The contestants last night were syndicated talk show host and cardiac surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz, “Fox News Sunday” moderator Chris Wallace and “BBC World News America” anchor Katty Kay.

As in the last few games, the “Jeopardy!” writers threw in some categories based on who was playing, including “Fair and Balanced” (which was about things that were either balanced, or fair, not a certain cable news channel), “You Call Yourself a Doctor?” (about, well, doctors), and “The British Are Coming!” (about battles and skirmishes between the U.S. and Great Britain in the early days of the nation).

Despite a slow start, this game was all Wallace. He dominated Double Jeopardy!, and went into Final Jeopardy! with no chance of being caught. Even as all three got Final right, Wallace ended up with far more than both Kay and Oz combined, winning his charity $50,000.

Fresh from Paramount Pictures, below is the first official movie poster for next year’s sequel to “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.” The tagline this time around? “The Legend Continues.”

TVNewser spoke to actor Vince Vaughn during a lunch hosted by TNT and TBS today, and the actor confirmed that he will be reprising his role as Burgundy’s competitor  “Wes Mantooth” in the sequel. Vaughn is producing a new comedy, “Sullivan and Son” for TBS.  Unfortunately, it is still unclear whether Christina Applegate‘s “Veronica Corningstone” will be returning for the film. See Vaughn’s most famous scene from the first film, after the jump.

The first trailer will be debuting this weekend in front of Paramount flick “The Dictator,” we will post that when it gets released online. For now, enjoy the suede shoes and polyester pants of legend:

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Fox News’s Harris Faulkner and HLN’s Jane Velez-Mitchell (pictured) were among the cable news personalities in the crowd at last night’s Women of Media reception, held at the Armand de Brignac Champagne Loft in Soho.

The first-annual event, which was hosted by journalist China Okasi and publicist Annie Scranton, was also attended by Megyn Kelly, Cheryl Casone, Laura Ingle, Tamron Hall, Laurie Dhue, Tara Dowdell and Jehmu Greene.

See more pictures of the event after the jump.

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Jennifer Lopez, Oprah Winfrey and Justin Bieber are at the top of Forbes’ annual Most Powerful Celebrities list. Unveiled today, the list is compiled based on earnings as well as TV, press, web and social rankings. So while JLo took home a healthy $52 million last year, that’s chump change compared to Glenn Beck, who, while #23 on the list, is #11 (tied with Elton John) in pay, taking home an estimated $80 million, more than Leonardo DiCaprio ($37M), Brad Pitt ($25) and Julia Roberts ($16M) combined. Beck moves up seven spots from last year’s list.

And if you haven’t seen it, go here to find out how Glenn Beck got on his path to prosperity, in the mediabistroTV series “My First Big Break” including how he almost quit radio to become a chef.

Last night was night two of the “Jeopardy!” “Power Players” week, featuring TV news personalities and other prominent Washington DC types. The players were NBA legend and U.S. State Department cultural ambassador Kareem Abdul Jabar, former White House Press Secretary and current Fox News “The Five” co-host Dana Perino and CNBC anchor David Faber.

Faber owned this game, but both Perino and Abdul Jabar were strong players.

Categories in the first round played off of the three players’ careers, including “Lakers” (which was about lakes, not the NBA team that Abdul Jabar played for), “The Five” (about groups of five things, not the FNC show Perino co-hosts) and “Squawk on the Street” (which was naturally about birds, not the CNBC program).

There was no Chris Matthews level of wackiness, though Abdul Jabar got some laughs for asking, “What is X?” rather than the more family-friendly “What is G?” during a clue about movie ratings.

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The first week of May is a big one for TV, with cable premieres and network sweeps. As a relatively slow week for news, however, the rankings remained mostly the same.

Fox News was the top cable news channel in both total day and primetime, placing 4th in primetime and tying for 5th in total day among ad-supported cable networks. FNC averaged 1.78 million viewers in prime, and 1.02 million in total day.

MSNBC placed 25th in primetime and 31st in total day drawing 709,000 and 393,000 viewers, respectively. CNN placed 37th in primetime and 35th in total day, drawing 411,000 and 295,000 viewers, respectively.

Among the business networks: CNBC placed 57th in primetime with 165,000 viewers, and 58th in total day with 127,000. Fox Business placed 88th in primetime with 42,000 viewers, and 83rd in total day with 56,000. Bloomberg TV isn’t rated by Nielsen, and hasn’t been since launching in the mid-90′s.

As for Current TV, it placed last among Nielsen-rated ad-supported cable networks in primetime at 94th place, drawing 25,000 viewers. In total day it placed 92nd with 26,000 viewers.

The full ranker is below.

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