Site Announcements

We know many of you have been reading TVNewser, or CableNewser as it was first known, since the start — when it was launched by that college kid Brian Stelter (whose face you’ve seen across the mediabistro sites recently for our Social Media 101 course).

Well, we just wanted to thank you for sticking with us for the last 8+ years. And thanks to the millions more who’ve joined along the way. 2011 was a great year for us. It was our best year ever in both page views and unique visitors: up +31% in page views and up +40% in uniques vs. 2010.

To celebrate, TVNewser along with our sister blog TVSpy will be throwing a party Wednesday night at Tonic in Times Square. A welcome to 2012, welcome to the election year, just-because kind of gathering.

Click here if you’d like to attend. And if you can’t, consider this a toast to thank you for stopping by all these years and for a bountiful 2012!

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

The countdown to the end of 2011 is on. So now is a good time to put on your prognostication cap and take the 2012 TVNewser Challenge.

Voting will close January 8, 2012. We’ll share the results around this time next year.

Read more

Time for the results of the TVNewser Challenge. One year ago, we asked, and you answered, making predictions for the Year in TV News. And just to let you, we’ll publish our 2012 TVNewser Challenge tomorrow afternoon.

Where will Katie Couric be working at the end of 2011?

CBS News — 38%
CNN — 12%
Her own syndicated show — 13%
Some combination — 18%
None of the above — 19%

Most of you said she’d still be at CBS News. But by April, she’d decided to leave the Tiffany network and landed a deal with Disney/ABC to develop her own syndicated show — which 13% of you said would happen. She’s also working on projects for ABC News.

How many of CNN’s primetime programs (Parker Spitzer, Piers Morgan Tonight, AC360) will be airing in the same timeslot, if at all, at the end of the year?

0 — 11%
1 — 40%
2 — 43%
3 — 6%

43% of you were right on this one. Two of CNN’s shows: “Piers Morgan Tonight” at 9pm and “Anderson Cooper 360″ at 10pm are in their same timeslots. Although AC360 is a reair of the 8pmET show, which replaced “Parker Spitzer,” which was renamed “In the Arena” in February after Parker left.

Will Fox Business Network or Bloomberg become rated by Nielsen in 2011?

Read more

Do you have a burning desire to become an expert on-camera? Take advantage of mediabistro.com’s winter promotion and go for it.

Through the end of tomorrow, December 15, when you enroll in an online or in-person course, you can take a self-paced course for free. Among the options is “On-Camera Training,”  a six-session self-paced course to help you master your presence in front of the camera.

More information on the promotion, as well as what classes are available, here.

Did you know that you can get the latest TVNewser headlines delivered right to your email inbox? Well, you can. TVNewser, like all of mediabistro.com’s blogs, sends out a daily email blast to keep you in the loop on what is happening in the world of TV news.

Want to sign up? Click here to enter your email address, and you are good to go! You can also sign up by entering your email address and Zip code in the email sign up box on the upper right-hand side of this page.

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Tomorrow evening, September 20, TVNewser and our sister blog TVSpy are hosting a party in New York, and we would love to see you there. Come network with your fellow TV colleagues, as well as your TVNewser and TVSpy editors. RSVP here, and we will see you tomorrow!

In case you missed it last week: TVNewser and our sister blog TVSpy are throwing a shindig next week.

Please join the TVNewser and TVSpy editors for a late summer party at Tonic in midtown Manhattan next Tuesday evening.

Here are the details:

TVNewser & TVSpy Party

Tuesday, September 20

Tonic Bar & Restaurant

727 Seventh Avenue (at 48th St.)

6:30 – 8:30 p.m.

Our parties are a great opportunity to network and mingle with your colleagues in the TV news business. RSVP here and we’ll see you next Tuesday.

Attention, New York City: we’re having a party!

Please join the TVNewser and TVSpy editors for a late summer party at Tonic next Tuesday evening.

Here are the details:

TVNewser & TVSpy Party

Tuesday, September 20

Tonic Bar & Restaurant

727 Seventh Avenue (at 48th St.)

6:30 – 8:30 p.m.

If you’ve ever been to one of our parties before, you know that sharing a few drinks with us is a great way to connect with other TV news professionals. And, since we picked a bar centrally located to most of New York’s TV networks and stations, you really have no excuse. So RSVP here (or I’ll get yelled at, Alex tells me) and we’ll see you next Tuesday.

Former Rutgers player Eric LeGrand is joining the Rutgers football broadcast booth.

LeGrand was paralyzed last year from the shoulder down after making a tackle against Army on a kickoff play. The 20-year-old is now an inspirational story as he’s determined to walk once again.

“I think it’s really cool,” head coach Greg Schiano said. “He’s going to do post (game), pre (game) and halftime. So we’re going to get our E-rock report.”