The Ticker

• What’s next for former MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan? “We’re doing fine,” he tells the Daily Caller. “I’ve been on television a lot. And I’m free now to do on to any TV, radio show, any network.” Buchanan was on “CBS This Morning” today.
• “The Dylan Ratigan Show” is back on the road this week as part of the “30 Million Jobs Tour,” which has been ongoing since January 18. He will broadcast live tomorrow from the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
• Al Sharpton tells the Los Angeles Times how hosting a daily show has affected his image. “[Viewers] get a sense of who you really are and what you’re really about when they can see you five nights a week an hour themselves,” he says.

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• Fox News’ Shepard Smith will host an hourlong special tomorrow on Glen Campbell‘s struggle with Alzheimer’s. In addition to speaking with the singer, Smith also interviews Maria Shriver, who lost her father to the disease last year. The special airs Saturday at 10pmET.
• An SUV waiting to pick up Al Sharpton was impounded at La Guardia Airport yesterday afternoon. The car apparently had a suspended registration. “I just called another car,” Sharpton told the New York Post. “I keep on rolling.”
• MSNBC Digital launched two new apps for the new Facebook timeline today.  The msnbc.com and today.com apps let users add videos to their timeline, “giving people an easy way to connect around video,” according to an MSNBC statement.

• FNC/FBN’s Irena Briganti is getting a promotion. Briganti, who’s been with the network since June, 1996, prior to launch, is being promoted to Group Senior VP of Media Relations for Fox News and Fox Business.

• FBN Washington correspondent Peter Barnes and his wife are finishing up their latest children’s book. “Liberty Lee’s Tail of Independence,” about the Declaration of Independence told from a mouse’s point of view, will be in stores this May.

• Neil Cavuto was all set to be a Catholic priest, but, “But truth be told,” he tells JerseyMan Magazine, “it really wasn’t cut out for me to be a priest for a variety of reasons. It upset my Irish mother and my Italian father, who, as a man of few words, said, ‘Good, there is no money in it anyway.’”

• Adele helped “60 Minutes” with younger viewers Sunday. The pre-Grammys telecast, which featured Anderson Cooper‘s interview with the singer, was up +43% in the A25-54 demo and +40% in A18-49 viewers vs. the same week last year. Sunday’s show was the 10th most-watched of the week with 14.25 million viewers. The Grammys, with 40 million viewers, was the most-watched show of the week.
• Diane Sawyer‘s interview with Whitney Houston, 10 years ago this month, will be the cornerstone of a two-hour “20/20” special Friday night at 9pmET/PT. “One Moment in Time: The Life of Whitney Houston,” will take an in-depth look at the life and death of the singer the night before her funeral in New Jersey.
• With the London Olympics five months away, NBC has announced it is again partnering with Google and comScore measure how the games are being watched on TV, mobile, the PC, and, for the first time, the tablet.

• It’s social media week here in New York and GMA weatherman and champion Twitterer, Sam Champion will be a part of panel on social syndication today. The panel, put on by Buddy Media, will be livestreamed on the Social Media Week website.
• Looking for a Valentine? Al Sharpton has some advice: “Invite her over to your house, light some candles, and turn on MSNBC’s ‘PoliticsNation,’” he tells E!.
• “Good Morning America” co-anchor Robin Roberts will be one of the hosts of ABC’s Academy Award pre-show February 26. Roberts, along with Tim Gunn and Nina Garcia, will host the only broadcast from the red carpet immediately preceding the ceremony.

• Former ABC Newser Bob Wheelock has joined Al Jazeera English as executive producer for the Americas. Wheelock, who was senior producer of ABC’s special events unit, has also been a senior producer, broadcast producer and London bureau chief for NBC News.
• Candy Crowley, CNN’s chief political correspondent, received the University of Kansas’ William Allen White journalism citation Friday. Previous recipients include Walter Cronkite, Bernie Shaw, Bob Woodward and Cokie Roberts.
• WNET has hired Julie Anderson as executive producer of documentaries and development. Anderson, who is up for an Academy Award in the short documentary film category this year, starts tomorrow.

• CNN, which has been covering the deteriorating situation in Syria more than either of its cable news competitors, according to TVEyes, is planning a primetime special on Saturday on the matter. “Homs: A City Under Siege,” will run on CNN from 10:30-11PM, and will be narrated by CNN correspondent Nic Robertson, who has spent a lot of time in the country this year.

• CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Atkisson did not attend a controversial award ceremony held by conservative media watchdog group Accuracy in Media at CPAC. CBS News DC bureau chief Chris Isham accepted the award instead, saying that Atkisson was on assignment.

• On “ABC World News Now” this morning, a Valentine’s Day Polka: 

• “CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King will broadcast live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles tomorrow ahead of Sunday’s Grammy Awards. King will also be live Monday for a Grammy wrap-up.
• Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb have taken their show to the Bahamas. The fourth hour of “Today” originated from Atlantis on Paradise Island this morning and will be back tomorrow morning as well.
• MSNBC premiere’s “Semper Fi: Always Faithful,” the story of Marine Corps Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger whose search for the cause of the death of his 9-year-old daughter, led him to contaminated drinking water at his Marine Corps Base. Lawrence O’Donnell hosts the special, Friday Feb. 24 at 10pmET.

• Broadcasting & Cable reports ABC News is considering elevating “Good Morning America” senior executive producer James Goldston to “a more wide-ranging role.” The personnel change has no immediate timeline, according to B&C, but sources expect “GMA” EP Tom Cibrowski to take over for Goldston.
• FBN’s Liz Claman says she got to the anchor desk by demanding it (as the Fox Business mantra goes). “I was getting passed up to be an anchor,” Claman tells Boston.com, “and one day I stormed into my boss’ office, and I made a case to him that I should be an anchor.”
• With the help of Deepak Chopra, Dylan Ratigan has turned over a new leaf, the MSNBC host tells The Hill. “I was the angriest man in cable up to about a year ago,” Ratigan says. “I’ve long since moved to a much happier lifestyle.”

• Jim Acosta has been promoted to national political correspondent for CNN. The suburban DC native has mostly been covering politics since joining CNN in 2007. In 2009, Cuban-American Acosta traveled to Havana where he reported on US-Cuban relations and met his own long-lost relatives. From 2003-2007 Acosta was a correspondent for CBS News. Before that he had stints in local TV news in Knoxville, Dallas and Chicago.

• Maribel Aber is joining CNN Newsource as a correspondent for a new multi-platform financial news service produced in conjunction with CNNMoney.com. From the floor of the NASDAQ, Aber will present “CNN Money Matters” reports for CNN and its affiliates. Earlier in her career Aber was VP of NASDAQ MarketSite overseeing operations at the Times Square studio.

• The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund presents its 2012 Justice in Action Awards to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Wednesday. ABC’s Juju Chang and Sree Sreenivasan of Columbia University will emcee the event. The Daily Show’s Aasif Mandvi is a special guest. Go here for more information.