This afternoon Senator John McCain (R-AZ) introduced legislation (The Television Consumer Freedom Act of 2013) that would completely upend the television business.

There aren’t many things that can unite News Corp., Turner Broadcasting, NBC, CBS and Disney, but stopping this legislation is sure to be one of them.

In a nutshell, McCain’s legislation would allow cable, satellite and telco companies to unbundle TV channels, either selling them “a la carte” or in smaller bundles (think a “sports” bundle). It would also prohibit media conglomerates from shifting popular programming from free over the air networks to cable channels (think the NCAA basketball championship being shared between CBS, which is free, and Turner Sports, which is on cable).

McCain, speaking on the Senate floor, noted that the cost of cable has gone up 4X more than the purchasing power of U.S. consumers, thanks largely to the ever-increasing bundles which force cable companies to carry “Nat Geo Wild” if they want Fox News, or “Cloo” if they want USA Network.

“It is unfair and wrong, especially when you consider how the regulatory deck is stacked in favor of the industry, and against the consumer,” McCain said.

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Thanks to Comcast’s 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, we now know how much NBCUniversal spent to buy back the 50% of MSNBC.com that was owned by Microsoft.

The total purchase price for Microsoft’s stake was $195 million, “net of $100 million of cash and cash equivalents held at MSNBC.com that were acquired in the transaction,” according to the SEC filing.

The deal, which was signed last July, saw NBCU take control of the site and its employees, and redirected visitors to a new site called NBCNews.com. MSNBC.com is in the process of being transformed into a site dedicated to the politics-centric cable news outlet.

It is a fascinating deal because websites tied to TV operations are rarely if ever broken out financially. The purchase price means that Microsoft and NBCU valued MSNBC.com at around ~$500 million. It is not a perfect science, but general traffic stats have MSNBC.com slightly behind CNN’s digital properties, and almost double that of Fox News Channel’s digital properties. Obviously advertising sales and revenue models can vary from company to company, but it at least gives a ballpark estimate of the value of some of these digital properties.

Whenever there is big breaking news, be it an inauguration or a cruise ship adrift, CNN’s ratings spike. AdWeek‘s Sam Thielman talks to CNN’s ad sales chief Greg D’Alba about what it takes to monetize those news stories.

Obviously news events that happen on a schedule, like an election or royal wedding, are the easiest sells.

“Some of the news events that occur are tough because of how graphic they can be and how life-changing they become,” D’Alba said. After all, you can’t exactly pitch Nokia on a spot about the death of Muammar Gaddafi, even though cellphones were directly involved. But D’Alba said that CNN doesn’t just sell on royal weddings and elections. “We have a good track record,” he said. “That makes it easier for our guys to represent the brand and the product in the marketplace.”

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Turner Broadcasting’s truTV is cutting back on In Session, the channel’s daytime court news coverage, according to a spokesperson for the channel. Instead of airing live for six hours each weekday, In Session will now air for only two, and in a new format.

In Session currently airs from 9AM-3PM every weekday, but will shift to 9AM-11AM on March 4th. In Session anchor Vinnie Politan will anchor the new two-hour format. A handful of production positions have been eliminated.

In place of In Session, truTV will air replays of its primetime programs, along with acquired programming. The new lineup “is designed to provide a better flow into truTV’s early fringe and primetime lineup,” according to the spokesperson.

In Session is the last vestige of Court TV, which truTV replaced in 2008. In 2009 In Session shifted its production from New York to Atlanta, with HLN taking over programming responsibility for the block.

Comcast will acquire control of 100% of NBCUniversal, buying General Electric’s 49% stake in the company for $16.7 billion. Comcast will also acquire the property that GE has at 30 Rockefeller Plaza and at CNBC’s headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey for an additional $1.4 billion.

By acquiring the property, it is likely that the GE logo that has adorned the top of 30 Rockefeller Plaza since 1988 will be replaced. Before being called the GE Building, it was known as the RCA building. According to CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla, Comcast will be getting the naming rights to the building in the deal.

“The management team at GE has been has been a wonderful partner during the past two years and their support has been very valuable,” said Comcast CEO Brian Roberts in a statement. “Our decision to acquire GE’s ownership is driven by our sense of optimism for the future prospects of NBCUniversal and our desire to capture future value that we hope to create for our shareholders.”

Comcast was expected to acquire full control of NBCU eventually, though the process was originally slated to begin in 2014. Now it appears the deal will be done in March.

The deal is done. Al Jazeera has completed its acquisition of Current TV, and will re-brand the channel after a transition period from Current TV.

The new channel will not be Al Jazeera English, the company’s English-language news outlet, but rather a new, U.S.-based network. The channel is tentatively being called Al Jazeera America, but a source close to the company says that it isn’t wedded to the name, and may try to create a new brand. One of the options being considered, according to our source, is calling the channel “beIN,” or “beIN News,” to make it mesh with Al Jazeera’s beIN Sport network, which already has some U.S. distribution.

The impetus for the fresh name would stem from Al Jazeera’s brand in the U.S., which, while strong with journalists in New York and DC, is decidedly mixed across the rest of the country.

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News Corp. has formally split itself into two.

The company’s newspaper and publishing businesses will become their own company, retaining the News Corp. name. Dow Jones editor in chief Robert Thomson will become CEO of the new News Corp. January 1. The company is also shutting down The Daily, its iPad-only newspaper.

News Corp.’s TV and film businesses, which include Fox News Channel, Fox Broadcasting and 20th Century Fox, will become part of what is now called “The Fox Group.” The Fox Group will be led by Rupert Murdoch as CEO, and Chase Carey as president and COO.

“At Fox Group, what began with the acquisition of a modest film studio over 25 years ago has grown into one of the world’s most successful media companies of all times, defying conventional wisdom at every turn by pursuing excellence in creativity and innovation,” said Murdoch in a statement. “Fox Group is perfectly positioned to deliver even more inspiring stories that engage audiences through film, television, sports and digital platforms, driving not only financial results but a lasting imprint on the millions of people who enjoy our various services, in every corner of the world.”

After the jump, Murdoch’s note to staff explaining the moves.

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According to the Financial Times, Rupert Murdoch‘s son James Murdoch is eyeing a new role at the company, one which would include oversight of News Corp.’s U.S. TV businesses. Critically, the new job would not include Fox News Channel, which would remain under the leadership of Roger Ailes, assuming he signs a new deal with News Corp.

Under the role being discussed between News Corp and Mr Murdoch, Peter Rice, the Los Angeles-based head of News Corp’s Fox Networks Group, will report directly to Mr Murdoch, currently the deputy chief operating officer at the company…

Mr Murdoch had pressed for his expanded role to be announced in July, when Mr Rice was promoted to run Fox Networks, according to several people close to the situation. But Rupert Murdoch – his father and News Corp’s chairman – and Chase Carey, the company’s chief operating officer, resisted.

The hiring would generate substantial controversy, given the younger Murdoch’s role in the UK hacking scandal. He was overseeing the UK newspaper businesses when the scandal exploded, and he was one of the high-profile witnesses called before Parliament to explain what happened.

News Corp. COO Chase Carey spoke at a conference hosted by Goldman Sachs today, and while he didn’t break any big news, there were some interesting tidbits. As The Hollywood Reporter notes, Carey said that a new round of carriage negotiations would be beginning soon for Fox News, and that the company would once again be seeking big increases in fees.

“We aim to take that business closer to what we think reflects the value of that channel,” Carey said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Carey has been speaking about how FNC is undervalued for years.

He  also addressed the long-rumored Fox Sports channel. Carey said coyly  ”We obviously haven’t announced anything,” according to B&C.

One source at News Corp. tells me that Fox is planning to move forward with the channel, which is being referred to internally as “Fox Sports 1″ or “The 1″ for short. A check of the US Patent & Trademark Office files show that Fox Sports filed for trademarks on “Fox Sports 1,” Fox Sports The 1″ and “The 1″ on September 14. Those filings do not prove that News Corp. plans to move forward with the project, but indicates that it is progressing to the point where the company wants to protect potential names for the channel.

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David Frum

CNN contributor David Frum writes an in-depth piece looking at the challenges facing cable news… on CNN.com. It is a pretty reasonable take, with some arguments that may be familiar to longtime media watchers. Nonetheless, his advice may be worth heeding for cable news executives, particularly at CNN, which published the piece.

What cable news does do, unrivaled, is broadcast images of events to a large global audience. When there’s a crowd protesting in Tahrir Square — or a wildfire raging in southern California — viewers still turn to cable. Yet how often do such events occur? And how much longer will even that advantage hold?

As for advice, Frum has a few ideas:

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