CNN anchor Jake Tapper is already a high-profile news anchor, correspondent and cartoonist. Now he is trying his hand at a new skill: dramatic actor.

Tapper will play–get this–an investigative reporter named “Spencer Phillips” on the soap opera “All My Children.” Tapper will appear on the August 19 episode of the daytime soap, which now airs online.

Watch a preview, below.

(h/t Johnny $)

• ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff is planning a series of reports for “Nightline,” highlighting “the most dangerous and extreme places across the globe.” The debut segment airs tonight, and features a look at child coal miners.

• MSNBC.com continues to staff up. The latest additions include Irin Carmon and Tim Noah as reporters and Nisha Chittal as a social media content editor. Richard Wolffe‘s memo to staff, after the jump.

• Barbara Walters will be given the Excellence in Journalism Award by The American News Women’s Club at the National Press Club Friday. Norah O’Donnell will emcee, with Ted Koppel set to speak.

Read more

25-54 demographic (Live +SD)

• Total day: FNC: 215 | MSNBC: 107 | CNN: 75 | HLN: 86

• Primetime: FNC: 191 | MSNBC: 154 | CNN: 101 | HLN: 89

Read more

CNN’s “Stroumboulopoulos” debuted in its permanent Friday evening time period last week, and–as promised–we have the ratings. The program averaged 303,000 total viewers, and 76,000 viewers adults 25-54 Friday at 11 PM.

Those numbers put the program third in cable news in total viewers, behind a repeat of “The O’Reilly Factor” on FNC and “MSNBC Investigates” on MSNBC. In the demo it placed fourth, just behind “Showbiz Tonight” on HLN. The full scoreboard will be up shortly.

The Friday premiere was up in total viewers from its Sunday debut last week, but down slightly in the demo. The Sunday premiere was up against tough competition, with the NBA Finals, the Tony Awards, “Mad Men” and “Falling Skies” all going head to head with Strombo’s program. Friday’s show did not face any tough TV competition, though it is a time period that likely had a much smaller potential viewer pool than Sunday saw.

Compared to Fridays at 11 PM season to date, the debut was down -43% in total viewers, and -63% in the demo.

Read more

CBS News anchor Scott Pelley‘s comments to Deadline over the weekend comparing cable and network news has been fodder on Fox News today. First, here’s part of the Q&A:

DEADLINE: While the news flow on cable may be in the hundreds of thousands, a lot of people are watching Bill O’Reilly, a couple of million a night. Same thing with Hannity.

PELLEY: We measure our audience in millions. They’re not big numbers. People talk about cable a lot and cable has a very high profile. Not a lot of people watch cable news, they just don’t. If you look at the Nielsen numbers, the cable channels have a few hundred thousand viewers at any given moment. The CBS Evening News again has 7 million viewers, ABC has 8 million viewers. Brian [NBC's Williams] has almost 9 million. Altogether we have about 25 million viewers on any given night. That’s a very different order of magnitude.

The story was discussed on “Fox & Friends” this morning and again on Megyn Kelly‘s show. Kelly, in a discussion with Michelle Malkin, says Pelley answering that question by dismissing a fact in it, does a disservice to his audience. She also took a jab at Pelley: “We beat you in all the debates and on election night, Scott.”

You can bet former CBS News correspondent Bernard Goldberg will have a few things to say about it tonight on his regular Monday night “O’Reilly Factor” appearance.

(h/t J$P)

CBS News has named Terri Stewart as its new national editor. Stewart has been the northeast bureau chief for CBS, and has been with the company since 1986.

In her new role she will oversee day-to-day coverage for hard news and special events. She will effectively be replacing Bill Felling, who was named executive director of news services for CBS a few weeks back.

“Over the years she has held a number of key positions at the Broadcast Center, coordinating news coverage and often shedding light on stories and people with little visibility,” writes CBS News VP of news Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews in an email to staff obtained by TVNewser. “In addition to her journalistic credentials and her loyalty to CBS News, Terri is a confident leader in the newsroom and has the respect of her colleagues at CBS News.”

The full memo to staff, after the jump.
Read more

PBS has made it official: there will be a new half-hour weekend edition of the “PBS NewsHour” coming later this year.

“PBS NewsHour Weekend” will debut September 7, and will be anchored by Hari Sreenivasan (pictured left), a correspondent for the weekday edition of the program. Sreenivasan writes about what he hopes to accomplish at the new program here.

Unlike the weekday edition of “NewsHour,” which originates from Washington DC, the weekend edition will originate from New York City, at the studios of WNET at Lincoln Center.

“I am delighted about the expansion of the ‘NewsHour’ to the weekend,” said Jim Lehrer, executive editor, and founding former news anchor for ‘PBS NewsHour’ in a statement. “I welcome this latest expansion of our brand of trusted and balanced journalism. Plus, it is equally wonderful to rekindle our relationship with WNET, where Robert MacNeil and I started nearly 40 years ago.”

The expansion in New York City comes as the “NewsHour” was forced to lay off staff in its Denver and San Francisco offices, as well as some production roles in Washington DC.

More, after the jump.
Read more

Health supplement marketers are at it again, using real news brands to push their products. A TVNewser reader sent us this site purported to be Fox News, but with the URL: xxfnws.com. The site pushes Raspberry drops meant to help people lose weight. There’s also a real story from FOX’s Charlotte affiliate about the product. It appears this is being produced in the Eastern European time zone as the time stamp at the top is +7 hours ahead of ET.

This practice is not knew. In 2008 we wrote about how marketers were using Matt Lauer‘s image to sell PureAcaiBerry. And later that year, they’d used Barbara Walters to help push an anti-aging supplement.

The debut of CNN’s “New Day” this morning can be summed up with my favorite Oscar Wilde quote: “Everything in moderation, including moderation.”

As promised by senior executive producer Jim Murphy, the hyper-promoted 6-to-9amET broadcast – sorry, Soledad O’Brien — had tons o’ news and, at times, a “comfy and conversational tone,” but both were presented in wretched excess.

With gray-suited Chris Cuomo sandwiched between Christmas co-anchors Kate Bolduan (green dress) and Michaela Pereira (red dress), segments ran at a dizzying pace. That’s heavy voltage before breakfast.

Moreover, CNN dragged out practically its whole roster of correspondents for live talk backs. By my count, there were eight in the first eight packages alone. It was overkill, even for network boss Jeff Zucker.

The lead story was about a new CNN poll that showed Pres. Obama’s plummeting popularity. Cuomo chatted up John King. One story later, “New Day” went to that well again, this time with Dana Bash as Cuomo’s partner. Let’s hear it for moderation.

Lest we forget, HLN’s Nancy Grace popped up at about 8:20 to rant about two missing-child cases. She did not disappoint. In her usual high dudgeon, she acted like a “Saturday Night Live” parody of herself. I hope she never ups her meds.

As for the “comfy and conversational” aspect, that, too, was overdone. While Bolduan and Pereira gabbed like girlfriends around the glass table, the uber-intense Cuomo seemed uneasy and out of place. Face it, the guy can make a lost-kitten story sound like a mass murder.

Read more

“CBS This Morning” and PBS anchor Charlie Rose will air an interview with President Obama on his eponymous PBS program tonight at 11 PM ET.

The interview was conducted yesterday before the President left for the G8 Summit in Belfast, Northern Island, and features a discussion on the NSA, drone policy and the Middle East.

The interview will re-air on Bloomberg TV tomorrow. You should also expect to see some clips on “CBS This Morning” tomorrow morning.

It will be the President’s first sit-down interview since the NSA scandal erupted. He spoke to NBC News in April, and ABC News and Telemundo in March. Rose last interviewed the President in July, 2012.

On Fox News, Eric Bolling has an exclusive interview with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden‘s father, Lonnie Snowden:

Read more