On Sunday, “Fox News Sunday” executive producer Marty Ryan oversaw his last edition of the public affairs program. Ryan, a former senior producer and executive producer of NBC’s “Today,” and a longtime senior member of Fox News Channel”s DC leadership, is retiring from the channel. 

“Maybe they will call me back at some point and ask if this old guy wants to do something else,” he quips.

Ryan helped launch the Sunday public affairs show in 1996, before Fox News Channel even officially launched.

“I was telling our staff, when I first walked into our bureau here, there really was nothing,” Ryan says. “There was no chairs, no lamps, tables dangling from ceilings from when the prior tenant had left the facility, so we literally had to build—from scratch—a world class network news bureau.

“Where we were a startup before, we are now a mature news organization, but we still have the mindset of a startup, which I think is good and makes us healthy,” he added.

At “Today,” Ryan worked closely with household names like Bryant Gumbel, Jane Pauley and Tom Brokaw. When asked about some of the more memorable events that he has covered in his career, a major event across the pond came to mind.

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• Tuesday is the season finale of HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel,” and the venerable sports newsmagazine is forgoing its usual format for a round-table look at the year that was. Gumbel will join panelists Bernard Goldberg, Mary Carillo, Andrea Kremer, Frank Deford and Jon Frankel in discussing sports in 2012. The panel will also include Armen Keteyian, who is leaving “Real Sports” to join “60 Minutes of Sports” on Showtime next year.

• Not content to simply name winter storms, The Weather Channel is launching a Winter Storm Index called “Storm: Con,” which will grade winter storms on severity in a 1-10 scale. 1-5 aren’t too bad, but if a 6-10 is coming… watch out.

• MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell is interviewed by the Wall Street Journal about his work with UNICEF. He has been active in raising money for schools in Africa.

• David Gregory sits down with filmmaker Ken Burns to talk about his new documentary “The Dust Bowl” for Gregory’s online show “Press Pass.” Burns will be our guest for “My First Big Break.” Watch for that next month on TVNewser.

• “Real Sports” returns Tuesday on HBO. Bryant Gumbel profiles Michael Strahan and takes HBO cameras behind the scenes of his new gig as co-host of “LIVE with Kelly and Michael.”

• CNN is rolling out CNN Trends, a news discovery dashboard powered by CNN-owned Zite. Lost Remote found it’s the best example yet of a TV news outlet uncovering and presenting what people are talking about on social media.

CBS News and sister pay cable network Showtime are partnering on a new sports newsmagazine, “60 Minutes of Sports.” The program will air on Showtime, greatly bolstering the pay cabler’s sports news output.

The program will debut in November, with new editions airing monthly. Each episode will feature two new, original segments, one updated classic “60 Minutes” segment as well as a timely in-studio newsmaker interview. Correspondents from both “60 Minutes” and CBS Sports will participate in the program.

“This is an exciting opportunity for all of us at 60 Minutes,” said CBS News chairman and “60 Minutes” EP Jeff Fager, who will also EP the new program. “Our Showtime edition will offer the same high-quality, original reporting and great storytelling our viewers have come to expect every Sunday night on CBS.”

While Showtime has extensive sports programming, it has lacked a sports newmsazgine to call its own. HBO has been the longtime home of “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel,” which routinely receives accolades for its strong reporting, while ESPN has “E:60.”

More information, below.

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Last night HBO held a premiere screening and party for its upcoming series “The Newsroom.” It was a smaller screening than normal for HBO, though the stars still seemed to come out.

TVNewser hears that among the attendees were NBC’s Brian Williams, HBO’s Bryant Gumbel, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, CNN’s Piers Morgan and CBS’ Charlie Rose and Erica Hill.

This morning, ABC’s “Good Morning America” interviewed the series’ star, Jeff Daniels, who plays anchor Will McAvoy. Stephanopoulos asked Daniels whether the series was based on former MSNBC and Current TV host Keith Olbermann:

“No one, sorry Keith, no one. We really decided, let’s create someone completely fictional, and just drop them in the middle of all the guys who exist that we know today,” Daniels said. “Aaron never said ‘by the way, this is based on so and so.’”

“Aaron will tell you that it is a romantic view of what cable news should be, or should strive to be,” Daniels added.

WATCH:

Mediabistro was at Wendy Williams‘s studio yesterday where we taped our mediabistroTV series “My First Big Break.” When we got there, Katie Couric happened to be taping a segment with Williams for Couric’s upcoming daytime talk show. The exchange included a sort of “would you rather?” back and forth. At one point, Williams asks Couric who would she rather sleep with: Bryant Gumbel or Matt Lauer. Couric chose Gumbel, because, she says, she feels so close to Lauer it would just be weird. We’re told the shoot is for the debut of “Katie” which premieres Sept. 10. “My First Big Break” with Wendy Williams will launch on mediabistro.com July 26. Read more

When “Good Morning America” recently snapped “Today’s” 16-year winning streak, former “Today” star Bryant Gumbel was underwhelmed.

“I didn’t really have much of a reaction,” says Gumbel, 63, “Today” co-anchor from 1982 to ’97. “[The streak] is a long time, but nothing lasts forever. It’s the nature of the business. I’ve been gone a long time now – 15 years. It’s frightening.”

Gumbel returns to mornings today and tomorrow as guest host on “Live! with Kelly.” Today marks his 24th gig; his second since Regis Philbin stepped down in November. No permanent partner yet for Kelly Ripa.

Why does Gumbel do “Live!” so frequently? “[Executive producer] Michael Gelman is a friend of mine,” he says. “Kelly is a friend of mine. The studio is very close to my house. When they ask, if my schedule allows and I’m not in one of my moods, I say yes.”

Gumbel’s moods are no joke, as many can attest. He describes the above-referenced one as: “Screw the business; I’d rather be in a cave and have nobody see me the rest of my life.” Even when he’s not in a mood, Gumbel characterizes himself as “somewhere between a hermit and a recluse.”

These days, he’s a happy hermit. He’s quietly beaten lung cancer, twice, and prostate cancer. He and his wife, Hilary, are about to celebrate their 10th anniversary. He just became a

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Former NBC “Today” and CBS “Early Show” anchor Bryant Gumbel is returning to the mornings the week of June 4. Gumbel will be the guest co-host of ABC’s syndicated program “Live! with Kelly” on Monday, June 4 and Tuesday, June 5.

Gumbel, who anchors “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” on HBO, was one of “Today”‘s longest-serving anchors, and helped launch a revamped version of “The Early Show” back in 1999.

The other guest co-hosts on “Live!” that week are actor Neil Patrick Harris and “Saturday Night Live’”s Andy Samberg.

With final Nielsen numbers now out, ABC’s “Good Morning America” has topped NBC’s “Today” for the first time in more than 16 years. The win was projected Monday with the release of Friday’s preliminary numbers. In the end, “GMA” widened the win by a still-slim 31,000 viewers. “Today” continues the winning streak in A25-54 viewers to 885 weeks (longer than the Total Viewer streak had been). “Today” had 257,000 more younger demo viewers than “GMA.”

Rightly, ABC News president Ben Sherwood is taking a victory lap: “All of us at ABC News salute the dynamic team at ‘Good Morning America’ who never sleep and who care so deeply about the program.”

Of course, we congratulate our friends at “Today” for the greatest winning streak in broadcasting history and for their excellence and leadership during this historic run. It’s a special day for ABC News and, after a proper celebration 852 weeks in the making, we’ll get right back to work to be ready tomorrow to help “GMA” viewers start their day with a rewarding experience and big picture understanding of the world.

After Monday’s projected win, “Today” show executive producer Jim Bell commented that the “852-week winning streak had taken on a life of its own and as odd as it is to see it end, we should acknowledge just how remarkable it has been.”

So as we tip our caps to the team at “Good Morning America,” we can also take a bow ourselves and recognize the work done by countless staffers for so long. It is not an overstatement to call it one of the most incredible achievements in television history, one that is not likely to ever happen again. While the streak has been wonderful affirmation of our work, it has never defined us, and we will continue to innovate, take chances and lead the way.

On Monday, December 11, 1995, the “Today” show reported on a snowstorm in Buffalo, U.S. Marines arriving in Bosnia, Michael Jackson‘s collapse during an on-stage rehearsal, and the possibility of MSN and NBC starting a 24-hour cable news channel. That was also the day the show began its run as the #1 morning show on TV. Jeff Zucker was three years into his run as EP of the show, Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric were co-anchors and Matt Lauer was the newsreader

Compared to the same week last year only “GMA” showed growth: +7% in both Total Viewers and younger viewers. With Matt Lauer on vacation, “Today” was down -9% in Total Viewers and down -13% in younger viewers. While “CBS This Morning” also continues a downward trend from the “Early Show” of last year: down -6% and down -3%

The averages for the week of April 9:

• Total Viewers: NBC: 5.14M / ABC: 5.17M / CBS: 2.51M

• A25-54 viewers: NBC: 2.23M / ABC: 1.97M / CBS: 994K

With the overnight ratings for Friday’s show just released, ABC’s “Good Morning America” appears to have won an entire week in the ratings — a feat which has not been accomplished in 852 weeks, since Dec., 1995 when Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric were the “Today” anchors.

On Friday, “GMA” had a 333,000 total viewer lead on “Today,” enough to put it over the top for the week winning by just 13,000 viewers.

Last week was seen as the week “GMA” could have toppled “Today” for a couple reasons: “GMA” has been gaining ground, and last week, “Today” anchor Matt Lauer was on vacation while the full “GMA” team was in place. As of Thursday’s show, “Today” had a +63,000 lead, but with “GMA’s” big win Wednesday (+366,000) and then Friday, that was enough. These are preliminary projections with final Nielsen numbers out Thursday morning.

“Everybody’s thrilled and cautiously optimistic that this holds up for the final numbers on Thursday,” an ABC insider tells TVNewser.

Here are the total viewer gaps, showing “Today’s” lead, for the last few weeks:

• March 19: +137,000

• March 26: +119,000

• April 2:- +187,000

• April 9: -13,000