Throughout CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” this morning, Carl Quintanilla, Jim Cramer, David Faber and Melissa Lee shared memories of Mark Haines, the longtime CNBC anchor, who died one year ago today.

“His picture is on a plaque here at the big board,” said Quintanilla. “He was always in your corner. The investor’s corner.”

“I miss him every day,” added Faber. “I think it’s a tribute to him a year after his death, that a day doesn’t pass that I don’t get a tweet or an e-mail saying either, ‘Mark would have loved that question’ or, ‘Mark would be proud.’ People have not forgotten him for a very good reason.”

The business networks are gearing up for tomorrow’s Facebook IPO, which begins trading on the NASDAQ when the markets open tomorrow morning.

Bloomberg TV is kicking off coverage at 5pmET today with “Facebook: The Public Network,” a live three-hour special anchored by Emily Chang and Cory Johnson in San Francisco, Betty Liu in New York and Jon Erlichman at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, CA. At 8pmET, Matt Miller will anchor a live one-hour special, followed by an updated version of Bloomberg’s “Game Changers” on Mark Zuckerberg at 9pmET.

CNBC devoted the 1pmET hour this afternoon to the IPO with a special anchored by Carl Quintanilla. He and Julia Boorstin will also report from Facebook’s headquarters tomorrow. Tomorrow morning, CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” will broadcast from the NASDAQ, where Facebook will be trading, instead of their usual perch at the NYSE.

On Fox Business Network, Stuart Varney will host a special “Varney & Co.” tomorrow morning to cover the market open and the IPO launch. Shibani Joshi will be live from Facebook’s headquarters and Lauren Simonetti will be at the NASDAQ.

With the Nielsen Fast National numbers for Friday just released, “Good Morning America” is in a position to win another week in the morning show ratings race. For the week of April 23, “GMA” has a +165,000 (preliminary) Total Viewer lead over the “Today” show. The win comes just as the May ratings period begins and as the regular anchor teams were in place, except for Friday, when Matt Lauer was off. But in an interesting twist, “Today” won the day Friday drawing +120,000 more viewers than “GMA” with Carl Quintanilla sitting in for Lauer.

When “GMA” beat “Today” the week of April 9, the first time in more than 16 years, Lauer was off all week.

In the A25-54 demo, “Today” is poised to continue its streak to 887 weeks at #1, although “GMA” continues to close the gap, with just 94,000 viewers (preliminary) separating the two shows. That’s the smallest gap since the week of Nov. 27, 1995.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of last week, “GMA” had significant leads on “Today” of 404,000, 288,000 and 283,000 viewers, respectively.

Final ratings will come Thursday.

With Thursday’s fast-national Nielsen numbers now in, “Good Morning America” is in a position to win the week. This comes as “Today” regained the top spot last week. As of Thursday’s show, “GMA” has a 236,000 total viewer lead for the week. “Today” is still leading with younger viewers. If “GMA” takes the week it will be a “clean” win as both show’s primary anchors were in. When “GMA” won the week of April 9, Matt Lauer was on vacation.

There is one exception: today. Viewers may have been asking ‘where in the world is Matt Lauer‘ this morning? Well, he had the day off, and Carl Quintanilla was sitting in. The May sweeps period began Thursday and, while it’s happened before, it’s unusual for anchors — and just about anyone who works at a local news station — to take off during Sweeps. Meanwhile, at GMA, Robin Roberts Tweeted that she flew to Los Angeles on assignment after yesterday’s show and took the red-eye back to be on this morning.

Describing her as the “It Girl,” NBC’s “Today” show had on the daughter of “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams this morning. Allison Williams is one of the stars of “Girls” which debuts on HBO Sunday night.

In a chat with Ann Curry and Carl Quintanilla, Williams describes the show as “an accurate depiction what it’s like to be in your early 20′s in New York.”

As for the “adult themes” of the HBO show, Williams says mom and dad are cool with it. “They lived through the filming of it with me and every time I’d read a new script I’d come home so excited. And I think they’re very proud.”

Watch, after the jump…

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Actual news got in the way of last night’s annual New York fundraiser for the journalism group NLGJA. Soledad O’Brien, who was to co-host with her HLN colleague Jane Velez-Mitchell, couldn’t as she moderated CNN’s Trayvon Martin town hall which airs tonight.

• Related: Behind the Scenes at CNN’s Trayvon Martin Town Hall

Don Lemon jetted up from Atlanta to co-host with Velez-Mitchell, who mixed and mingled before making a beeline for Time Warner Center herself to participate in the town hall.

Velez-Mitchell made the biggest splash of the night when, during her welcome remarks to the crowd, she pulled her girlfriend on stage and planted a big kiss on her. “I won’t be doing that!” Lemon joked. “Ben doesn’t like that kind of thing,” he said glancing over to his partner, Ben Tinker, who is a producer in CNN’s medical unit.

CNN managing editor Mark Whitaker talked about his network’s commitment to diversity in the ranks and on the air. CNN was the lead sponsor for the event which was held at the Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams showroom in SoHo.

Also spotted in the crowd: NBC News VP Alex Wallace, former “Today” show co-anchor Meredith Vieira, “CBS This Morning” co-host Erica Hill, MSNBC’s Willie Geist, former MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer and Fox News meteorologist Rick Reichmuth.

We chatted with FBN’s Gerri Willis who told us she has a new appreciation for the work of the Supreme Court after anchoring her show from Washington during oral arguments on the health care law. We also caught up with Fox News’s Alisyn Camerota and new Fox News political analyst Sally Kohn, who is settling in to her role as progressive pundit both on air and online, which

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Live television is rife with risk. On Friday’s “Today” on NBC, viewers saw why.

The program ran a story about a toddler who swallowed a string of “Buckyballs,” which are little marbles with rare earth magnets inside. The toddler and her parents appeared on the program for an interview, with the balls inside of a plastic cup with a lid on it.

The toddler opened up the lid, pulled out the magnets, opened her mouth and…

WATCH:

“Do you want me to take them?” anchor Carl Quintanilla asked.

All four major broadcast networks, along with the cable news channels and the business networks, are planning special coverage for President Obama’s third State of the Union address.

The broadcast networks will kick off special coverage beginning at 9pmET — anchored by Scott Pelley on CBS, Brian Williams on NBC and Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos on ABC. Fox News anchor Shepard Smith will anchor coverage for the Fox Broadcast Network.

On the cable networks:

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During the handoff from “Squawk Box” to “Squawk on the Street” this morning, CNBCers Joe Kernen, Becky Quick, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Carl Quintanilla and Melissa Lee were chatting about the new CNBC set at the New York Stock Exchange, which Alex got a look at Wednesday. And it was that story which gave Kernen his first look at the set:

Quintanilla: Have you been down here yet to see it in person?
Kernen: No. I saw it on TVNewser.
Lee: Your source for news about CNBC is TVNewser?
Kernen: That’s where I saw it. I’m too honest.

Not too honest, Joe. Just honest enough.

In mid-to-late February, CNBC will formally unveil a new set on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The location of the set (in the middle of the floor in a spot formerly occupied by trading booth #9) and the size of it (12 feet wide, 23 feet long, 12 feet high, 16,000 pounds), are unprecedented for a financial news outlet.

“We love buzz, and every morning they are going to ring the bell up in that balcony, it will be like broadcasting from Times Square, where every day is New Years Eve,” CNBC anchor Carl Quintanilla told us on the NYSE trading floor.

Indeed, the set is no more than 10 feet from where the opening and closing bells are rung, directly underneath the balcony that viewers routinely see on cable news (see below).

CNBC will be keeping its space on a separate balcony overlooking the trading floor, where it will be used primarily by producers and technicians, who can control small robotic cameras that will be mounted to a custom track system on the new set. Quintanilla says that being at ground-level will be a significant upgrade to the current setup.

“The balcony has been a great home, [Mark] Haines made it work, but sometimes we feel like Statler and Waldorf from the ‘Muppet Show,’ commenting from the balcony,” Quintanilla says. “Here [motions to the set] you are in arms reach of the traders making markets and stocks, it is as close as you can get.”

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