“First Thursday,” the big kick-off for March Madness, is over, and with it the 2013 TVNewser March Madness bracket challenge really gets started.

This early in the game everyone is really close, but a few people have separated themselves from the pack.

CNBC’s Brian Schactman leads the way, with his colleague Joe Kernen and CNN’s Brooke Baldwin right behind him. Right now Lisa Sylvester, Wolf Blitzer, Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell are at the bottom of the pack, but there is plenty of time for a comeback.

Take a look at the full standings, after the jump.
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Spring is here (even though it may not feel like it where you are) and with it comes the sweet sound of sneakers on hardwood: the NCAA March Madness college basketball tournament.

Every year we have some of the best and brightest from the world of TV news come together in one competition to see who is tops at picking winners and losers.

Ultimately there can be only one winner, and they get the chance to brag about their picking prowess for all to see. 2012′s winner was Fox Business Network stocks editor Liz MacDonald. Liz wont be participating this year, but 2011′s winner Dominic Chu is back to try and reclaim the title.

Here is your 2013 TVNewser March Madness lineup:

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So Nemo, is what we’re calling this? This storm will sound nothing like Ellen DeGeneres as a clownfish (oh wait, she was Dory). Anyway, maybe the Weather Channel can come up with more daunting names next year. Remember Snowpacalyse which hit three years this week? Also Snowmaggedon?

So, what are the networks planning? The Weather Channel had already blown out their reality shows in primetime last night with storm prep coverage. The news and business networks have reporters out in the field.

CNN is planning to be live overnight tonight and into Saturday covering the storm. Chad Myers and Jen Delgado will monitor the storm’s movement from the CNN Weather Center. Reporters and anchors including Jason Carroll, Susan Candiotti, Poppy Harlow, Ali Velshi, Ashleigh Banfield, Zain Asher, Alison Kosik, Mary Snow (appropriately), Gary Tuchman and Brian Todd will be out and about.

Brooke Baldwin anchors overnight coverage from balmy Atlanta. “This is when you know there’s a serious breaking news story,” said Baldwin during 2pmET coverage, “Look at all the pizza boxes at CNN.”

On Fox News, Anna Kooiman and Molly Lyon will report live. The storm has pushed the Saturday morning business block to the afternoon, from 2-4pmET. Kelly Wright and Jamie Colby will continue with live coverage from 10-Noon.

CNN’s latest investigative documentary, “The Coming Storms,” will debut tonight on “CNN Presents” at 8pmET. The show takes a look back at Hurricane Sandy and what lessons can be learned from the superstorm. The special features a variety of CNN’s correspondent, including Jason Carroll, David Mattingly, Ed Lavandera, John Zarrella, Frederik Pleitgen and meteorologist Chad Myers.

Watch a preview here:

The great thing about Twitter: it’s a great way to communicate news as it happens. The bad thing about Twitter, that news may not have really happened. Around 9:30pm @CNNWeather sent a Tweet that the floor of the New York Stock Exchange had flooded. CNN’s Chad Myers told Piers Morgan: “I got that from the National Weather Service chat bulletin board.” Seems legit enough. But it wasn’t:

Earlier in the evening, a Dateline NBC associate producer took to Twitter to report windows at 30 Rockefeller Center, which is home to NBC News and MSNBC, had blown out:

That was retweeted again and again, so much so that CNN reported it as news in a lower third banner during the 10pm hour. There’s no confirmation that any windows at 30 Rock have blown out, and while it may turn out to be true, it seems there should be some more fact checking before going from one Twitter observation to a cable news network report.

> Update: We’ve confirmed one window on the 36th floor of 30 Rockefeller Center blew out.

This was inevitable. On CNN just after 5pm, Ali Velshi was reporting live from Atlantic City when three shirtless geniuses video bombed his liveshot. Meteorologist Chad Myers, after delivering the 5pm NHC update, commented that the trio “should be off the streets and into a house somewhere, that’s certainly not the place to be.” There’s a 6pm curfew for the city, which is about the time Sandy is expected to make landfall just south of where Velshi is reporting.

CNN will be keeping its usual primetime lineup on tonight to cover Sandy, and will be live until the worst of the storm passes, whenever that may be. Anchors Anderson Cooper and Erin Burnett will be reporting in the field tonight across primetime. CNN International will be simulcasting CNN/U.S. from 11AM-2PM and again starting at 4 PM.

The list of correspondents in the field for CNN is after the jump.

Update: HLN is blowing up its primetime lineup to provide hurricane coverage. Those details are also after the jump.
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TV news organizations are gearing up for covering Sandy. There is still lots of uncertainty  but here is what we know so far. We will update this story as we get more information.

Cable:

The Weather Channel not surprisingly, has a slew of coverage planned. “Wake Up With Al” will air this weekend starting at 5:30 AM, and 5 AM starting next week.

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4.2 million people watched daredevil Felix Baumgartner jump from space on Discovery Channel Sunday afternoon according to data from Nielsen, with an astonishing eight million people watching the jump live on YouTube (shattering a record for the site).

All told 12.65 million people watched the jump live at the same time starting around 1:30 Sunday afternoon. For comparison, that is almost twice as many people than any of the MLB playoff games on TBS.

Discovery Channel and sister network Velocity had exclusive live TV rights, though other channels, such as CNN, played video from the jump leading up to and immediately after the jump. “We are not showing live pictures right now for a reason, we will show live pictures when he is on the ground, and walks away,” CNN’s Chad Myers said, somewhat cryptically.

The jump may be a contrived media event, but viewers have shown that they love to watch these stunts. In June, 13 million people watched daredevil Nik Wallenda walk on a wire across Niagara Falls on ABC.

Reynolds Wolf and Jacqui Jeras

Wolf has been with CNN since 2006. and has specialized in reportage from dramatic weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes and floods. He was one of CNN’s most prominent correspondents during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in 2010.

Jeras has been with CNN since 1999, and also dedicated a significant amount of her time covering natural disasters. During Hurricane Katrina Jeras spent 84 hours on the air covering the hurricane and its aftermath.

CNN still has Chad Myers and Rob Marciano in its weather unit, as well as meteorologists at CNN International and CNN en Espanol.

It appears as though Wolf and Jeras are the only cuts in CNN’s weather unit, but we will update if we hear more.