You can read more from the upfront at Lost Remote, but we also had to share a clip presented by Conan O’Brien at the upfront. O’Brien joked to the crowd that he pitched TBS on a new morning show “shot entirely from the rear-view camera of a Toyota Sienna.” The result is “Wake Up and Back up.”

“I think CNN should really consider this, ” O’Brien joked at a luncheon following the presentation.

WATCH:

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President Obama and Conan O’Brien spoke during the 10-11 PM hour, and sure enough that is when tune-in was highest. CNN led the way with 1.49 million viewers, including 401,000 adults 25-54. Fox News drew 1.11 million viewers, including 183,000 A25-54, while MSNBC drew 640,000 total viewers, including 176,000 A25-54.

It is important to note that these numbers do not include anyone watching online, nor do they include C-SPAN, which is not rated by Nielsen. We can safely say that at least 3.5 million people watched the speeches live, all told.

From 9-10 PM, when the channels previewed the dinner (and when Ed Henry delivered his speech), the ratings were also strong:

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Obama kicked off his remarks by acknowledging Fox News senior White House correspondent Ed Henry, the White House Correspondents’ Association president. “Ed, you’re doing an outstanding job,” Obama said. “We are grateful for the great work you’ve done.”

In his remarks, Obama poked fun at CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. “I know CNN has taken some knocks lately, but I admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story, just in case one of them happens to be accurate,” he said. “David Axelrod now works for MSNBC, which is a nice change of pace considering MSNBC used to work for David Axelrod.” Obama joked that Fox News said it was “an insult to Satan” when an actor in the History Channel’s series “The Bible” was noticed for his resemblance to the President.

O’Brien also took aim at CNN and Fox News in his speech. “Speaking of dinner, tonight’s entrees were halibut and filet mignon. Or as John King reported it, lasagna and cous-cous,” he said. “If the President laughs, everyone laughs. And if the Fox News table laughs, a little girl just fell off her bike.”

O’Brien also made fun of NBC, saying the network has had a “rough go of it” of late. “The ‘Today’ show let go of Ann Curry. After being told, Ann Curry said, ‘let me get this straight: Al Roker tells the world that he crapped his pants at the White House, and I’m getting fired?’” O’Brien said.

Earlier in the day, Tammy Haddad hosted the 20th Annual Correspondents Garden Brunch. FishbowlDC has the details of the event, which was attended by Greta Van Susteren, Savannah Guthrie, Norah O’Donnell and Chris Matthews, among many others.

After the jump, watch the “House of Cards” spoof that opened the dinner, featuring Henry, Charlie Rose and Major Garrett. continued…

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C-SPAN, which was covering the dinner live before it was cool, will kick off coverage at 6:15 PM Saturday with red carpet coverage, as well as full, unedited coverage of the event. C-SPAN will also have some liveshots from BuzzFeed’s counter-programmed BBQ.

CNN is planning live coverage from 9-11 PM, hosted by Don Lemon, along with Brianna Keilar and Nischelle Turner. The first hour will feature “best of” moments from past dinners, with the second hour featuring the key speeches live. There will also be reports from the red carpet during the 6-7 PM hour.

Fox News will be covering the proceedings as part of “Justice with Judge Jeanine Pirro” from 9-11 PM Saturday. There will be some guests to talk about the festivities, and live coverage of the speeches in the 10 PM hour, TVNewser hears.

MSNBC will also have special coverage from 9-11 PM, with the first hour featuring “best of” highlights, and live coverage in the second hour. Craig Melvin will host.
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• FBN’s Nicole Petallides talks to Celebrity Baby Scoop about juggling work and being a mom, and having to go on-air every 15 minutes during the business day.

• MSNBC’s “NewsNation with Tamron Hall” unveiled new opening music today, and it was composed for the show by pop legend Prince. HuffPost Media has the video.

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Late night talker Conan O’Brien will be the entertainer at this year’s White House Correspondents Association dinner, to be held April 27 in Washington.

“Conan is one of television’s most innovative and influential talents and I am absolutely thrilled that he has agreed to be this year’s featured act,” said WHCA President Ed Henry in a statement.

“As social media has changed all aspects of the media business, Conan has embraced this shifting landscape to become a creative force both online as well as in the traditional television model. We are grateful that Conan also will be using that creativity to bring more attention to the WHCA’s commitment to helping needy journalism students.”

Proceeds from the evening – dubbed the “Nerd Prom” – will help fund more than $100,000 in WHCA scholarships.

As is tradition, the President and First Lady once again will be in attendance, with President Obama set to deliver his own set of jokes.

This also marks a return performance for O’Brien, who headlined the 1995 WCHA dinner.

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FishbowlDC reports that the network will be pruning more political contributors from its lineup, naming Roland Martin and Donna Brazile as likely candidates:

Should the calls come down, Brazile likely wouldn’t be too shell-shocked. She’s already got a sweet gig with ABC. Martin, on the other hand, has his “Washington Watch” program on TV One and is a senior analyst for the Tom Joyner radio show.

Deadline reports that CNN has acquired a new weekend series from Ridley Scott called “Crimes of the Century.” The series will examine major news events using cinematic style:
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When they were both students at Harvard University, O’Brien ran the Harvard Lampoon humor magazine, while Zucker was editor of the Harvard Crimson, the venerable student newspaper. O’Brien organized a prank in which the Lampoon staff stole all the copies of a new edition of the Crimson. Zucker responded by calling the cops on O’Brien.

They would work together in a relatively friendly fashion for years at NBC, as Zucker rose through the ranks as an executive, and O’Brien toiled away on “Late Night.” Then got the best gig in late night, as host of “The Tonight Show.” That all came crashing down in 2010, when Jay Leno was moved out of primetime, returned to late night and O’Brien left NBC — all after just seven months. Zucker maintains that it was the decision of NBC entertainment chief Jeff Gaspin, but it is well known that he had the final say in the decision, which permanently spoiled any goodwill between the two men.

Now, with Zucker taking over CNN, he will once again be in the same corporate family as O’Brien, whose TBS show is one of the channel’s trademark programs.

Coincidentally O’Brien recently debuted an online-only chat show called “Serious Jibber-Jabber with Conan O’Brien.” The series sees O’Brien in extended interviews with notable people, and there is minimal joking around. A source at TBS suggested that CNN might be a good fit for such a show, if O’Brien wanted to migrate it from the Web to TV, maybe late at night on the weekend. CNN already re-airs documentaries from sister network HBO, so it wouldn’t be a huge stretch.

With Zucker taking the helm at CNN, the possibility of any such plan is likely DOA.

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WATCH:

After the jump, Burnett talks about Mitt Romney’s vice.

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Photo Courtesy: The Cable Show

Hardball host Chris Matthews argued that because of the rise of opinion-based news networks, the non-critical aspect of the media is gone, going as far to say that the reporting that verified the U.S. administration’s claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2002 would not happen today because of cable news.

“I would like to think there would be a reckoning we didn’t have then because of modern media,” Matthews said. “Twenty-four/seven is good because it’s not only breadth, it’s depth. Without cable, it is just network [television] thinking, embedded thinking, which is dangerous in a democracy.”

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Apparently unfortunate chyrons are a fairly common occurrence.

WATCH:

In addition, CNN’s Piers Morgan was on the sister network, where he talked to Conan about stealing toilet paper from The Queen, yes seriously.

WATCH:
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A contrite Keith Olbermann took the blame for failing viewers and his staff after the abrupt cancellation of his show and his firing from Current TV last week.

“I screwed up,” Olbermann told David Letterman. “I screwed up really big on this.”

“It’s my fault that it didn’t succeed in the sense that I didn’t think the whole thing through,” said Olbermann. Letterman ticked off the recent reports about Olbermann’s brief time at final days at Current: the car service, the Super Tuesday no show, the money left on the table. (On that last point, Olbermann says he’s hired the lawyer that represented Conan O’Brien during his separation from NBC.)

Olbermann revealed he’d thought about leaving just days into his show going on the air. “I was thinking about that as early as last July,” he said.

Olbermann got emotional talking about the staffers who’d followed him from MSNBC, and other networks, for his job as host and Chief News Officer at Current.

“They put their careers at risk for me and I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye to them or thank them for the work they did with me and I’m… you know, I’m so proud of them because the show editorially was never better but I let them down because it didn’t continue.”

Letterman gave Olbermann a business card with interchangeable networks while Olbermann presented Letterman with a button that read: “Better watch now because things could go wrong in a hurry,” a line Olbermann delivered during a Top 10 list last Fall.

“Where will you go now?” asked Letterman. “Well, I think you guys still have a car for me afterwards. I think I’ll just go home,” Olbermann joked. “I did notice there’s some nice lines out here in front of the theater every afternoon and this would be a good place to set up a shoe shine stand.”

A clip after the jump…

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• Tragic news: IFC has canceled the “Onion News Network” after two seasons. “Funny Fake Foiled By Film Folks,” the headlines read (not really). The Huffington Post has details on the decision.

• CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta was on sister network TBS, where talked to Conan O’Brien. Among the revelations, sometimes laughter is the best medicine. You can view the entire segment here.

• “The Daily Show” has a new online segment called “On Topic” that profiles newsmakers and organizations… such as the cable news channels. Below is the segment on Fox News, after the jump, C-SPAN.

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The latest developments: Olbermann’s lawyer, Hollywood power attorney Patty Glaser (who repped Conan O’Brien during his battle with NBC) is negotiating with Current TV, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Exactly what those negotiations entail is a mystery for now.

The New York Times reports that the issue at hand is one of control. When Olbermann joined Current, he was given equity in the channel, as well as the title of chief news officer. Since then Current added a president in David Bohrman, and Joel Hyatt took over as CEO. In addition, Olbermann’s “Countdown” has suffered from technical snafus, issues beyond the control of him or his staff.

Next week is the New Hampshire primary, and unlike Iowa, Olbermann may be at the center of Current’s coverage:

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