In the increasingly competitive ratings battle between NBC’s “Today,” the perennial leader of the morning shows, and ABC’s “Good Morning America,” which is continually relegated to second place, every little bit counts.

During the week of December 26, ABC re-titled four editions of “Good Morning America” so the ratings — traditionally low during the week between Christmas and New Year’s — would not count toward the weekly and seasonal averages. (Due to the Christmas holiday on December 26, all three morning shows were coded as specials and did not count toward the averages.)

Nielsen allows shows to be re-titled as long as the newly created title is used at least four times during the course of a season. An ABC spokesperson declined to comment on the name change, but noted that the holiday week is usually a low-rated one for all the morning shows.

While re-naming shows is occasionally done to exclude a single broadcast, a holiday, for example, excluding an entire week from the average is uncommon. An NBC spokesperson calls it “unprecedented.”

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David Bauder of the Associated Press writes today about what the year has in store for the broadcast networks’ morning shows. With the launch of “CBS This Morning,” and uncertainty over Matt Lauer‘s future at NBC, 2012 “looks to be pivotal,” Bauder writes. “This Morning” executive producer Chris Licht weighs in on how CBS can capitalize on the changing morning landscape:

“Right now viewers basically have two choices,” Licht said. “They have the ‘Today’ show and they have the ‘Today’ show (imitator) with probably a little bit more broad appeal stuff. Those two shows are very similar but are both good at what they do. We need to try to find a third thing. Maybe viewers don’t know if they like it or not because it doesn’t exist right now.”

The network won’t be forcing spinach on its viewers, figuratively speaking. But it won’t promote a “cult of personality” either, Licht said. Read more

David Bauder of the AP has a story this weekend wrapping up the Casey Anthony trial and Nancy Grace‘s place in it — or at least covering it.

While you may know most of the details of Bauder’s story, there is this quote from Steve Brill, the founder of Court TV.

“I feel like I owe the nation community service for having hired her and put her on television,” says Brill. “She’s a monster.” At Court TV, anchors and commentators were instructed to explain the legal process to viewers but not opine on guilt or innocence, he said.

When Joy Behar‘s new HLN talk show premieres three weeks from tonight, it joins an evening lineup the AP’s David Bauder calls “estrogen-heavy.”

With lead-in programs hosted by Nancy Grace and Jane Velez-Mitchell, Bauder writes the show will air “to an audience that is nearly two-thirds women…

“It’s not like men are unwelcome, but when a rerun of Lou Dobbs‘ CNN show fell flat in Behar’s soon-to-be time slot, HLN yanked him this summer for Velez-Mitchell.”

Conway Cliff, the former EP of Velez-Mitchell’s program, is now overseeing Behar’s show. He says the predominance of female hosts is “sort of a happy coincidence…It happened organically.”

It’s all part of HLN’s overall programming evolution from a “wheel of half-hour newscasts”, as Bauder says, to its current hybrid of personality-driven shows followed by daytime headlines and evening opinion programs. “It was a big risk,” EVP of CNN Worldwide Ken Jautz tells Bauder. “It paid off, and it probably paid off better than I expected.”

David Bauder of The Associated Press talks to a member of each network news organization about President Obama’s first 100 days and recent polls which look at how the current administration has been covered:

ABC World News EP Jon Banner: “My eyes are always open to everything, including studies like these. I do not program the news by studies or by anything else, for that matter. I program it by the news of the day and what our journalistic guts tell us.”

CBS Evening News EP Rick Kaplan: “Everybody, including Republicans, would have to say that his first 100 days have been great…Across his four years, or eight years, whatever it is, there will be plenty for people on all sides to not like or love. It will balance itself out inevitably.”

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams: “It was historic. It has changed, fundamentally and forever, the poster of the presidents in front of the classroom. That accounts for the quantity of coverage, and we’re judged on the quality of the coverage every day, as it should be.”

When Sean Hannity told Charles Grodin he would get waterboarded for charity last week, he probably didn’t think it would still be making news.

But then MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann offered $1,000 for each second Hannity lasted. The money would go to charity. But Hannity hasn’t responded.

The AP’s David Bauder talks to Olbermann about the challenge. “I don’t think he has the courage to even respond to this — let alone do it,” Olbermann said. “The idea of putting somebody in a position they have volunteered for, for charity, to respond to their own unsupportable claims, is in many ways priceless.”

Olbermann “concedes TV competition plays a part in his offer,” writes Bauder — last night Olbermann described the date as “the sixth day since Sean Hannity volunteered to be waterboarded for a military families charity.”

“If you expose people to reality, even with someone who is denying reality, that can have a powerful and important impact,” Olbermann told Bauder.

Will Hannity respond?

CNBC’s response to Jon Stewart‘s Daily Show rant about the network after Rick Santelli‘s cancellation? Nothing yet.

The Associated Press’ David Bauder writes about the back story, and CNBC spokesman Brian Steel‘s response. “CNBC’s Steel said neither the network’s executives nor Santelli would comment on Stewart’s broadcast,” writes Bauder.

• Related: Gawker has the video of Stewart on the Late Show with David Letterman last night rehashing his beef with CNBC (and all of business news).

The AP’s David Bauder follows up on Pres. Obama’s sit downs with the network anchors. “Gibson was first, followed by Williams, Couric, Cooper and Wallace. “It did have a ‘picture taking with Santa’ kind of feel to it,” NBC’s Brian Williams tells Bauder.

“The timing, one of the worst days of Obama’s young presidency, was awful for him,” Bauder writes.

“They may have regretted having us all down there,” said Jon
Banner, executive producer of ABC’s “World News,” who accompanied Charlie Gibson. “That was not evident from my interaction with the president or any of his staff.”

Last week’s evening news ratings saw big numbers for all three broadcasts. What’s the reason?

“Tough economic news and the arrival of the Obama administration have helped bring more viewers to the broadcast evening news shows, a TV staple that’s been written off many times in the past,” writes The Associated Press’ David Bauder.

When we explored the reason for the continued success of the evening newscasts post-election, Andrew Tyndall, publisher of the Tyndall Report, raised two other possibilities. “A lot of times people are commuting while they are on,” he said. “Mass layoffs will be very good for them.”

And, in less of a downer: “It was really cold last week and people stayed home.”

Abrams Research, the media strategy firm founded by Dan Abrams in November, has put out its first report, and it relates to the economic crisis.

The firm “surveyed 100 top members of the business and financial media,” including the CNBC, CNN and the Wall Street Journal, to see their thoughts on how we got in, and when we’ll get out, of the situation.

The survey found 68% of those surveyed said “the media dropped the ball” in the lead-up to the crisis. “That’s a very telling and interesting number,” Abrams tells the Associate Press’ David Bauder. “Some of the comments we got were really fascinating. I think there’s a lot of self-examination going on within the financial media about what happened and why.”

Click continued to ses a summary of all the results…

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