There aren’t many things that can unite News Corp., Turner Broadcasting, NBC, CBS and Disney, but stopping this legislation is sure to be one of them.

In a nutshell, McCain’s legislation would allow cable, satellite and telco companies to unbundle TV channels, either selling them “a la carte” or in smaller bundles (think a “sports” bundle). It would also prohibit media conglomerates from shifting popular programming from free over the air networks to cable channels (think the NCAA basketball championship being shared between CBS, which is free, and Turner Sports, which is on cable).

McCain, speaking on the Senate floor, noted that the cost of cable has gone up 4X more than the purchasing power of U.S. consumers, thanks largely to the ever-increasing bundles which force cable companies to carry “Nat Geo Wild” if they want Fox News, or “Cloo” if they want USA Network.

“It is unfair and wrong, especially when you consider how the regulatory deck is stacked in favor of the industry, and against the consumer,” McCain said.

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With Lieberman leaving the Senate, McCain and Graham have brought in another “amigo” Senator Kelly Ayotte. That prompted Heilemann to make a bad joke, at the expense of Graham:

Heilemann: They need a third amigo at all times. So now they have — now two of the three are women — now at least one of the three are women.

That drew hysterical laughter from Scarborough who had to turn his chair around. Mika Brzezinski took over and brought in Andrea Mitchell as Scarborough and Heilemann composed themselves.

The line was edited out of a re-air at 8amET. You’ll recall it was “Morning Joe” regular Mark Halperin, Heilemann’s co-author on “Game Change” who drew a suspension 17 months ago for his “Morning Joe” comment about Pres. Obama being “kind of a dick.”

Video is after the jump. continued…

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While Paul Ryan‘s name had been near the top of many VP pick lists, the confirmation came a good 9 hours before the official announcement. News networks confirmed the choice late last night with their sources, while @MittRomney confirmed it this morning, sending a Tweet at 7:45am.

That’s quite a contrast from four years ago, when John McCain chose Sarah Palin has his running mate. On the morning of Friday, August 29, 2008, the day after Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech at the DNC, the news networks scrambled to confirm Palin, the relatively unknown Alaska Governor, as the pick.

90 minutes before the announcement, FNC’s Carl Cameron was first with the news, just like he was last night with details of the Romney pick.

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Among the nominations: Outstanding Miniseries or Movie, Julianne Moore for her portrayal of Sarah Palin, Ed Harris for his portrayal of John McCain and Woody Harrelson for his portrayal of Steve Schmidt.

The movie attracted tremendous buzz online, and drew 2.1 million viewers when it debuted, making it the most-watched HBO movie in eight years.

Other TV news-related nominees included soon-to-be CNN host Anthony Bourdain, who received a nomination for “No Reservations,” a handful of nods for “Veep,” a political comedy on HBO, and of course a slew of nominations for “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report.”

You can see all the nominees here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Now, ABC has gone north of the U.S. border to find the latest political progeny who’s turned to television.

ABC News president Ben Sherwood announced the hiring of Ben Mulroney as a contributor to “Good Morning America.” Mulroney, the son of former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, will continue to host CTV’s “etalk,” an entertainment news program in Canada.

“He is a terrific broadcaster, quick on his feet, and excels at live television,” writes Sherwood in a note to the staff. “Ben is a versatile journalist, equally comfortable on the red carpet, covering the Vancouver Winter Games or interviewing Canadian Prime Ministers.”

Mulroney makes his “GMA” bow this weekend.

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“It’s not the greatest name around,” says Lamb, 70, who steps down Sunday as CEO. “Three people know what it stands for. I don’t even know what it stands for. One of our board members asked me. We rarely ever spell it out.”

Drum roll, please.

Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network launched on March 19, 1979, with four employees (including Lamb) and a reach of 3.5 million homes. It now includes three networks, a staff of 280 and a universe of 100 million homes.

Most Americans assume the ‘C’ in C-SPAN stands for Congress, since covering Congress’ proceedings – live, unfiltered, gavel-to-gavel – is its raison d’etre. But in 1979, with cable in its infancy, Lamb felt it more important to brand C-SPAN as a non-broadcast enterprise.

“Otherwise, people wouldn’t have known what it was,” says Lamb, newly-named executive chairman. “At that point, we were only the sixth cable network.”

These days, C-SPAN suffers no such identity crisis, though Lamb does, often being mistaken for Sen. John McCain, Ed Harris or John Glenn. According to C-SPAN’s most recent survey, 75 percent of respondents recognize the non-profit network’s name, Lamb says. Since C-SPAN does not have ratings, however, he has no hard numbers on viewership.

ABC’s Cokie Roberts, who was, in her own words, “very involved in the birth” of C-SPAN, sees the network’s identity issue differently.

“I don’t think people are aware of the brand, but they’re very aware of the product,” Roberts, 68, says. As an NPR reporter in the late ‘70s, she and her colleagues in Congress’ Radio-TV gallery joined Lamb in lobbying the House of Representatives to allow TV cameras on the floor.

Despite C-SPAN’s noble mission, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and ‘Saturday Night Live,’ among others, parody the network’s frequently-static content as a perfect sleep aid.

In real life, C-SPAN fan Ed Rendell, former Democratic National Committee Chairman, swears by the network for his nightly zzzz’s.

“I have a hyperactive mind, so I watch TV in my living room and fall asleep for about 90

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PLAYBOY: You’re a blogger and political columnist, as well as a conservative pundit in the liberal wilds on MSNBC. But aside from being John McCain’s daughter, why should we listen to you?

MCCAIN: Hey, I get it. People love me or hate me and there’s nothing in between. But I’ve been in politics literally my entire life. My mom was pregnant with me at the 1984 Republican convention. I was on my father’s campaign when I was 13. I’ve earned the right to be here and talk about it, and I’m not scared to get down and dirty. If people are mean, so be it.

(Photo: Neilson Barnard/TIME Inc.)

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What “Game Change” is, at its essence, is a wildly-entertaining cautionary tale about presidential politics. Moral of the story: Be careful what you wish for.

“Game Change,” which debuts on HBO Saturday, follows Sen. John McCain‘s disastrous decision to name then-unknown Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his Republican running mate in 2008. It’s based on the best seller of the same title by reporters Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, both of whom served as consultants.

McCain and Palin, among others in their respective camps, have made so much noise about the alleged inaccuracies of “Game Change” (sight unseen) that HBO included a letter in its media kit, defending Danny Strong’s script. For HBO, that is not an everyday occurrence.

This much is beyond dispute – Julianne Moore and Ed Harris give remarkable performances as Palin and McCain.

Moore, a four-time Oscar nominee, perfectly mimics Palin’s speech in its distinctive rhythm, pitch, and scrappin’ of consonants. She doesn’t go too far, however, allowing her to avoid the level of parody by Tina Fey on “Saturday Night Live.” (In a nice touch, Moore is shown watching the “SNL” clips.)

Harris is equally impressive in his McCain incarnation. The actors’ eyes alone speak volumes, particularly in the scene where his Alpha-dog chief strategist, Steve Schmidt (played to the

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John King, along with Arizona State University students playing the parts of Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich, is doing a run-through today ahead of tonight’s GOP debate in Mesa, Arizona. This is the 20th, and likely final primary debate. The first face-off on Fox News last May, also featured four candidates — only one of whom, Ron Paul, is still in the race. The other attendees were Herman Cain, Gary Johnson and Tim Pawlenty.

Tonight’s debate will feature the candidates at a table instead of podiums. Playbook reports CNN last used this set-up for a GOP debate on Jan. 30, 2008, at the Reagan Library. Sitting at the table then were candidates John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Romney and Paul.

The Arizona debate airs on CNN at 8pmET.

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Quite a turnout last night at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, DC, as Bob Schieffer was honored on his 20th anniversary anchoring CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

More than 500 people turned out to honor Schieffer, including the man who’s guested more times than anyone else: “I gotta say one word about the person who has been on ‘Face the Nation’ more than any other person in the history of the broadcast,” said Schieffer. “He’s actually older than me, not by much: John McCain over here.”

CBS News chairman Jeff Fager and president David Rhodes threw the party which was attended by elected officials, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), below, and current and former administration reps, including Donald Rumsfeld, below, as well as Schieffer’s CBS colleagues including Jan Crawford, Chip Reid, Lara Logan, Bill Plante, and Nancy Cordes and from other networks, FNC’s Ed Henry, CNN’s Gloria Borger, NBC’s David Gregory and Betsy Fischer and PBS’s Gwen Ifill, Judy Woodruff, and Jim Lehrer. Also on hand Carin Pratt, who helmed the show for 18 years.

“We just love Carin,” said Schieffer. “I really appreciate your coming back and being with us tonight.”

“Mary Hager … is now the [executive] producer. And Senator McCain remembers Mary Hager when the two of us were chasing up and down the halls of Congress. And Mary has actually worked with me, I guess, more than 20 years. And she started very, very young — she asked me to say that.”

(H/T Playbook / Photos for CBS News: Chris Usher)

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Bin Laden coverage dominated cable TV, accounting for 90 percent of airtime, and his death was the subject of 28 percent of stories for the week, the most since the week of Jan. 19-25, 2009, following the inauguration of Obama.

To illustrate how dominant Bin Laden coverage was, the second-ranked story for the week was the U.S. economy, which finished a whopping 64 percent behind the leader, accounting for just 5 percent of the newshole.

Breaking down the coverage, the actual mission to kill Bin Laden accounted for 36 percent, followed

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During the “Together We Thrive” memorial service, all of which was carried on the cable news channels and some of which was carried on the big four broadcast networks, President Obama delivered his own news about Rep. Gabrielle Giffords who he and Mrs. Obama visited in the hospital earlier today:

“A few minutes after we left her room and some of her colleagues from Congress were in the room, Gabby opened her eyes for the first time. Gabby opened her eyes,” repeated the President to a cheering crowd, “so I can tell you she knows we are here.”

President Obama’s remarks, which ran about 35 minutes with applause, were the culmination of the event at the University of Arizona. Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer spoke, as did Arizona’s former Governor, now DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who read from the book of Isaiah. Two Supreme Court justices, Justice Anthony Kennedy and retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor sat in the front row along with Daniel Hernandez, hailed a hero for tending to Rep. Giffords in the moments after she was shot, and Rep. Giffords’ husband, the astronaut Mark Kelly. Arizona’s two U.S. Senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl, sat just behind them in the second row of dignitaries.

About the political rhetoric, Obama said: “At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized; at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently than we do, it’s important to pause for a moment and make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.”

FOX broadcast coverage with Shepard Smith began at 8:30pmET, NBC’s Brian Williams, live in Tucson, began at 8:38. ABC’s coverage with Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos began at 8:40 and CBS with Katie Couric in Washington, began coverage at 8:41. The networks returned to regular programming when the president concluded around 9:20pmET.

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An insider at another network pointed out to TVNewser — with disbelief — that FNC was the last of the three cable nets to take Palin’s remarks, a few minutes after MSNBC and CNN.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.