The LATimes writes up Pres. Obama’s LGBT fundraiser in Los Angeles last night attended by about 600 supporters including Ellen DeGeneres, Cher and her son Chaz Bono. Another boldface name in the crowd: CBS Corp. CEO and chairman Les Moonves and his wife, “The Talk” co-host Julie Chen, who, in the past, anchored CBS News’s “The Early Show.”

Before the event began, a long line of partygoers waited on the sidewalk outside the hotel to check in. CBS chief Les Moonves and his wife, Julie Chen, waited patiently for their wristbands. Obama, Moonves said, “has shown great leadership” on the issue of gay marriage.

Though he heads a news division, Moonves said, “ultimately journalism has changed … partisanship is very much a part of journalism now.”

He hastened to add that despite his presence, “I run a news division. I’ve given no money to any candidate.”

Wonder how this is going over in the CBS Newsroom. We’ve got a call in to find out.

• Related: FishbowlDC: Did POTUS Really Make a BJ Joke?

CBS held its upfront presentation at Carnegie Hall yesterday, and while most of the show was focused on primetime, there was also high praise about “CBS This Morning” from both CBS CEO Les Moonves and CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler.

“CBS This Morning” Co-anchors Charlie Rose, Gayle King and Erica Hill were all in attendance (see picture right).

In his introductory speech, Moonves said, “At CBS News there is a true renaissance going on under the leadership of [CBS News chairman] Jeff Fager and [CBS news president] David Rhodes, and we are thrilled with the results. The new “CBS This Morning” is the best broadcast we have ever had in the morning.”

Tassler, in giving an overview of current programming, said “It is a distinctive broadcast that is getting our day off to its best start in decades.”

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As the TV networks, and increasingly online video networks, prepare to pitch their new shows to advertisers at the annual upfronts, CNBC is looking at the future of the industry. Monday night, CNBC’s Media and Entertainment reporter Julia Boorstin takes viewers inside the companies competing to shape the new connected-TV reality. MTV founder Tom Freston, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, CBS CEO Les Moonves, Disney CEO Robert Iger, even actor Ashton Kutcher all weigh in on the future of television.

“Stay Tuned…The Future of TV,” premieres Monday at 9pmET/PT on CNBC.

The parties are underway in Washington D.C. ahead of the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Last night at the St. Regis, TIME and People threw a cocktail party with drop-ins from a bunch of boldface tvnewsers all enjoying custom flavored custards by Shake Shack.

TIME‘s Managing Editor Rick Stengel (below with Savannah Guthrie) along with and DC bureau chief Michael Duffy, People‘s Managing Editor Larry Hackett, and DC correspondent Sandra Sobieraj Westfall hosted the party.

Spotted at the party: Gayle King (below with Andrea Mitchell), Chris Matthews, Julie Chen and hubby CBS CEO Les Moonves (right with Wolf Blitzer), Greta Van Susteren, Wolf Blitzer, , Thomas Roberts, Kelly O’Donnell, Ed Henry, Willie Geist, Dana Bash, Erica Hill, Chris Wallace, Tamron Hall, Norah O’Donnell, Alex Wagner, Donna Brazile; ABC News president Ben Sherwood, NBC News president Steve Capus, “Meet the Press” EP Betsy Fischer and “Face the Nation” EP Mary Hager also CNN execs Mark Whitaker and Sam Feist.

(Photos: Getty Images)

On Wednesday, CBS News celebrated the one year anniversary of its new leadership under chairman Jeff Fager and president David Rhodes. CBS brought in a giant cake and plenty of champagne for staff to enjoy, with satellite offices calling into the newsroom to hear the speeches.

“CBS Evening News” anchor Scott Pelley toasted Fager and Rhodes, and other attendees included the “CBS This Morning” team of Charlie Rose, Gayle King, Erica Hill and CBS CEO Les Moonves also stopped by, according to an attendee.

(L-R) Charlie Rose, Chris Licht, Jeff Fager, Scott Pelley and David Rhodes

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In celebration of its 80th anniversary, Broadcasting & Cable magazine asked a number of high-profile TV executives and personalities to weigh in on the business. In addition CBS CEO Les Moonves, NFL commentator Al Michaels, Discovery Channel founder John Hendricks and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, the magazine asked former ABC anchor and current “Rock Center” contributor Ted Koppel to weigh in on the state of TV news, and former Vice President and current Current TV chairman Al Gore to weigh in on independent media (subscription required).

Koppel has often spoken about his distaste with the current state of media, and his essay focused on the impact of social media, and the polarization of news. As he has done in the past, he called out Fox News and MSNBC for harming the public discourse:

Thirty or forty years ago, I used to tell audiences, with a mixture of pride and chagrin, that while doctors and lawyers needed a license to practice, that while everyone needed a license to drive, or hunt, or fish; nobody needed a license to be a journalist. Of course, back then, the only way to communicate with a national audience was to get a job with a national news magazine, like Time or Newsweek, or with a national broadcasting network, of which there were only three. So, the opportunity was more theoretical than real. Still, with the advent of the Internet, I used to tell college students that the capacity to communicate globally was now, literally, in their hands.

I never actually expected them to do it.

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Yesterday CBS CEO Les Moonves was interviewed as part of the HRTS “Newsmaker” series. Among many other topics, Moonves discussed his network’s new morning show, and the state of broadcast news as a whole. He also briefly addressed the long-rumored on again off again partnership with CNN.

With regards to the revamped “Early Show,” Moonves was bullish on the new concept:

“To do a poor imitation of the Today Show or GMA is not the way to go,” Moonves said. “It’s going to be a different kind of show.”

Given the unusual pairing of Charlie Rose, Gayle King and Erica Hill, and the statements made by CBS News executives, it certainly sounds like it will be different.

Moonves was also bullish on broadcast news as a whole, though he acknowledged that it would never bring in the money that the entertainment side of the business does:

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“One night a week is plenty for us right now,” “Rock Center” EP Rome Hartman tells THR‘s Marisa Guthrie. “We neither want to be considered filler nor do we have any plans for world domination.”

With the launch of “Rock Center” a little more than two weeks away, it occurred to us that this will be the first launch of a new broadcast network newsmagazine in nearly a decade, when FOX launched “The Pulse” anchored by Shepard Smith in 2002. “The Pulse” ran that Summer and returned briefly in the Winter of 2003.

Spinoffs of established shows have been the norm for the last 20 years on network television. Mostly, newsmagazines have been filler for networks when more expensive scripted shows fail.

The granddaddy of them all, CBS’s “60 Minutes,” debuted in 1968. Its spinoff, “60 Minutes II” debuted in 1999. In 2004, the show’s name was changed to “60 Minutes Monday (and later Wednesday).” That name lasted until the following summer, but by then the show was on the chopping block because of “RatherGate.” At the time CBS Chairman Les Moonves said the cancellation, “was a ratings call and not a content call.” “60 Minutes II” had its last broadcast in September 2005.

ABC’s “20/20″ debuted in 1978. A second ABC Newsmagazine, “Primetime LIVE” with Sam Donaldson and Diane Sawyer, left, launched in 1989. In the late 1990s ABC put the shows together, using the “20/20″ branding. There was a “20/20 Monday,” “20/20 Wednesday,” “20/20 Thursday,” and the original “20/20″ on Friday. That lasted until 2000, when ABC relaunched “Primetime.” But even today, the brands are muddled. “Primetime” runs occasionally with Diane Sawyer interviews or true crime hours, while “20/20″ airs on Fridays and reports news of the day, newsmaker interviews as well as crime stories which are ratings grabbers.

NBC got into the newsmagazine business in 1992 with the launch of “Dateline NBC” anchored by Jane Pauley and Stone Phillips. For years, it has been used to plug holes in NBC’s primetime. NBC News had another brief run in primetime with “Now” which was anchored by Katie Couric and Tom Brokaw. The show would last a year in 1993-94 and would later be folded into “Dateline.” As you can see by the show’s open, right, it also used the iconic symbol of Rockefeller Center, the Prometheus statue.

Former MSNBC host and soon-to-be Current TV host Keith Olbermann is back in the spotlight, with a cover story in this week’s Hollywood Reporter, along with a feature in Rolling Stone.

For the first time, Olbermnann talks about leaving MSNBC, while also promoting his new show on Current. Olbermann also announced that another former MSNBCer, David Shuster, will be serving as the primary fill-in anchor for “Countdown” on Current.

Olbermann tells the Reporter that he has not spoken to Rachel Maddow since he left MSNBC, and that when he began his last show in January, he was not even certain it would be his last:

In fact, when Olbermann went on air at 8 p.m. EST on January 21, neither he nor his staff knew this was his final broadcast. Olbermann had prepared two endings for the show; one with two readings from James Thurber, and another with a Thurber reading and his farewell to viewers. “As far as anybody knew,” says Olbermann. “I was doing the two Thurber stories.” Meanwhile, huddled off camera at Countdown’s Studio 1A Up, above the Today show’s Studio 1A, were Olbermann’s representatives (two ICM agents and Michael Price, Olbermann’s manager) and MSNBC president Phil Griffin and an NBC lawyer. At the 8:30 p.m. break, the parties agreed to release Olbermann out of his contract and he told his staff for the first time.

Olbermann also talks about his payday (THR cites a source that says it is $10 mil a year, in addition to the money MSNBC still owes him, as well as equity in Current) and a meeting he had with CBS CEO Les Moonves. He  also says that contributors like Michael Moore and Markos Moulitsas will be compensated in “untraditional ways.”

In the Rolling Stone interview, Olbermann pulls out a note Tom Brokaw sent to him, a note he received a few months before the former “NBC Nightly News” anchor criticized him:

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CBS held its upfront presentation at Carnegie Hall this afternoon, and chairman Jeff Fager took the stage to explain his vision for the division.

“We have a new energy and a new direction” Fager said. “[CBS CEO Les Moonves]would like the rest of CBS News to be more like “60 Minutes,” where we took a great old institution, and brought it up to date.”

Fager then introduced Scott Pelley, who promoted his debut on the “CBS Evening News” starting June 6. Pelley’s appearance was followed by a sizzle reel, which began with a voiceoever announcer saying:

“What if you could watch a program that had the integrity, reporting and insight of “60 Minutes” every weeknight? Well now you can.”

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