• The New York Post‘s Page Six is at it again with another speculative piece about CNN. This time the paper speculates that incoming president Jeff Zucker may try to poach Ann Curry from NBC and give her a primetime show.

• Erin Burnett is traveling with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and will interview him for her program tonight. Tomorrow “OutFront” originates from Kabul, Afghanistan.

• In a meeting of the TV medical minds, CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta will be a guest on “The Dr. Oz Show” Monday. Gupta will talk to Mehmet Oz about his CNN and medical career, and the upcoming drama “Monday Mornings” which he is producing with David E. Kelley.

Tonight at 10pmET/9pmCT, ABC News will debut its latest long-form documentary series, “NY Med.” Like previous efforts “Boston Med” and “Hopkins,” the new series is from producer Terry Wrong, and follows life at a busy hospital in a big city. This time the city is New York, and the hospital is New York Presbyterian.

The first episode follows the format that made the others such compelling TV, weaving together stories of doctors, residents, nurses and patients. Some staffers appear in multiple episodes, others appear only once.

One doctor that is sure to draw attention to the series is Dr. Mehmet Oz, who also hosts a successful daytime talk show, when he isn’t in surgery. In the debut episode, Oz operates on a patient named Jack Abramson (pictured), a man with no friends or family at his side when he first comes in. Wrong says that it was never his intention to follow Oz.

“One of the ironies here is that I went up there and I didn’t want to do the easy thing, and follow Oz. I kind of fell into it, because my videographer in cardiac asked ‘can’t I follow him for a little bit?’” Wrong said at a screening of the program. “The first thing she shot was that Jack Abramson case. I just started watching the tape, and you don’t really need two producer brain cells to know that this is great TV.”

While New York is a city that would seem to be ripe for this sort of program, Wrong said that it was actually a real challenge.

Read more

ABC News has officially announced the latest documentary series from producer Terry Wrong, “NY Med.” We first reported the series was in the works in January of last year. Like the last two of Wrong’s series–”Boston Med” in 2010 and “Hopkins” in 2008–”NY Med” will be set in a hospital, this time New York-Presbyterian.

“NY Med” will premiere Tuesday, July 10 at 10 PM, and will follow the surgeons and staff of New York-Presbyterian as they do what they do best. Among the surgeons that the crew follows is Dr. Mehmet Oz, who also hosts a syndicated talk show in addition to his day job as New York-Presbyterian’s chief cardiac surgeon.

“Medicine is a universal subject. At some point in our lives we or those we love will become patients for one reason or another,” said Wrong in a statement. “This series takes you behind the curtain to learn about those we depend on to fix us and how sometimes they just can’t.”

“Terry Wrong and his team have brilliantly captured the incredible drama of life and death inside one of the world’s great hospitals,” said ABC News president Ben Sherwood in a statement. “Real and riveting, ‘NY Med’ is sure to enlighten, engage and inspire viewers this summer.”

More information on the eight-part series, after the jump.

Read more

Last night was night three of “Jeopardy!” “Power Players” week, which features powerful Washington political types, celebrities and TV news personalities playing on the show for their favorite charities. The contestants last night were syndicated talk show host and cardiac surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz, “Fox News Sunday” moderator Chris Wallace and “BBC World News America” anchor Katty Kay.

As in the last few games, the “Jeopardy!” writers threw in some categories based on who was playing, including “Fair and Balanced” (which was about things that were either balanced, or fair, not a certain cable news channel), “You Call Yourself a Doctor?” (about, well, doctors), and “The British Are Coming!” (about battles and skirmishes between the U.S. and Great Britain in the early days of the nation).

Despite a slow start, this game was all Wallace. He dominated Double Jeopardy!, and went into Final Jeopardy! with no chance of being caught. Even as all three got Final right, Wallace ended up with far more than both Kay and Oz combined, winning his charity $50,000.

Our sister blog FishbowlNY was at the “Time 100″ gala last night, and caught up with a few of the honorees and guests on the red carpet. Among them was NBC “Today” anchor Savannah Guthrie, who talked about her colleague Matt Lauer:

Also in attendance, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who shared some advice he received from “ABC World News” anchor Diane Sawyer:

Read more

Anchors, correspondents and contributors for TV news organizations make up most of the contestants for “Jeopardy!” “Power Players Week.” CNN, NBC News, Fox News and the BBC are all represented, with the contestants all playing for their favorite charities.

The players are:

From CNN: Anchor Anderson Cooper and correspondent Lizzie O’Leary.

From NBC News/MSNBC/CNBC: CNBC anchor David Faber, MSNBC host Chris Matthews, correspondent Kelly O’Donnell and anchor and correspondent Chuck Todd.

From Fox News: anchor Chris Wallace and contributor Dana Perino.

From the BBC: Katty Kay.

Other players are: Read more

CNBC host Suze Orman is expanding her reach to another cable network. Orman will host a new primetime series “Money Class” (working title) on the just-launched OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network.

“Money Class” will launch on OWN in Fall, 2011, and follows Orman as she goes into the lives of families, couples and individuals, and helps them set goals and make solid financial decisions.

Orman has long been an “Oprah” regular, and currently appears on the specials “Ask Oprah’s All Stars” with Dr. Phil McGraw and Dr. Mehmet Oz.

More information, after the jump.

Read more

“I’m grateful all the docs showed up, it’s amazing, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, they’re all here. So if something happens, you’re going to be very well taken care of, and the whole world is going to know about it.”

Last night, CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta threw a party in midtown Manhattan for the release of his new book, “Cheating Death.”

Pictured above, you can see Fox News’ Dr. Manny Alvarez, NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman, Dr. Mehmet Oz of “Oprah” fame, ABC News’ Dr. Richard Besser, and Deepak Chopra.

The CNNers were out in full-force, with morning show hosts John Roberts, Kiran Chetry, and HLN’s Robin Meade, who was in town from Atlanta, among the guests. Larry King also stopped in, as did Soledad O’Brien and T.J. Holmes.

CNN/US President Jon Klein told the crowd that the turnout was attributable to Gupta’s reputation as both a good reporter and a good colleague. Klein said Gupta, who travels the world for CNN and still practices medicine every week, had taken the time recently to help him find a surgeon for his father.

Gupta’s “Cheating Death” recently made the WSJ list of best health books of 2009 (along with ABC News contributor Marie Savard’s “Ask Dr. Marie”), and Gupta said he was inspired by the larger role he thinks medical reporting can play.

“There are instances where I think media can help lead medicine,” he told the crowd. “But when we talk about reporting on things around the world, we typically think of that as news. In certain instances it can it can actually lead the charge.”

TVNewser caught up with Gupta at the party to ask him about his new book, the politicization of medical reporting, and his decision to pass up the surgeon general job. We also used to opportunity to solicit some free medical advice.

The NYPost has chosen truTV anchor Ashleigh Banfield as part of its “Five faces with something to look forward to” list.

Ashleigh Banfield was supposed to be the new (bespectacled) face of NBC way back in 2000 when – pretty much overnight – she went from afternoon anchor on MSNBC to the hottest pistol in TV news.

But it all fell apart as quickly as it had come together for her. There were reports she was difficult to work with and sulky.

She wandered in the desert (like Luke Skywalker) for a few years, married, had a couple of kids.

This year, the former MSNBC anchor is back on cable – where she started. Banfield kept the glasses and found new confidence. She joined TruTV (the old Court TV) as the only anchor without a law background – reinventing herself as a legal eagle.

Banfield is the only tvnewser on the list. Others include “Oprah’s health nut”, Dr. Mehmet Oz and new American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi.

> Dr. Mehmet Oz was surprised this morning on Good Morning America by a man he helped after a traffic crash in Virginia Beach last week. “I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart,” said Stanley Tatum to Oz by phone. “You don’t just talk the talk, but you walk the walk.”

> As he mentioned on today’s Media Menu, FishbowlDC’s Patrick Gavin reports on “what some TV types are talking about today“: Gwen Ifill‘s rare appearance on ABC’s This Week yesterday. The regular Meet the Press guest had expressed interest, and was reported to be considered, for the moderator job.

> At the end of today’s Rush & Molloy-refereed brawl between Judith Regan and Michael Wolff, FNC CEO Roger Ailes makes a guest appearance. Wolff says Ailes called “a date” with Regan “the scariest three hours of my life,” Regan responds by saying “we went out to dinner to talk business,” and Ailes concurs: “Judith’s version is correct. It was a business dinner.”