The New York Times’ Brian Stelter writes about the way cablers have been branding the financial crisis.

“The news always feels the need to name everything,” says SVP for business news at CNBC, Jonathan Wald. “If it’s not branded, it doesn’t exist in modern television.”

On CNBC, Stelter writes: “Eventually it became a ‘Wall Street crisis,’ and before long it was a ‘Wall Street/Main Street crisis.’ In the last week, ‘Great Recession’ has become a popular phrase.”

“Sometimes there are no easy names for things that are this big and important,” says Wald.

• Earlier: TVWeek’s Michele Greppi writes: “Terminology Takes on Political Slant”

TVNewser attended one of the few holiday parties still on the calendar. Producers, anchors and executives from CBS News and CBS Radio, and those of us who cover them, packed the 35th floor of CBS’s Black Rock headquarters last night.

We talked with The Early Show’s Julie Chen as she arrived, before telling us, “Okay, I’ve gotta go say hi to my husband.” Her husband, CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves was a few feet away chatting with CBS PR honcho Gil Schwartz.

The rest of The Early Show team was in attendance too — Maggie Rodriguez, Harry Smith and Dave Price and Saturday anchors Erica Hill and Chris Wragge. Hill told us she is excited about her new CBS gig, while still contributing to CNN’s AC360. Wragge’s WCBS anchors were also there — Kristine Johnson, formerly an MSNBC anchor and weather guy Lonnie Quinn.

Katie Couric arrived after the Evening News. “How are things in TVNewser-land?” she asked us. “Great,” we said. We congratulated her on her ratings last week. “Oh, I don’t pay attention to those things,” she said motioning to CBS News president Sean McManus and Moonves who were a few feet away. Couric said, “As long as they’re telling us we’re doing okay.”

We chatted up CBS News correspondent Kelly Wallace, whose husband Matt Saal works across the street, almost literally, on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show.

Charles Osgood, Morley Safer, Steve Kroft, and Troy Roberts, worked the crowd. And 48 Hours EP Susan Zirinsky told us, despite the media gloom and doom, she’s actually hiring for upcoming prime time projects.

And along with the holiday cheer, there was a lot of layoff talk, including someone who covers the industry…

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Fox Business Network has signed a new distribution deal with Cox Cable in several new markets, which raises FBN’s reach to close to 45 million homes, reports TV Week’s Michele Greppi.

The new markets include San Diego, Phoenix, Las Vegas, New Orleans and Omaha, Nebraska (home to The Oracle of Omaha — investor Warren Buffett).

The deal, expected to be announced later this afternoon, takes effect January 1.

TV Week’s Michele Greppi writes in this week’s “The Insider” about a tvnewser noticeably absent in Andy Rooney‘s essay last Sunday on 60 Minutes.

When Rooney gave his list of people who made TV news “good and reliable,” Rooney lists Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings. Not listed — Rooney’s former colleague, Dan Rather.

Writes Greppi:

The Insider wishes she could report whether that omission was merely underscoring what CBS News insiders say is Mr. Rooney’s longstanding distaste for Mr. Rather, or whether the omission was a judicious move, given that Mr. Rather is putting CBS News through the legal wringer. But her request for a conversation with Mr. Rooney was met with an official statement that “Andy Rooney’s essay last night speaks for itself.”

Fox News Channel was the top rated cable channel on all of television last week in prime time (Live+SD), averaging 3,114,000 Total Viewers. This is the seventh week in a row FNC finished in the top two and the 10th week in a row the network finished in the top three.

MSNBC ranked 5th in prime time (2,110,000) and CNN ranked 6th in prime time (1,774,000). Headline News finished 29th (653,000).

In total day, FNC was 3rd (1,490,000), CNN 8th (992,000) and MSNBC 10th (872,000).

Click here to see the full ranker.

• Related: TV Week’s Michele Greppi details the ratings leading up to Election Day.

Shepard Smith will anchor election night coverage on the FOX broadcast network on Tuesday, just as he did four years ago. But TV Week’s Michele Greppi reports it “will be quite different from the other Election Night programs being produced simultaneously from Fox News headquarters.”

Smith tells Greppi he hopes to include reports from KSAZ-TV (Phoenix) and WFLD-TV (Chicago), among other markets, in addition to the use of some FNC correspondents. But there will also be another noted difference.

“Just to get the chattering classes out of the mix will be so refreshing — this tedious back-and-forth at each other, with us admittedly as facilitators, about things that people don’t care one bit about,” says Smith. He says there are economy experts, banking experts and lawyers booked for the night.

Meanwhile Fox News’ coverage will be led by Brit Hume (more details on that to come). Click continued to see Hume’s choice for who should replace him on “Special Report,” and more…

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TVWeek’s Michele Greppi breaks the news that NBC and its affiliates board have agreed to shut down the four-year old Weather Plus digital weather channel.

Greppi writes, “NBC News President Steve Capus informed the on- and off-air Weather Plus staff headquartered at CNBC facilities in Englewood, N.J., Tuesday morning that the operation would be phased out in stages through the end of the year.” Ten NBC O&Os and 80 affiliates currently use Weather Plus.

In July, NBCU, along with two private equity firms, announced they were buying The Weather Channel for $3.5 billion. The deal closed Sept. 12, as Hurricane Ike was about to strike Texas. Even before the storm, Weather Channel meteorologists had begun appearing on NBC News programs.

As for the Weather Plus staff, Capus says, “We’re going to look at everybody and make a determination about what we’re going to do,” adding, “There are some real superstars behind the scenes whom we’ll work to move into other jobs. That’s going to be difficult, given the general climate right now, but we’ll do the best we can.”