Vanity Fair has an excerpt from the upcoming biography of Roger Ailes by Zev Chafets. The excerpt is primarily about Ailes the man, not Ailes the executive, though that isn’t to say there aren’t some interesting TV angles.

The relationship between Ailes and Rupert Murdoch is one of respect, and money:

Ailes and Rupert Murdoch are very respectful of each other. Ailes credits Murdoch with realizing that there was a niche audience (“half the country,” as Charles Krauthammer, a Fox contributor, drily put it) for a cable news network with a conservative perspective. Murdoch, for his part, assured me that he doesn’t dictate editorial decisions. “I defer to Roger,” he said. “I have ideas that Roger can accept or not. As long as things are going well … ”

FBN is building out a large studio space on the ground floor of 47th street and sixth avenue. At the Fox Sports upfront (more on that later), executives indicated that they may take advantage of the studio space too. Regardless of what shows are being produced, they are ready for anything:
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RealClearPolitics had access to a meeting in Dover, Delaware Wednesday held by Newt Gingrich. During the get-together with members of the Delaware Tea Party, Gingrich, a former Fox News analyst, lambasted the channel.

“I think FOX has been for Romney all the way through,” said Gingrich, adding, “Callista and I both believe CNN is less biased than FOX this year. We are more likely to get neutral coverage out of CNN than we are of FOX, and we’re more likely to get distortion out of FOX. That’s just a fact.”

Gingrich revealed he’s been invited by CNN to one of their tables at an upcoming political correspondents dinner. “The only press events I go to are interesting dinners when the wife insists on it, so we’re going to go to the White House Correspondents’ dinner because she wants to. And we’re actually going to go to CNN’s table, not FOX.”

Fox News terminated its contracts with Gingrich and with Rick Santorum last May when both missed a deadline to inform Fox News if they were entering the GOP race. Both eventually did get in. Just yesterday we reported on Santorum’s future since bowing out, and how it will likely not include a return to Fox News.

Former Senator Rick Santorum ended his Presidential bid Tuesday, and today the speculation game kicks into high gear. The big question: will Santorum return to TV news as a commentator.

Santorum was a paid contributor to Fox News before running for President, but as the New York Times‘ Jeremy Peters notes, he shouldn’t expect a warm invitation to return.

Mr. Santorum, in fact, was terminated about a year ago, a person with knowledge of the parameters of his contract said Tuesday. Under the terms of his three-year deal with Fox, which is actually in the range of five-figures per year and not the higher six-figure amounts that have been widely reported, the former Pennsylvania senator had 60 days after the network suspended him in March 2011 to confirm that he was not running for president. He never confirmed, so his contract was canceled.

Santorum made headlines last month when he said that Fox News was “shilling” for Mitt Romney, and that its daytime news programs were favoring his competitor. Those are the sorts of comments that don’t endear politicians to potential future employers. That said, given Santorum’s high-profile, it is a safe bet that some network will end up hiring him. Which one? Only time will tell.

ABC went dancing with its star today, and she didn’t miss a step.

Katie Couric’s guest-hosting stint on ‘Good Morning America’ came off with nary a hiccup. Despite a six-year absence from the a.m. game, she seamlessly picked up where she left off at “Today,” displaying the goofy humor and warmth that made her a star.

She laughed. She danced. She cracked wise. What’s not to love?

Did we say love? Like a shark at a shipwreck, “GMA” is moving in for the kill against “Today.” With only 137,000 viewers separating them, according to the latest Nielsen ratings, “GMA” is counting on a week of Couric to end her alma mater’s 16-year dominance.

In response to ABC’s massive promotion, “Today” announced last week that Monday’s show would feature a “legend.” (I’m a big Meredith Vieria fan, but she hardly fits the category.) Sarah Palin guest hosts tomorrow; irony abounds. It was Couric, then with CBS, who derailed Palin in ’08 by asking the vice-presidential candidate what newspapers she read.

ABC made sure Couric’s visit was treated by her colleagues like a coronation. Her co-hosts were positively giddy, and every correspondent welcomed her. At 7:21 a.m., she told an adoring George Stephanopoulos that she was “starting to relax.”

Couric did several taped bits about her return to morning TV, beginning with one in which she ran around her apartment in her jammies and drank endless cups of coffee to stay awake for her debut. In another, her driver mistakenly took her to NBC before heading to ABC’s Times Square studio.

The most blatant, self-serving skit revolved around Couric’s love fest with ABC’s hit “DWTS,” now in Week 3. She camped around backstage with host Tom Bergeron. She lusted for mucho-macho

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On “The Tonight Show” last night, Jay Leno asked Mitt Romney for one-word thoughts on some potential VP picks. When Leno got to Rick Santorum, Romney must’ve been thinking about that CBS News video of Santorum’s rope-line confrontation with New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny, as Romney responded: “Press secretary.”

It’s at the end of this clip…

• Dr. Sanjay Gupta will begin recording daily features about medical issues through Cumulus Media Networks. Starting in May, Cumulus will offer four daily features exploring topics relating to health and wellness. Two features are designed for news/talk stations with two features geared to a younger audience on music and entertainment stations.

• Three of the four remaining GOP candidates will be on with Wolf Blitzer this afternoon on “The Situation Room.” Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich will appear for separate interviews. The candidates are campaigning ahead of the next three primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and DC next Tuesday.

• Kyra Phillips talked with producer/correspondent Lowell Bergman about his upcoming “Frontline” documentary on Rupert Murdoch and the phone hacking scandal. Bergman says he’s gotten no response from News Corp. “No one will talk — period. The only communication that we had was, off-the-record I thought, with Geraldo Rivera that he blogged about.”

A rope-line confrontation Sunday between presidential candidate Rick Santorum and New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny is making news today. At one point during the nearly two-minute exchange Santorum called Zeleny’s question “bullshit.” A CBS News camera caught the moment which was played out on “CBS This Morning.” Charlie Rose and Erica Hill then interviewed Zeleny who called Santorum losing his cool “a common tactic for Republican presidential candidates or even Democratic presidential candidates to try and use the media as a foil.”

Meanwhile, Santorum, a former Fox News political analyst, went on “Fox & Friends” this morning and summed it up this way: “If you haven’t cursed out a New York Times reporter during a campaign you’re not a real republican, is the way I look at it.”

Watch, after the jump…

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GOP Presiential candidate Rick Santorum was on “On the Record” last night, and anchor Greta Van Susteren confronted him about comments he made yesterday about Fox News “shilling” for Mitt Romney.

“On behalf of my staff, who have been calling Governor Romney every day trying to get him back on our air ever since out last interview in South Carolina, they want to know if you can help them a little bit because they don’t feel like they are shilling, he won’t even do our show!” Van Susteren said.

Santorum clarified that he was referring to FNC’s news programs, though he declined to name which ones:

“Greta, you have been awesome, and Sean [Hannity] has been awesome. When I was talking Fox News I wasn’t talking your show or Sean’s show. your two shows have been exemplar, and even some of the afternoon shows. I am just looking at the news coverage that goes on at that network, and the amount of time that Governor Romney and some of his surrogates have been getting on the air.”

WATCH (8:45 into the video):

GOP Presidential candidate Rick Santorum–who was on the payroll of Fox News until he decided to run for President, says that the channel is “shilling” for one of his competitors, Mitt Romney. Santorum made his comments on the radio show of FNC host Brian Kilmeade:

“He’s had all the organizational advantage,” Santorum said. “He has Fox News shilling for him every day–no offense Brian, but I see it–and yet, he can’t seal the deal because he just doesn’t have the goods to be able to motivate the Republican base and win this election.”

Kilmeade proceeded to challenge Santorum on his claim:

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Before last week, the name Sandra Fluke had only entered the discussion in a column by TIME humorist Joel Stein, before her testimony on Capitol Hill Thursday, Feb. 23

MSNBC covered the testimony that Thursday morning, including talking to Sandra Fluke. They reported on it throughout the day. The following Tuesday, Megyn Kelly reported the story on Fox News: “It hasn’t seen a lot of media coverage so far,” said Kelly, “but there was a congressional hearing late last week that’s now getting some attention.” The next day, on his radio show it got a lot more attention courtesy of Rush Limbaugh. On his radio show, he called Fluke “a slut” and “a prostitute.”

The following day, on MSNBC’s “Ed Show” Ed Schultz , had the first interview with Fluke reacting to Limbaugh’s comments. (Schultz, you’ll recall, served a suspension for calling Laura Ingraham a slut, twice, on his radio show last May.) On Friday, Fluke was interviewed by Matt Lauer on the “Today” show, and returned to MSNBC, on Andrea Mitchell‘s show. Just before her interview with Mitchell, Fluke had taken a call of support from Pres. Obama.

By then Limbaugh doubled, then tripled down, for the next two days talking about the amount of sex Fluke must be having. By Saturday, he’d apologized. But by then, the Fluke story was factoring into the GOP primary and it certainly would come up on the Sunday morning public affairs shows.

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