Sure, it doesn’t really matter who “won” the Iowa Caucus last night (caucus votes are nonbinding, with delegates chosen at a later date based on the proportion of votes received) but that didn’t stop the cable news channel from running late with coverage, and from CNN anchor Anderson Cooper gently mocking his own network’s coverage. As we mentioned earlier, CNN turned into “CNN After Dark” late last night, but before then the channel had to unveil some new technology, in this case little virtual reality people that Cooper referred to as “Weebles,” in reference to the popular kids toys:

“By the way, if you miss any of this you can see it later on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” when he ruthlessly mocks you,” Cooper said to Wolf Blitzer.

Join The New York Times reporter Brian Stelter (left) at our Social Media 101 online conference and workshop starting January 19. He’ll show you the basics of social media for work and play. Other expert speakers include Lauren Dugan (AllTwitter), Erica Swallow (Mashable), and Jessica Bennett (Newsweek and The Daily Beast). Register by January 5 to get the early bird rate.

The final ratings are in from New Year’s Eve on Saturday, and as usual ABC dominated the night.

“Dick Clark‘s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest” drew 9.8 million viewers, compared to 3 million for NBC’s “New Year’s Eve with Carson Daly.”

On Cable news, CNN and Fox News were close, though CNN had the edge in the key news demo of adults 25-54, and was also number one at midnight, when the ball dropped in Times Square.

The numbers:

10-11PM

FNC: 712,000 viewers, including 165,000 adults 25-54.

CNN: 695,000 viewers, including 228,000 adults 25-54.

MSNBC: 460,000 viewers, including 298,000 adults 25-54.

11PM-12AM

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The only thing closer than last night’s vote, ending at 2:33pmET, is no finish at all (2000 anyone?) With just 8 votes, Mitt Romney took first place in the Iowa Caucuses over Rick Santorum. The candidates are making the news rounds this morning after what was a late night for all and an early start for some, including CNN’s 3-day old “Early Start.”

At 3amET, CNN’s studio of stars was still going. “We are still on the air, long after we thought we wouldn’t be,” said Anderson Cooper, calling it “the special CNN after dark edition.” On Fox News, Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly stayed on until 3amET, with Baier signing off: “My flight back to Washington is in 6 hours.” On MSNBC Chris Hayes began anchoring coverage at 1amET and continued until 3amET.

Signing off at 2:39amET, FBN’s Neil Cavuto couldn’t help tweak his competitors on CNBC. “A certain rival network was and is in taped programming much of the night,” said Cavuto. “A historic battle in the republican party just got started and the so-called financial network of record is in reruns. We aren’t stopping, we are here around the clock.”

The earlier of CNN’s two new morning shows, “Early  Start with Ashleigh Banfield and Zoraida Sambolin” went on an hour early at 4amET after Cooper and company turned in. “I’m kind of looking for Serve Pro,” joked Banfield, looking around the Atlanta studio. “The election center just cleared out.”

The news networks continue to pair up with the data-rich online media companies, including Facebook and Google. Sunday, Facebook and NBC team up for a GOP debate in New Hampshire. And tonight, Fox News Channel — which teamed with Google for a GOP debate in September — will have John Roberts stationed at the Google Data Center at the Iowa Events Center with real-time voting data. Roberts gave a preview earlier on FNC, with former CBS Newser, now Googler, Daniel Sieberg.

Former “Early Show” news anchor Jeff Glor has added a new role to his portfolio at CBS News. Glor will become the regular anchor of the Sunday edition of the “CBS Evening News.” The anchor role is in addition to his job as a special correspondent for “CBS This Morning,” which launches on Monday.

Glor is taking over–in part at least–for Russ Mitchell, who announced that he was leaving CBS to join an NBC affiliate in Cleveland. Mitchell anchored the “Evening News” on Saturday and Sunday. CBS has not named an anchor for the Saturday edition of the nightly news program.

Glor first joined CBS News in 2007 as a national correspondent for “The Early Show.” More information after the jump.

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Current TV sent out a reminder email this afternoon about their Iowa coverage tonight., which, as Brian Stelter first reported last week, does not include their all-star anchor Keith Olbermann:

Tonight, Tuesday, January 3rd at 7pm EST, Politically Direct 2012: 2012 Iowa Caucus will air live on Current TV and include four hours of live coverage of the caucuses featuring commentary and analysis from former Vice President and Current TV co-founder Al Gore, “The Young Turks with Cenk Uygur” host Cenk Uygur, and former Michigan Governor and host of the upcoming week-nightly program “The War Room with Jennifer Granholm,” (premiering in January) Jennifer Granholm.

But that doesn’t mean Olbermann is off the clock, as he told a viewer on Twitter this afternoon:

Question unanswered. So will Olbermann appear as part of coverage? Guess will just have to watch and see.

25-54 demographic (Live +SD)

• Total day: FNC: 237 | MSNBC: 117 | CNN: 110 | HLN: 63

• Primetime: FNC: 277 | MSNBC: 165 | CNN: 120 | HLN: 58

	5p:	6p:	7p:	8p:	9p:	10p:	11p:	12a:
FNC	Five:	Baier:	Shep:	O’Reilly:	Hannity:	Greta:	O’Reilly:	Hannity:
	199	243	294	328	284	218	130	102
MSNBC	Matthews:	Sharpton:	Matthews:	EdShow:	Maddow:	Lockup:	Lockup:	Lockup:
	77	110	137	179	168	146	236	279
CNN	Blitzer:	KingUSA:	Burnett:	Cooper:	Morgan:	Cooper:	Burnett:	Morgan:
	151	103	107	108	106	147	110	52
HLN	Special:	Prime:	Issues:	Grace:	DrDrew:	Behar:	Showbiz:	DrDrew:
	44	42	72	76	54	48	41	74

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On this Iowa Caucus day, Fox News’s Washington DC bureau is seeing a couple new faces, or will soon. On January 24, Jeremy Settle joins as Senior Producer of the DC newsroom. Settle was most recently news directer of WBRE in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

Sean McGarvy has been named the new Assignment Manager, joining from FOX DC station WTTG where he’s spent the last 10 years.

And Seleena Muhammad has been promoted to Operations Manager of the DC bureau. Muhammad has been with FNC since around the time the network launched 15 years ago.

By November 6, 2012–election day–CNN will have swanky new studios in Washington DC up and running, a CNN spokesperson tells TVNewser.

For today’s Iowa Caucus coverage, CNN is basing its coverage out of Atlanta. NewsCastStudio says the CNN Election Center is originating from Studio 7, the channel’s newest studio at its worldwide headquarters. Coverage of most, if not all, of the GOP primaries will originate from Studio 7 this year.

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David Bauder of the Associated Press writes today about what the year has in store for the broadcast networks’ morning shows. With the launch of “CBS This Morning,” and uncertainty over Matt Lauer‘s future at NBC, 2012 “looks to be pivotal,” Bauder writes. “This Morning” executive producer Chris Licht weighs in on how CBS can capitalize on the changing morning landscape:

“Right now viewers basically have two choices,” Licht said. “They have the ‘Today’ show and they have the ‘Today’ show (imitator) with probably a little bit more broad appeal stuff. Those two shows are very similar but are both good at what they do. We need to try to find a third thing. Maybe viewers don’t know if they like it or not because it doesn’t exist right now.”

The network won’t be forcing spinach on its viewers, figuratively speaking. But it won’t promote a “cult of personality” either, Licht said. Read more