Despite no Triple Crown threat, Fox News Channel’s Anna Kooiman will be out covering the Belmont Stakes today, as she was yesterday when news broke that I’ll Have Another was being taken out of the running.

Since joining Fox News late last year, Kooiman has also covered the Kentucky Derby and Daytona 500. She tells her hometown Charlotte Observer about what she misses about Charlotte and the differences between working in local and national TV.

In Charlotte, the station would pay for hair appointments and makeup. In New York, there’s a wardrobe department and hair and makeup artists.

“They take care of making you look good … These people are experts. We call it getting ‘Foxified.’”

Join us at our Social Curation Summit, July 31 in New York, to learn how to use social visual communities including Pinterest, Tumblr, and Fancy to market your business or brand. Speakers include Scott Belksy (Behance), Shane Rahmani (Thrillist), Daniel Lewis (Sesame Workshop), and many more. Register today.

The third hour of NBC’s “Today” show was devoted to a full hour of “Today’s Professionals” where Star Jones, Donny Deutsch and Dr. Nancy Snyderman discuss and opine about general news topics.

There has been discussion about developing “Today’s Professionals” into its own series. And now, TVNewser has learned that NBC wants to know what viewers think of that idea. A source tells us a News: VIPs survey is being conducted. “It was a very detailed survey on the 9 am hour that aired today and covered everything,” says the source. “It covered the on-the-road makeover segment, the one-on-one segments, the audience questions segment, the first panel discussion and the final rountable discussion.”

The survey asked for viewer opinion on the talent, Jones, Snyderman and Deutsch, as well as anchors Al Roker, Natalie Morales and Savannah Guthrie and their chemistry. The survey asked if the hour needed changes and, if so, what kind of changes they would like to see. And it went into detail about the length of the segments and about the show’s overall pacing.

“Sounds like the kind of survey one puts out if one is looking to make changes,” figures our source.

What do you think? Should “Today’s Professionals” be its own regularly-scheduled hour?

25-54 demographic (Live +SD)

• Total day: FNC: 264 | MSNBC: 110 | CNN: 87 | HLN: 85

• Primetime: FNC: 396 | MSNBC: 181 | CNN: 105 | HLN: 122

	5p:	6p:	7p:	8p:	9p:	10p:	11p:	12a:
FNC	TheFive:	Baier:	Shep:	O’Reilly:	Hannity:	Greta:	O’Reilly:	Hannity:
	306	362	319	465	365	358	332	277
MSNBC	Matthews:	Sharpton:	Matthews:	EdShow:	Maddow:	O’Donnell:	EdShow:	Maddow:
	102	103	126	155	196	193	146	148
CNN	Blitzer:	KingUSA:	Burnett:	Cooper:	Morgan:	Cooper:	Burnett:	Morgan:
	62	52	80	89	108	119	94	88
HLN	Express:	Express:	VelezMitchell:	Grace:	DrDrew:	Grace:	Showbiz:	DrDrew:
	73	66	98	84	131	151	89	88

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The 68th Annual Radio & Television Correspondents Association dinner will be held tonight at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in DC. This is the dinner without the Kardashians … or Louis C.K.

FishbowlDC’s Betsy Rothstein caught up with CNN’s Jay McMichael who is the chair of the dinner.

FBDC: What did you think of FNC’s Greta Van Susteren’s influence in C.K. dropping out?

McMichael: I’m not going to comment on that.

FBDC: Tom Brokaw recently criticized the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on what he dubbed the celebritizing of D.C. journalism. Did you agree with him?

McMichael: Tom Brokaw is entitled to his opinion. We have a different dinner. We’ve made our comment in our remarks tonight about Brokaw. I’d say tune in. I know I’m not giving you any fodder, but I don’t want to give away my stuff. C-SPAN is airing it live: 9 p.m.

TVNewser stopped in to the Kimberly Hotel last night for a book party thrown by MSNBC president Phil Griffin in honor of Chris Hayes, who is the first-time author of “Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy.”

Yvette Miley and Alex Wagner were also on hand to toast the “Up” host, who told us the writing process was “like exercise — it feels painful while doing it, but there’s a sort of endorphin rush from the process of it mentally.”

“Writing the book and doing the show are my two favorite things I’ve ever done,” Hayes said.

But writing a book and hosting a live television show are extremely different, which Hayes recently learned the hard way after he was sharply criticized for saying on “Up” that he was uncomfortable calling soldiers heroes. So which medium does he prefer?

“I love them both,” Hayes said. “I wouldn’t want to give up either one. What I love about the show is those two hours require total, 1,000 percent concentration. You can’t be distracted on live TV. You have to be attentive.”

The book, which will be released on Tuesday, also required Hayes’ full attention for the better part of two years, which is how long it took him to research and write it. Despite several ideas for future books (“those I’m keeping to myself,” he joked), Hayes said that in the immediate future his plans are “doing my show and being a dad.”

“That will be what I do,” he said. “I’m sort of looking forward to that for a little bit.”

Bill Press‘ remarks earlier this week calling the National Anthem “an abomination” have ignited a war of words between the Current TV host and Fox News. On Wednesday, Sean Hannity said he’d pay for a private jet to fly Press out of the country as long as Press promised “not to come back,” while FNC contributor Michelle Malkin said on “Fox & Friends” that Press hasn’t been relevant “since Bill Clinton was in office.”

“They’re very good at the name calling, aren’t they? I mean, communist, socialist, fascist — they don’t even know what the words mean — they just throw them out there,” Press responded on Cenk Uygur‘s Current TV show yesterday night. “If they like the Star Spangled Banner so much then let’s start with Bill O’Reilly. He can sing it. Sing it, right now. All four verses.” Watch:

FishbowlLA’s Marcus Vanderberg recently talked with HBO Sports announcer and former NBC Olympics anchor Jim Lampley about his career for “So What Do You Do” interview. Marcus also asked a few bonus questions which went up on FBLA yesterday, including:

FBLA: What does it say about the current state of Olympic coverage when the broadcaster who’s anchored a record 14 games won’t be working in London but Ryan Seacrest will be?

Lampley: Well, everything changes. I have to confess that I looked around at Beijing and among the many things I thought was, “We got old.” This group doesn’t change a lot from year to year and there’s certainly a benefit to that continuity. But on the other hand, I don’t see the number of young faces here like 10, 12, 16 years ago. Whether it involved me or anybody else, change was inevitable. Change was probably timely and I like watching it on TV.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) went on Melissa Francis‘s Fox Business show last night talking about the economy and jobs. “If you look at where we are with the unemployment rate at 8.2% it has ticked higher,” said Francis. “The GDP number of below 2% is not great…”

“I understand the Fox perspective here,” said Frank. “No. Those are numbers!” responded Francis.

The broadcast networks joined their cable counterparts carrying Pres. Obama’s news conference from the briefing room this morning. The economy — both domestic and global — was the reason for calling the newser. Lester Holt anchored on NBC, George Stephanopoulos and Diane Sawyer on ABC, and Charlie Rose and Erica Hill on CBS.

Normally very punctual, the president started about 20 minutes late. “He’s probably either talking to somebody about something or oblivious to the time,” joked Bill Plante on CBS. “Who is going to tell him? He’s the boss.”

The president began at 10:40amET and by 10:48, the first question went to Caren Bohan, with the president remarking about her upcoming job change.

“I’ll start with Caren, who is with Reuters, but as we all know is about to go get a fancy job with National Journal and we’re very proud of her, so congratulations to you, Caren. You get the first crack at me.”

Other questions went to Jackie Calmes of the New York Times and David Jackson of USA Today. Jackson asked about national security leaks recently reported in stories in the New York Times. None of the TV reporters were called on, but as the president left the briefing room at 11:07, one said: “Can we ask you about Wisconsin?” He didn’t answer.

Former NBCU CEO and one-time EP of the “Today” show Jeff Zucker is again being mentioned as someone who might be in the running to right a struggling media company. This time CNN. The New York Post’s Claire Atkinson writes about executive changes which may come later this year, as CNN experiences its worst ratings in 20 years.

Several news business high-ups say one name being floated internally to come in and revive CNN ratings is Jeff Zucker, the former NBCUniversal boss. Zucker is friendly with both [Time Warner CEO Jeff] Bewkes and corporate adviser, Gary Ginsberg. The Zucker prospect has rattled some in the executive ranks. No outreach has occurred around that idea.

Earlier this week, Zucker’s name had been mentioned in association with Tribune Company, owner of newspapers and TV stations across the country, as it looks for a new CEO.
(h/t ICN)