25-54 demographic (Live +SD)

• Total day: FNC: 488 | MSNBC: 244 | CNN: 161 | HLN: 69

• Primetime: FNC: 830 | MSNBC: 421 | CNN: 206| HLN: 78

	5p:	6p:	7p:	8p:	9p:	10p:	11p:	12a:
FNC	TheFive:	Baier:	Shep:	O’Reilly:	Hannity:	Greta:	O’Reilly:	Hannity:
	538	537	492	911	851	723	496	390
MSNBC	Matthews:	Sharpton:	Matthews:	EdShow:	Maddow:	O’Donnell:	EdShow:	Maddow:
	323	306	335	354	518	389	253	272
CNN	Blitzer:	Blitzer:	Burnett:	Cooper:	Morgan:	Cooper:	Burnett:	Morgan:
	181	141	191	223	165	229	150	135
HLN	Express:	Express:	VelezMitchell:	Grace:	DrDrew:	Grace:	Showbiz:	DrDrew:
	50	47	78	78	90	65	44	34

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Late Night with Jimmy Fallon‘s head blogger Cory Cavin (left) and co-producer Gavin Purcell will share their secrets on building a loyal fanbase in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp online conference and workshop starting October 18. Other speakers include Brian Ries (Newsweek), Jennifer Rubio (Warby Parker), and Frank Eliason (Citibank).  Register today.

The Wall Street Journal has a gossipy item this afternoon, reporting that Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes and Fox News CEO Roger Ailes grabbed lunch earlier this year.

Bewkes is looking for a successor to Jim Walton at CNN, who will be stepping aside at the end of this year. Ailes meanwhile has a contract of his own coming up for renewal next year.

The WSJ notes that the lunch was purely social, and that Bewkes has no plans to hire Ailes. But that didn’t stop the News Corp. newspaper from writing the item.

Excuse us while we take a little time to gloat, and thank you for continuing to spend part of your day checking in to TVNewser.

Today TVNewser published its 35,000th post. It was this post, our latest episode of Cubes on Newsweek & The Daily Beast. (By the way, all of our MediabistroTV shows can be seen on our YouTube channel. Check them out when you have a minute.)

TVNewser also just finished its best month ever with more than 3.2 million page views and 1.7 million unique visitors. Our coverage from the RNC and DNC, stories related to 9/11/12, the tragedy at the embassy in Benghazi and the unfortunate end to a car chase on Fox News last week — our most-read story ever — led to a record month. And we’re on track for a record year.

So thanks to all of you for sticking with us over the years, from when Brian put up that first post on CableNewser almost 9 years ago to today. It’s been a blast watching the site, and Mediabistro, grow — including adding other great media sites to our network like TVSpy and LostRemote.

We hope we’ve kept you informed and entertained with the News about the News and made this a place where you can take part: to discuss, react, complain and opine about the ever-evolving always entertaining TV news business.

-Chris

Jim Lehrer to critics: Bring it.

PBS’s Lehrer today insisted that he’s unfazed by the avalanche of vitriolic responses to his moderator performance at Wednesday’s presidential debate, seen by an estimated 67 million Americans.

In Lehrer’s 12th presidential at-bat, critics blasted him for being too passive, allowing President Obama and Mitt Romney to steamroll him at will. Critics also said Lehrer’s questions were vague, and that they didn’t cover a broad enough range of issues.

“Everybody is welcome to criticize my questions, or anything else I did,” Lehrer, 78, says. “I have no problem with that. I knew, going in, this was not going to be easy. What the hell. … The next debate, people will tweet, tweet, tweet all over again. That’s terrific.”

Despite being constantly interrupted and talked over, Lehrer pronounced the new debate format — featuring 15-minute, wide-open segments for the candidates to directly address each other – a success.

“The format worked,” he says. “These guys were really talking to each other. Presidential candidates had never done that before. People, including the candidates, and including me, were used to a more controlled format, with two-minute answers.

“I played a different role than in the past. I was still the moderator, but it was a different kind of debate. I understand why people were a little stunned by some it. Over time, they’ll get used to it, and realize it works.”

The downside of the open format, Lehrer acknowledges, is that it’s virtually impossible to steer the candidates in a different direction or to get them to shut up.

“I would hope the candidates themselves would do that,” says Lehrer, ever the optimist. “Certainly,

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“Good Morning America” weatherman Sam Champion is planning to tie the knot with his partner Rubem Robierb later this year. The pending nuptials will be reported in a Sunday New York Times column (online now) about last weekend’s wedding of MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts and Patrick Abner.

Among the 170 or so guests at the reception was Sam Champion, the weather anchor at ABC’s “Good Morning America.” He took a turn on the dance floor with his partner, the photographer Rubem Robierb. “We’re getting married New Year’s Eve in Miami,” Mr. Champion said in the spirit of the moment. Mr. Robierb corrected him: “We’ll do it here officially, and then have a party in Miami.”

On Twitter this afternoon Champion wrote, “I’ve never been happier to share a bit of personal news!!” Champion and Brazilian-born Robierb split time between New York and Miami. New York is one of six states and the District of Columbia to have legalized same-sex marriage.

> More: The well-wishes are coming in on Twitter:

Diane Sawyer: and everybody here celebrating Sam’s happiness RT:@SamChampion never been happier to share a bit of personal news!

Ben Sherwood: Congratulations @SamChampion & Rubem Robeirb — thrilled for both of you — wishing the very best.

Bianna Golodryga: Congratulations Sam!!

Josh Elliott: Congrats, to the best friend and colleague imaginable…

George Stephanopoulos: So happy for you @SamChampion – A big family hug from me, @AliEWentworth and the girls!

Sometimes it is helpful to have a wife who anchors a daily television program with over a million daily viewers. Douglas Brunt, the husband of Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly, just wrote a book called Ghosts of Manhattan, about some (fictional) Wall Street traders living large before the financial crisis.

Oh, and one of the characters is a blonde reporter… though she works for CNBC.

“A financial correspondent, totally unrelated,” Brunt said “Everything is one degree removed from us.”

WATCH:

CNN’s Piers Morgan gets the Vanity Fair profile treatment. The piece does a good job going into Morgan’s life and career, and it even has some juicy bits from his current tenure at CNN.

“We are the leper with the most fingers,” someone who works on Morgan’s program told me. That sort of attitude doesn’t endear Morgan and his team to veterans at the network. There is palpable tension between Morgan and Anderson Cooper, according to people who work with them. Anderson Cooper 360 airs just before and just after Piers Morgan Tonight. Larry King’s show was in the same slot, and there always used to be a bit of televised banter between Anderson and King as the handoffs were made. There’s no banter now. As far as viewers are concerned, Cooper and Morgan simply don’t speak.

Morgan’s show is number one in total viewers, while Cooper’s show is tops in the demo. Of course, Cooper’s program airs at 8 and 10 PM, and there likely aren’t many people watching both editions.

There is also an interesting anecdote from Morgan’s agent, John Ferriter, in which he explains how Morgan got the gig at CNN in the first place:
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We already noted Mitt Romney‘s first post-debate interview, now it looks like The President has slated his own.

President Obama will sit down with “ABC World News” anchor Diane Sawyer next week. Portions of the interview will air beginning the evening of October 10 on “World News.”

The full interview will be included as part of a series called “Portrait of a President,” which will air later this month. ABC conducted similar “Portrait of a President” segments in 2008 profiling Obama and his challenger John McCain. No word on whether Romney has agreed to sit down for an interview as well.

As Politico notes:

The interview will be his first with a national, English-language news program since the attack in Libya that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Since that attack, the president has given interviews to The View, David Letterman, The Today Show, Telemundo, Univision, and a number of regional outlets in the battleground states.

• One of the most prestigious accolades in publishing is the National Book Awards, and this year there is a TV news twist. As our sister blog GalleyCat notes, the winners of this year’s National Book Awards will be announced on “Morning Joe” October 10.

• Fox News host Julie Banderas is movin’ on up. The Observer notes that Banderas plunked down a cool $2.65 million for a sweet apartment on Central Park South.

• The always shy and subdued Piers Morgan decided to come out of his shell last night, taking credit for Mitt Romney’s performance at the debate, and recommending that President Obama should come on “PMT” to hone his skills for the next one:

The Sunday public affairs shows continue to be closer than ever, as September 30 proves. CBS “Face the Nation” led the way in total viewers and the adults 25-54 demo. NBC’s “Meet the Press” was right behind in total viewers, and not far behind in the demo. ABC’s “This Week” was a relatively close third.

“Fox News Sunday was fourth and “Al Punto” was fifth in both total and demo viewers.

Every show was up in both total and demo viewers compared to the same week last year, except for “Meet the Press,” which was down in both categories.

Cable replays of “Fox News Sunday” averaged a combined 2.06 million Total Viewers and 425,000 A25-54 viewers.

“Face the Nation” is based on the first half-hour only, as the full contiguous hour airs in just 47% of the country.

The numbers for September 30:

Network	Program	Total Viewers	A25-54
CBS	“Face the Nation”	3.08M	961K
NBC	“Meet the Press”	2.92M	789K
ABC	“This Week”	2.59M	748K
FOX	“Fox News Sunday”	1.47M	599K
Univision	“Al Punto”	705K	377K