The final 2012 year-end numbers won’t be in until the end of the year, but with only a couple of weeks to go, we have a pretty good sense of where things will end up.

The big takeaways: Fox News Channel will end 2012 as the number one cable news channel for 11 straight years, and the number three ad-supported channel in all of cable TV in primetime. FNC will be up slightly from 2011 in just about every time period and demo. The network will end up with the top 11 cable news shows in total viewers, and the top seven in the adults 25-54 demo.

MSNBC has the most growth of any cable news channel, and will see double-digit improvements in just about every ratings category and time period. “The Rachel Maddow Show” will end the year as the most-watched cable news program not on Fox, placing 12th overall in total viewers, and eighth in the demo.

The big news year was not as big a boon to CNN as some at the network may have liked. The network will end the year down slightly in primetime, and down double digits in total day. The bright spots were in primetime, with “Piers Morgan Tonight” poised to end the year as CNN’s number one program in total viewers, and “AC360″ leading the way in the A25-54 demo.

The final Nielsen ratings will be in at the end of the year, so things could change (though not by much), check back then for the numbers.

A worker who was laid off from Beef Products, Inc. is suing ABC News, claiming the network’s use of the “pink slime” phrase to describe BPI’s products led to him losing his job.

The worker, Bruce Smith, is one of 750 people who laid off at BPI. The South Dakota-based company is also suing ABC News for $1.2 billion in damages, claiming the network aired about 200 “false and misleading and defamatory” reports referring to their line, finely textured beef as “pink slime.”

BPI and “and its employees were unfairly and unnecessarily maligned and accused of producing a food product that did not exist, a product that critics unfairly labeled ‘pink slime,’” Smith said in a statement.

ABC’s Diane Sawyer and Jim Avila, as well as celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and several others, are also named in the lawsuit.

CBS’ “Face the Nation” was on top again December 9, besting NBC’s “Meet the Press” by +240,000 Total Viewers and +61,000 A25-54 viewers.

ABC’s “This Week” was third, “Fox News Sunday” was fourth and Univision’s “Al Punto” was fifth.

Compared to the same week last year, CBS, ABC, Fox and Univision are all up across the board. Univision is up the most (+14%) in Total Viewers and Fox is up the most (+27%) in the A25-54 demographic. NBC’s “Meet the Press” is down in both ratings measurements, -8% in Total Viewers and -16% in A25-54 viewers.

Cable replays of “Fox News Sunday” averaged a combined 1,581,000 Total Viewers and 229,000 A25-54 viewers. Rebroadcasts of “Meet the Press” delivered 1,251,000 Total Viewers and 546,000 A25-54 viewers.

“Face the Nation” is based on the first half-hour only, as the full contiguous hour aired in just 45% of the country.

The numbers for December 9:

• Tuesday is the season finale of HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel,” and the venerable sports newsmagazine is forgoing its usual format for a round-table look at the year that was. Gumbel will join panelists Bernard Goldberg, Mary Carillo, Andrea Kremer, Frank Deford and Jon Frankel in discussing sports in 2012. The panel will also include Armen Keteyian, who is leaving “Real Sports” to join “60 Minutes of Sports” on Showtime next year.

• Not content to simply name winter storms, The Weather Channel is launching a Winter Storm Index called “Storm: Con,” which will grade winter storms on severity in a 1-10 scale. 1-5 aren’t too bad, but if a 6-10 is coming… watch out.

• MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell is interviewed by the Wall Street Journal about his work with UNICEF. He has been active in raising money for schools in Africa.

Combine tasty treats, sleek design, and the now famous ‘Sitting Cameramen of Astor Place’ and you get the latest episode of “Cubes.”

In this episode of Cubes, the MediabistroTV crew is invited into the New York Headquarters of AOL and The Huffington Post. Hosted by the founding editor of The Huffington Post and president of HuffPost Live, Roy Sekoff, the crew visits the cavernous Huffington Post newsroom where hundreds of writers sit keyboard to keyboard under the watchful gaze of Arianna Huffington herself who plays the always gracious hostess by offering up some tasty Greek Christmas cookies. After burning through the sugar high, the guys mingle with the ghosts of journalism past in the HuffPost Live newsroom where live news is served up eight hours a day by tables of writers, producers and editors who always know what time it is in Funkytown.

You can view our other MediabistroTV productions on our YouTube Channel.

When George Carlin revealed his “Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television,” the word  ”Torture” was not on the list. In a post-9/11 cable news world however, it may as well have been one.

A survey of media coverage from the organization “Covering Torture  suggests that cable news channels are far more likely to avoid the word torture in their coverage of world events, and instead use less offensive euphemisms for the practice, at least when applied to the U.S. government.

Over 72% of cable news coverage of torture used a euphemism for the practice, compared to 28% that used the word itself. By comparison a majority of coverage in print outlets and wire reports referred to “torture” specifically.

Fox News and CNN were more likely to use euphemisms for torture than MSNBC. CNN and FNC used euphemisms 78% and 79% of the time, respectively, while MSNBC was split evenly 50/50.

You can see the full report, with more data, here.

“CBS This Morning” co-anchors Charlie Rose and Gayle King were talking to CBS News travel editor Peter Greenberg this morning, and “CTM” EP Chris Licht became a veritable fourth wheel in the segment.

It began when Licht commented into King and Rose’s earpieces that Greenberg “would not be paying” for a hotel room, a comment which king shared on-air. Later on, Rose asked Greenberg if he was “treated like a high roller in Vegas when you walk in?”

“Is this another Chris Licht question?” Greenberg quipped.

No, I swear it is not,” Rose responded. “I don’t take Chris Licht questions, by the way. (Laughs)”

WATCH:

The reviews for HBO’s cable news drama “The Newsroom” may not have been glowing, but they apparently didn’t matter. The program was quickly renewed for a second season by HBO and now it has picked up two Golden Globe nominations from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

“The Newsroom” is nominated for “Best Television Series-Drama,” while star Jeff Daniels is nominated for his performance as cantankerous cable news anchor Will McAvoy.

Elsewhere, the HBO movie “Game Change” picked up five nominations, including “Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made For Television” and a nomination for Julianne Moore‘s portrayal of Fox News contributor and former VP nominee Sarah Palin. Woody Harrelson, Sarah Paulson and Ed Harris also received nominations for their roles.

HBO has already optioned the follow-up to Game Change as a movie, The book will be released late next year.

You can read the full list of nominees here.

CNN foreign correspondent Arwa Damon is profiled by Vogue. Damon, who famously discovered Ambassador Stevens’ journal in the burned-out ruins of the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, really opens up to author Heidi Mitchell.

The daughter of an American father and a Syrian mother, Damon grew up speaking both English and Arabic. Hr parents settled in Beirut, Lebanon, where Damon also rents an apartment.

“In college, I had a lot of friends who didn’t know anything about the Middle East, who had never met anyone from there,” she explains. “And when 9/11 happened, I saw this East-West divide become even greater, and I got this idea in my head that I was going to be a bridge, to help create cross-cultural understanding through journalism.” Her friends thought she was off her rocker. “They said I should start in a small town, build my way up in the industry. I said no, I’m going to Iraq.”

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ABC’s Barbara Walters named General David Petraeus her “Most Fascinating” person of 2012. It is a repeat performance for Petraeus, who held the top spot in 2010. This year, however, he is there for very different reasons.

“We argued for months about who should be our most fascinating person, and then a Washington scandal solidified our choice,” Walters said. “But General David Petraeus was not chosen this year for his war record or his exemplary service to his country. This is about military honor colliding with sex and lies in the digital age.”

Watch, after the jump.

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