• Rachel Maddow‘s interview with Jon Stewart got big ratings for the MSNBC host, who has had the top show on the network all week. The 9pmET program had 433,000 viewers in the A25-54 demographic (more than Greta Van Susteren the next hour on Fox News).

The latest NOH8 ad against gay bullying features Gene Simmons, Denise Richards and other celebrities.

But it also stars Cindy McCain, wife of Sen. John McCain, who makes some very clear her opposition to her husband’s policies on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Matt Lauer threw down yesterday in his ongoing feud with Kanye West, by claiming no wrongdoing when he played the VMA stage-crashing video during a pre-taped West interview earlier this week.

He also announced West would be performing on the Today show two weeks from today – a performance West announced on Twitter this morning he would be canceling.

Bill O’Reilly‘s lengthy interview with Pres. George W. Bush amounted to likely the most contentious of all his entire recent media tour, which is interesting on many levels.

O’Reilly, frustrated with Pres. Bush refusing to answer current events questions, countered with a solid argument why his claims of not wanting to undermine Pres. Barack Obama don’t really hold up.

• Bill O’Reilly had another huge night Wednesday: 942,000 in the A25-54 demographic and 3,751,000 total viewers. How huge? It was more total viewers than all MSNBC prime time shows combined. Also, it was more total viewers than CNN shows from 6pm-11pmET.

The Carnival Splendor cruise ship that had been stranded off the coast of San Diego has finally pulled into port, and all the cablers were there to report from the scene.

On CNN, two young passengers relayed some of the key circumstances from their time onboard: toilets, food, free time.

So now that Pres. George W. Bush has stopped hating on Conway West after the “disgusting moment” comment, a new target for Kanye West‘s frustration became Today show anchor Matt Lauer.

Today Lauer played more of the tape, and issued a challenge to Kanye to continue this epic battle a few weeks from now.

The new movie Morning Glory takes place behind the scenes at a network morning show, and Jeff Goldblum plays the role of the boss.

To prepare for the role, he followed and consulted with MSNBC President Phil Griffin – an experience he talked about this morning on Morning Joe.

Conan O’Brien made his much talked about (and written about) return to late night this week, to strong ratings.

But while a lot of attention has been paid to Conan’s place in the late night community, someone else is continuing to break the mold: NBC’s Jimmy Fallon (also on the New York cover this week).

Christine O’Donnell was a guest on Jay Leno‘s Tonight Show and the host thanked her early right away for “being a good sport” and “all the material.”

O’Donnell described how Karl Rove avoided talking to her recently, the type of men she’d like to date and what’s coming up in the future.

In his triumphant return to MSNBC after a four-day indefinite suspension, Keith Olbermann had great ratings. But Rachel Maddow, the next hour, had even more.

More details…

CNN’s Abbie Boudreau has left the network and is joining ABC News as an LA based correspondent. The news was first reported by Enterprise Report.

Boudreau was in the media news recently on CNN. Let’s connect the dots between her and Big sites founder Andrew Breitbart.

She may not be a witch, but she’s also not a U.S. Senator. So while Christine O’Donnell avoided most media outlets during her campaign, now that the race is over her options are more open.

Which means an appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight on NBC.

One of the first major takeaways from the pre-released transcript excerpts from Matt Lauer‘s sit-down with Pres. George W. Bush related, surprisingly, to Kanye West.

Lauer took advantage of the live interview this morning on the Today show to address this head-on, with a soundbite from West himself.

We’ve been hearing a lot from former Pres. George W. Bush as his publicity tour for Decision Points continues.

But although the Financial Times didn’t get an interview with him, one of their reporters did recall a story that indicated Bush was ready to support Barack Obama over John McCain in 2008.

Five “programs” (four hours and one partial hour) were in the top 10 programs on all of cable last week for Fox News, from 7:50pmET-MidnightET.

The network also finished #2 overall in prime time on cable for the week – the first time in 2nd place since the May 31 week of the BP oil spill. More details:

Conan O’Brien is off to a huge start in the ratings for his new cable late night show, attracting more than 4.1 million viewers on his first night.

This was better than Jay Leno‘s Tonight Show on NBC – an amazing statistic, that would be made more amazing if it happens again.

We got a preview of Bill Carter‘s forthcoming War For Late Night in Vanity Fair two weeks ago, but now that Conan O’Brien is back on the air, the book takes on added meaning.

Carter was a guest on Morning Joe this morning to talk about the circumstances surrounding the book, and…Sarah Palin.

President George W. Bush‘s hour long special with Matt Lauer, which will serve in many ways as a promotional tool for his book, addressed the ‘decisions’ surrounding all aspects of his eight-years in office.

But the issue he will most closely be tied is 9/11 – and he talked about the day of, and days after, with Lauer.

Jon Stewart returned from his long weekend, having spent one less day off than the indefinitely suspended Keith Olbermann, and was ready to talk about the MSNBC host and others in the media who had critiques of his rally from the left.

After explaining the point, he turned to the suspension.

Conan O’Brien made his return to late night TV tonight with the first episode of TBS’ Conan. In some ways, the opening monologue of the premiere picked up from where he left off in the two weeks of his former NBC show – a lot of references to his now-ex-employer.

Only now, he’s on Twitter.

• Rachel Maddow had the most viewers on MSNBC Friday – the day Keith Olbermann was suspended by the network. Olbermann’s replacement, Thomas Roberts, performed better than average for a Friday.

For hardcore Wheelers, the one-letter solution Friday night was one of the most epic Wheelings of all time.

But how did she do it? Caitlin Burke explained her Wheel of Fortune strategy to Shepard Smith today.

Since Keith Olbermann‘s suspension Friday, his supporters have taken to defending the MSNBC host using the contributions of others as a comparison: from News Corp. and Fox News to Joe Scarborough and Larry Kudlow.

Here are some more donations that tangentially relate to Olbermann – like GE overlap.

From the moment it was announced, Sarah Palin’s Alaska was not going to be just another TLC show, starring Sarah Palin.

Besides attracting the ‘will she or won’t she’ debate, the show has a vibrant new media effort going at (amazingly-titled) SPAlaska.com. Mediaite went to a launch event for the show last week.