Earlier this week Bill Carter reported on the latest trends in cable news ratings suggesting that Keith Olbermann‘s departure from MSNBC has damaged their overall ratings. The essay focused primarily on MSNBC’s declining ratings in the post-Olbermann era, but buried in the article was another, perhaps more noteworthy, side of the story: CNN’s shifting prime time schedule appears to be paying off. In fact, Anderson Cooper has consistently been getting more viewers than Lawrence O’Donnell which has led to primetime viewer growth for CNN of 46% for the month.

MSNBC’s third quarter ratings put the network just a smidgen ahead of CNN, which has filed competitive prime-time viewership numbers for the first time in years. MSNBC’s ratings have fallen where CNN has gained, most starkly so in Keith Olbermann‘s old 8pm hour. Could Olbermann’s exit be to blame for MSNBC’s fall in rank?

News Corp. CEO and Chairman Rupert Murdoch is appearing before a British Parliamentary committee to discuss the growing phone hacking scandal and charges of corruption and cover-up that has already led to the arrest of some high profile executives and the resignation of London’s top cops.

CBS News wants you to know that reporters at The New York Times, Mediaite, The Huffington Post and Entertainment Weekly all got it wrong in comparing Scott Pelley‘s first week as anchor of The CBS Evening News to the final weeks of Katie Couric‘s time in the chair. As we put it yesterday, “it’s too early to fairly judge the CBS Evening News‘ transition from Katie Couric to Scott Pelley in terms of ratings, but in his first week on the job, Pelley largely held on to the viewers Couric had, but seems to have lost some of the viewers who tuned in for the post-Couric newscasts with interim anchor Harry Smith.”

In a Twitter posting to his 89,805 followers Sunday night, CNN anchor Don Lemon linked to a New York Times story that reveals he is gay, and thanked his followers in advance for their support. The revelation comes in advance of his upcoming book, Transparent (due out June 16), and in the interview with NYT’s Bill Carter, Lemon reveals that, while his sexuality was known to his colleagues, going public carries with it considerable anxiety.

The speculation over Keith Olbermann‘s future after MSNBC continued tonight on Anderson Cooper 360º, where our own Managing Editor Colby Hall joined host Anderson Cooper and the New York Times’ Bill Carter to discuss Olbermann’s latest tweets, what went on behind the scenes at MSNBC, and what the former Countdown host has in store for the upcoming months.

Conan O’Brien has given a revealing interview to The New York Times‘ Bill Carter, talking about the move from NBC’s Tonight Show to his current perch as host of Conan on TBS.

“Everything has worked out great for me,” O’Brien says, insisting he’s come a long way from this time last year, when he made the decision not to move Tonight to midnight, and was forced from NBC. O’Brien says the emotions of 2010 have settled. “We all know what happened. Life’s short. I’ve got a family and I’m really happy here, so I don’t think about it too much.”

Man, Keith Olbermann is gonna be so jealous. In an incredibly complimentary article in The New York Times, Bill Carter and Brian Stelter compare Jon Stewart to Edward R. Murrow over his passionate work in getting the 9/11 First Responders Bill passed. The piece doesn’t soft-sell it either. It’s entitled “In ‘Daily Show’ Role on 9/11 Bill, Echoes of Murrow.”

Bill Carter took his publicity tour for The War For Late Night to late night last night – as a guest on Jimmy Kimmel‘s ABC show.

With two weeks since the book’s release, Carter could talk about the reactions he’s gotten from people who have read it – like Jeff Zucker and Jay Leno.

On CNN’s Reliable Sources, host Howard Kurtz laid out what the public perception of Jay Leno was during the late night debacle: a scheming bad guy who plotted to get rid of Conan O’brien in order to get back his old job.  But Bill Carter, author of The War for Late Night, said today that that’s not accurate at all.

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.

Throughout all of the sturm and drang of the battle between Conan O’Brien, Jay Leno, and NBC at the beginning of this year, many kept repeating the same refrain, “God, Bill Carter’s gonna have some great material for his next book.” Carter, of course, wrote the seminal book about the first late night wars, The Late Shift. Sure enough, confirmation soon came that Carter would write a sequel, The War for Late Night, and Vanity Fair now has an excerpt online. It’s as tense and exciting as expected.

Cable news ratings for the first quarter came out this week, and its been a rather tough day for CNN. Writing for the NY Times, Bill Carter‘s story includes a headline that screams “CNN Fails to Stop Fall in Ratings.” No, it’s not good news – or more to the point — it’s actually more bad news. Insiders have long whispered about what’s going on at CNN, and alas, the continued and consistent poor ratings mean that its finally time to openly question Jon Klein‘s future in his role as President of CNN.

Last night I was on the Joy Behar Show to discuss the Conan-Leno-NBC-Late-Night kerfuffle. Joy spoke first with Bill Carter of the New York Times, pretty much the go-to expert on all things late night thanks to his seminal — and still relevant! — book The Late Shift. Following Carter’s comments (he thinks NBC and [...]

According to multiple news reports, NBC claims that it did not breach of Conan O’Brien‘s contract when the network tried to pushed the Tonight Show to 12:05 a.m. to accommodate Jay Leno at 11:35 p.m. — the traditional start of the Tonight Show. Conan said no way, that breaks our deal. Problem is, there’s reportedly no timeslot guarantee in Conan’s contract. So who’s right? Conan, I say — because 11:35 was on the table from the start. Explicitly.

Remember 2004? Could it be that it was all so simple then? Or has time rewritten every line? Yes, yes and yes. Back then, it was very simple — Conan O’Brien was taking over the Tonight Show from Jay Leno in 2009. Changing of the guard. Passing of the torch. Handing down a treasure from generation to generation. Ah yes. It made all sorts of sense — then.

In a surprisingly harsh and candid attack on Conan O’Brien, Chairman of NBCU Sports Dick Ebersol told the New York Times‘ Bill Carter O’Brien was “gutless” to blame Jay Leno, and called him a “failure.”

It’s pure spin, of course, that contradicts the actual reason for these immediate changes. But O’Brien’s almost out the door, so apparently it’s time to kick him on the way.

Throughout the recent sturm and drang surrounding the NBC late night drama, the one consistent takeaway is that this is all the fault of NBC Chief Jeff Zucker. And while that may or may not be true, the idea of moving Jay Leno to the 10pm time slot wasn’t always seen as the disastrous move that is now. In fact, many television critics hailed Zucker for “the coup” of keeping Leno when this move was announced. Let’s take a look at what critics said at the time, and compare it to their thoughts now. Fun! Right?

Who: Jimmy Fallon interviewed by Bill Carter What: The New York Times’ Arts & Leisure Weekend Where: The Times Center When: January 8, 2009 Thumbs: At our palms, applauding

TMZ reported earlier today that, according to unnamed sources; “Jay Leno is going back to his 11:30 PM time slot, and it’s looking like Conan O’Brien is the odd man out.” While nothing has been officially announced, Bill Carter reports that NBC executives “did not deny a report posted by the website TMZ that NBC was considering making the switch and replacing Mr. O’Brien at “Tonight” with Mr. Leno.” Update – Carter now reports a possible line-up being bandied about at NBC…

Are Glenn Beck’s gold-digging days coming to an end? It would seem even Fox News’ is losing patience with the questions over Beck’s status as paid spokesman for Goldline International, which sells gold coins and his habit of devoting time on his show to expounding on why gold is a good investment. Not that that is stopping him from talking gold.

Leave it to Nikki Finke to chastise the impure, start firefights with other journalists (cf: The New Yorker), and leak out a bit of personal correspondence to boot. In an unrelenting post, she accuses Bill Carter of “having [never] met a network boss whose knob he didn’t shine” and casually makes mention of a (possibly joky) email Carter sent her in July about his hopes of making bank on a blowout Jay Leno show. How’s that going, btw?