TVSquad

Dan Abrams has been a busy guy since leaving his old jobs as GM and on-air host at MSNBC (he still pops up as an analyst and commentator). He created Mediaite and now GossipCop, which sounds...well, kinda brilliant. They can "police" the various gossip sites and tabloids while at the same time being a gossip site themselves. On MSNBC yesterday, The Nation editor Katrina Vanden Huevel didn't seem too thrilled with GossipCop, and Abrams defended himself.

If there's one good thing about this video is now we all know how Mediaite is supposed to be pronounced.

If you watch MSNBC for the politics fix, no doubt you have seen Rachel Maddow. She's one of the talking heads, a politically savvy woman who has been featured on shows like Hardball with Chris Matthews and Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

In fact, she's been Keith's regular fill-in this summer, a sure sign that she's MSNBC's star on the rise. The network has just announced that Rachel Maddow has been chosen to replace MSNBC's Dan Abrams, bumping his show Verdict out of the primetime lineup.

Maddow is getting a great spot on MSNBC, right after Countdown at 9 p.m. Abrams is not getting kicked to the curb. Like when Tucker Carlson lost his show and remained one of the net's pundits.

Should MSNBC keep Joe Scarborough in primetime instead of giving him the morning slot?

MSNBC is showing remarkable growth in primetime for the third straight quarter. Scarborough Country was up 36% in the 9pm slot. Hardball with Chris Matthews was up 9% at 7pm, and Countdown with Keith Olbermann was up 54%. The network is up 49% in the 25-54 demographic overall in primetime, and 34% for the day total.

It looks like the rumors are true: Joe Scarborough is getting the Don Imus spot on MSNBC.

Howard Kurtz at The Washington Post is reporting that Scarborough and MSNBC are in final negotiations to make his Morning Joe show the permanent show in the 6am to 9am slot on the network. Scarborough has been filling in (with other hosts, such as David Gregory) since Imus went bye-bye, and has been getting good buzz (though not ratings). Some CBS radio stations might pick up the show as well.

Ever since Don Imus made his little, um, faux pas a while back, viewers have been wondering who will eventually take over his morning slot on MSNBC. Right now they have a rotating group of hosts, including Joe Scarborough, David Gregory, and Jim Cramer, but several execs (including network GM Dan Abrams) have been impressed by Scarborough.

Right now Scarborough hosts a nightly show, Scarborough Country, at 9pm after Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Scarborough will again host the morning program next week, and a decision about a permanent host should be made very soon.

The latest from the land of CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News:

1. Jeff Greenfield is leaving CNN. He's going over to CBS to become part of their Election 2008 (or whatever CBS is calling it) coverage. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz says that Greenfield hasn't been too happy with the way CNN has been using him lately.

2. Dan Abrams to lose his title at MSNBC. Last year he got a promotion from on-air host/analyst to general manager, but it looks like Abrams will lose that title when the cable network moves from New Jersey to 30 Rock in NYC. The move probably won't happen until the end of the year.

3. Nancy Grace and John Gibson news. Both of their shows (Grace on CNN Headline News and Gibson over on FOX News) had "Breaking News" reports that Michael Jackson was really ill in the hospital, when he actually is just a little sick and not in the hospital at all. Yet more evidence that the "Breaking News" and "This Just In" and "Developing News" graphics are waaaaay overused. Don't the networks use judgment anymore?

[via TV Newser]

This seems like something that probably should have been done a while ago, but rumors have been in the air about MSNBC not renewing its lease in Secaucus, NJ and moving the entire operation to Manhattan. Makes sense, since NYC is the media capital and NBC is already housed at 30 Rock. Hey, maybe they can move there and rename the network 30 Rock? Oh, wait a minute...

I still think they should get rid of the MS part and just call it the NBC News Channel. Is Microsoft even a major player in the channel anymore, aside from having two letters in the name? They've already named Dan Abrams the new head and changed the graphics and thinking of moving to NYC, so why not go all the way and change the name too?

If you didn't notice (which is fine, people shouldn't obsess over things like this like we do), MSNBC debuted a new news crawl and new on-screen graphics this morning. So far, it's a thumbs down.

While CNN and FOX News have cleaner, squared off graphics, MSNBC has gone with funky, pointy boxes on the right hand side that show the time and the MSNBC logo, while the left hand side shows the stock report. It's great that they separated the time and stocks, so now both can be on the screen at the same time, but the way they've done the boxing, it looks odd (and the text on the screen sometimes overlaps the new graphics, which isn't good). The crawl is odd too, because it doesn't crawl across the entire screen, only half of it (the stocks block the rest of the screen), and since only so many words can stay on the screen at once, it takes several seconds to even figure out what the story is about (but maybe that's on purpose, to make you stick around longer).

The new MSNBC logo is good though. It keeps the colorful peacock but it's now a lot thinner. Too bad they didn't put good boxes and a better setup around it. And I think it's time to get rid of the "MS" part. Why not just make it NBC News Channel now?

Looks like there are a lot of changes coming to MSNBC in the next few months, and that might mean some hosts might be out of a job.

The first big change - and a shocking one - was the hiring of Dan Abrams as the new head of the news network. He was the top legal correspondent and host of the daily Abrams Report, and now he's in charge of the whole network. He says changes are coming, and it looks like many of the nighttime talk shows might be scrapped in favor of more taped reports and shows. As for daytime coverage, Abrams wants more "breaking news" coverage.

Two shows that won't be going anywhere? Countdown with Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews' Hardball.