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John McCain's peace summit visit to CBS' "Late Show" gave David Letterman his highest viewership in nearly three years. The Thursday night telecast was seen by 6.5 million viewers, and received a 1.7 rating in the adult demo. That's the largest audience for the show since December, 2005, when Oprah Winfrey appeared. "Late Show" also topped Jay Leno's "Tonight Show" (4.6 million viewers) by 43%, and Leno had Joe Biden as a guest. "Can I give you an answer?" says McCain when ribbed about his previous appearance cancellation. "I screwed up." Last night marked McCain's 14th appearance on the show....

CBS fires Channel 2 boss Joe Ahern October 15, 2008 BY ROBERT FEDER Sun-Times Columnist In the end, there was no one else to blame and no one else to fire. Joe Ahern had six years, two months, two days and -- for much of that time -- a virtually unlimited budget to turn around the fortunes of WBBM-Channel 2. » Click to enlarge image Joe Ahern served six years as president and general manager of CBS-owned WBBM-Channel 2. He was fired today. (Courtesy) But in all that time and with all those resources, he left the CBS-owned station arguably...

Doesn't matter that John McCain promised to appear on David Letterman's CBS show Thursday, as a makeup for blowing him off earlier. Dave continued his ongoing pounding of McCain -- and Sarah Palin -- on his show Monday. It's like Dave doesn't believe McCain will show. From the monologue: "And the third presidential debate is Wednesday night. John McCain says he's going to win. John McCain is going to win the third presidential debate. Of course, he also told Custer the surge was working." "But it's going to be a big week for John McCain. Don't kid yourself. Today and...

What wouldn’t presidential candidates do for media hype? Tough question. What they would surely do, however, is get big bucks out of their pockets and buy network primetime. At least this is what the Democratic presidential nominee did. The Barack Obama campaign will pay NBC and CBS just under $1 million each so as to air the ad-program it will create for the first 30 minutes of primetime on October 29, according to documents released by the two networks. The established prices are far from reaching the standard fees an usual advertiser would be required to pay for a half-hour...

David Letterman and Sen. John McCain will get a chance to make up. The Republican presidential candidate is scheduled to appear on Letterman's "Late Show" on Thursday. It will be McCain's 13th visit to the CBS program but his first since he angered Letterman by canceling last month. Letterman was unhappy when McCain sat for an interview with Katie Couric instead of him on Sept. 24. At the time he said he first felt like a "patriot" to let McCain off his commitment to deal with the economy but "now I'm feeling like an ugly date." A McCain spokeswoman said...

NEW YORK (AP) — David Letterman and Sen. John McCain will get a chance to make up. The Republican presidential candidate is scheduled to appear on Letterman's "Late Show" on Thursday. It will be McCain's 13th visit to the CBS program but his first since he angered Letterman by canceling last month.

(CBS) Could a matter of race decide the Presidential election? Few voters are willing to say so out loud. But what are they thinking in private? Our cover story is reported now by Bill Whitaker: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's the vexing issue hiding in plain sight. "I know there are some people who won't vote for me because I'm black, and that's ok," said Democratic candidate Barack Obama. Even as the economy seems to be in freefall, as Americans grapple with whether to vote for Obama, the first African American presidential nominee, or his Republican opponent, John McCain, it's a decision unavoidably...

Sarah Palin will probably still beat his ratings when she appears on Saturday Night Live in two weeks, but Barack Obama is getting a pretty good deal. The first presidential candidate to buy up network TV time in 16 years, the Democratic nominee for President is getting primetime airspace at a sub-prime rate. Obama will reportedly only be paying $1 million to every network that airs his 30 minute infomercial on October 29. So far, both CBS and NBC will run the program. The campaign is reportedly still talking to ABC and FOX as well. Everything is above board. The...

SUMNER TAKES A FALL By PETER LAURIA October 11, 2008 -- Sumner Redstone had his own Black Friday yesterday. All three of the companies Redstone controls - National Amusements Inc., CBS, and Viacom - took hits as a result of the credit crunch. The most ominous move - and one that raised concerns that Redstone might be experiencing liquidity issues - came from movie theater operator National Amusements, which is being forced to sell $400 million of stock in Viacom and CBS to meet debt-covenant agreements. The sale will reduce Redstone's combined stakes in Viacom and CBS by 20 percent...

NEW YORK -- Barack Obama will pay NBC and CBS almost $1 million each for the campaign's half-hour ad buy in primetime Wednesday, Oct. 29, less than a week before the election. According to papers available at CBS's headquarters in New York, the campaign agreed Monday to pay $961,000 for the entire 8-8:30 pm time period. It wasn't clear whether that was in pattern, meaning it would run across all time zones at that period.

CBS Corp. (CBS) said Friday it expects to report adjusted earnings of 42 cents to 44 cents a share in the third quarter, adding that the economic slowdown has hit advertising revenues. Analysts surveyed by FactSet Research estimate earnings of 42 cents a share. snip

Obama buys airtime on networks for anniversary of Black Tuesday in 1929 By MARGARET TALEV McClatchy Newspapers Barack Obama is buying a half-hour slot on television networks in prime time Oct. 29, the anniversary of Black Tuesday of 1929, when panic in the stock markets set in ahead of the Great Depression. Obama, leaving a campaign stop in a diner in Georgetown, Ohio, on Thursday evening, declined to say whether he plans to address the current economic crisis in the context of the depression. He wouldn’t talk about the nature of the programming, saying, "We’re going to be talking about...

Obama purchases half hour of primetime on CBS, also in talks with FOX, NBC... DEVELOPING...

Despite the lies told by the press and by John Kerry, special forces did in fact try to kill Bin Laden at Tora Bora. The biggest challenge in the operation was in fact the terrain. Afghan fighters who were to actually lead the charge ended up turning on the US forces during a cease fire they had with al Qaeda. Then there is the big issue as told by the officer,

CBS) Shortly after 9/11, the Pentagon ordered a top secret team of American commandos into Afghanistan with a single, simple order: kill Osama bin Laden. It was America's best chance to eliminate the leader of al Qaeda. The inside story of exactly what happened in that mission, and how close it came to its objective has never been told until now. The man you are about to meet was the officer in command, leading a team from the U.S. Army's mysterious Delta Force - a unit so secret, it's often said Delta doesn't exist. But you are about to see...

Today, the National Stonewall Democrats issued the following statement in response by accusations from Governor Sarah Palin that sexual orientation is a choice: "John McCain chose a poor running mate, but he did not choose his sexual orientation. This is another example of why we need a pro-equality President like Barack Obama in the White House. For Governor Palin to suggest that individuals randomly choose their sexual orientation based on nothing but a whim is wrong and it repeats the talking points of the anti-gay special interests which continue to control the McCain/Palin campaign and the Republican Party."...

Katie Couric certainly set off a lot of buzz -- and a classic "Saturday Night Live" parody -- with her memorable interview with Gov. Sarah Palin. There's blogging speculation that CBS is holding back some devastating portion of the Palin interview. "Absolutely, positively not true," a CBS News spokeswoman said Tuesday. "A lot of buzz out there is not accurate." Couric interviewed Palin and presidential candidate John McCain on Monday's "CBS Evening News." Couric will offer another Palin installment from the campaign trail on Tuesday's broadcast, at 6:30 p.m. on WKMG-Channel 6. The "CBS Evening News" will present Palin and...

At the union this morning.... My daughter was at the union this morning for the media event....CBS was shooting live.... Many students showed up with pro McCain signs mostly made of posterboard and magic markers.... CBS was selectively 'removing' certain signs prior to the broadcast...then a few minutes later.....someone started handing out professionally made Obama signs. As this woman got near my daughter the nametag came into view.....the CBS producer was stacking the deck for Obama by personally passing out the signs..... Then the camera angles were set to cover the maximum number of those signs.....making the crowd look MUCH...

CBS News executives were red- faced yesterday trying to explain how David Letterman used unaired news footage of Sen. John McCain with Katie Couric to embarrass the Republican presidential candidate. McCain canceled his appearance on Letterman's show late Wednesday, several hours before he was due to appear - claiming he had to return to Washington to deal with the financial crisis.

(Sept. 26, 2008) "Couric Diminishes Gov. Palin" Media elites are deliberately trying to hide Palin's experience by refusing to call her governor: Quote: CBS News anchor Katie Couric ordered staff to drop all references to "Governor" or "Gov." from her interview with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. When a staff member pointed out that in other venues, Couric and CBS News had referred to Governor Palin's opponent, Joe Biden, using his title of "Senator" or the abbreviation, Couric, according to a CBS News editorial aide, sought approval from CBS News management to drop the "Governor" reference during her broadcast interview with...