“Today is the exact day we launched…..February 4, 2002.  Incidentally, right before Feb. 4, 2002, I had just had the bags under my eyes fixed and because I was still swollen, I did still look a bit like the Pillsbury Doughboy, didn’t I?     I got so much media attention for being open about plastic surgery that ON THE RECORD at 10pm got a huge media launch.  Everyone one was talking about it.  It was incredible – even the cover of People Magazine!  Although it was certainly not planned to be a marketing ploy, it ended up being a phenomenal to launch a show.  Even when the critics had something to say about me they mentioned our new show…and mentioning the new show – regardless of what was said – was big for our launch!  It is buzz!  It didn’t matter what they were saying – it mattered that they were saying it and paying attention and telling everyone else about the new show.  Buzz gets everyone paying attention.   No other cable news show has ever gotten a media launch like that and the funny thing?  It did not cost Fox a dime.  It was total luck.  At the time I thought – if only I were smart enough to have planned it to work out this way…but it was just plain luck.

Besides working with great people, and having great friends, I have had lots of luck.  I was extraordinarily lucky to have been chosen by Roger Ailes to anchor the new Fox cable show at 10p.   Frankly, he could have picked a lot of people – there are a lot of good people out there – but he picked me.

I also know and have told ALL OF YOU many times here on GretaWire, you are a GIANT part of the success of ON THE RECORD at 10pm for 10 years straight.  Without you, we would not be successful – and we sure would not be #1 for 10 straight years without you.

And, of course, with GretaWire, I feel like I know many of you and that you are my friends – even on those occasions when you are clobbering me for something I said or did  (and yes, many times I may deserve it.)  But, what is fun is that even when we get into the occasional dust up with each other we all get over it and move on.  I love good strong debate.”

Jonathan Fickies/Bloomberg News

Salesforce.com, best know for its sales, customer service and collaboration software for business, is raising its ambitions by aiming at the international businesses and sales to foreign governments that have been the mainstays of companies like I.B.M.

On Monday, the company named Vivek Kundra its executive vice president of emerging markets. Mr. Kundra was the country’s first chief information officer from March 2009 until August 2011. His job was to move the government’s computer infrastructure spending — $80 billion a year — toward cloud computing. Mr. Kundra has extensive experience in technology at several levels of government, and has been a frequent visitor to the technology industry’s conferences.

Mr. Kundra said in an interview that his work would consist of showing “how Salesforce can close the technology gap” between traditional business and the faster-moving industry typified by consumer applications like Facebook andTwitter. Governments, and many overseas businesses, he said, “are still focused on the old model.”

At present, nearly 68 percent of Salesforce’s revenue is from the United States and Canada. Another 18 percent is from Europe and the remaining 14 percent is from the Asia-Pacific region. Africa and the Middle East are not broken out as separate regions. I.B.M., by comparison, has selected Africa as one of its top growth markets.

Though his title indicates he will oversee development and sales in places Salesforce barely reaches, Mr. Kundra indicated he would use his experience and connections to reach out to governments everywhere.

“The developed nations are all facing challenges in terms of their financial health,” Mr. Kundra said. “They can look at their operating expenses and see Salesforce as a disruptor.” He said that Salesforce would present itself to developing nations as a provider of “new services,” like health care delivered over mobile networks. The overall strategy will be developed over the next few months, he said.

The main benefit of Mr. Kundra’s experience may be in cost savings, as well as project implementation. “When I was in the public sector, $26 billion of that $80 billion was in projects years behind schedule or not working,” Mr. Kundra said. “The cloud can save money. I’ve seen it first hand, whether in D.C. or in the federal government.”

Given his relatively short tenure in the federal government, the cost savings produced during his time there was not clear. Mr. Kundra has also worked in similar jobs for the State of Virginia and the District of Columbia, where the installation ofGoogle Apps, instead of traditional office productivity software, was said to have saved about 87 percent.

Mr. Kundra has also been an outspoken advocate of sharing government data with the public as a means of creating low-cost information and business software applications.

Here is Mr. Carr’s column from Monday’s New York Times:

When I saw the story last week about Keith Olbermann and Current TV lawyering up, I couldn’t help thinking, My, that was quick.

It was just six months ago that I wrote an article for The New York Times Magazine about the well-traveled anchor’s bold new partnership with Current TV, the low-rated liberal cable channel co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore.

I wondered how Current TV and the hot-headed Mr. Olbermann would get along, but back then, it was all hugs and hopeful rhetoric. At a Yankees game I attended with Mr. Olbermann, he said he was looking forward to working at a place where he would hold the title of chief news officer and where the corporate meddling would be at a minimum. Mr. Gore was similarly upbeat in a phone conversation for the article.

“Yes, he is a piece of work in all that that implies, but I have read all kinds of things about him and the Keith Olbermann I know is a good friend, extremely intelligent and uniformly positive,” Mr. Gore told me, adding, “The relationship is way more textured than owners and an employee. We are partners and friends, and this will be the first time that he has been an equity participant and co-owner of a channel that he works at.”

That didn’t seem to count for much on Tuesday night when Mr. Gore found himself participating in Current TV’s coverage of the Iowa caucuses while Mr. Olbermann was nowhere in sight. Without the star power of Mr. Olbermann and the trappings of a well-financed news outfit, the former vice president looked as if he were trapped in the studio of a midsize public access station.

Meanwhile, Mr. Olbermann refused to participate in any programming outside the parameters of his regularly scheduled “Countdown,” a show where he has all but taken himself hostage by broadcasting against a black backdrop. The motif scans as a running protest against the technical problems at the channel, with a candle lit to mark the start of the vigil. That nice, gooey start-up rhetoric now seems very far away.

Mr. Olbermann did excellent on-air work for CNN, Fox, ESPN, and MSNBC, but that never stopped him from burning bridges faster than they could be built. It rarely ended well in spite of his skills.

As it turned out, past performance was a good predictor of results going forward. Current executives have been reduced to communicating with their biggest talent through his manager and lawyer, with both sides working the media to get their story out. By creating drama in yet another high-profile assignment, Mr. Olbermann could be running out of options, but don’t bet the house on that, given how desperate cable channels are for anyone who can generate ratings, never mind the rough edges.

Having worked for big, moneyed cable outfits in the past, Mr. Olbermann was clearly disappointed in the deep technical problems at Current TV, a cable news start-up that had trouble producing live news programming, including “Countdown,” his 8 p.m. show. He declined to lead the channel’s special political coverage until those problems were resolved, but Current TV officials called his bluff and went ahead without him, pre-empting his show in the process. It was a game of chicken in which everybody ended up with egg on their faces.

The impasse has been remarkable to behold, even if few people are watching. Mr. Olbermann, who is reportedly being paid $50 million over the course of a five-year contract, had more than a million viewers when he left at MSNBC at the start of last year, but in the most recent ratings period, he was reaching just 200,000 people a night at Current TV, according to Nielsen. He’s been very disappointed in those numbers, and the fact that the channel has hired talent and built out capacity on the West Coast without his input. After a summer of production problems that never seemed to be resolved, a power failure darkened his studio last month. He responded by sitting in the dark.

Current TV executives are going through all kinds of gyrations to patch things together, while at the same time expressing surprise that Mr. Olbermann is acting like, well, Mr. Olbermann. When I talked to David Bohrman, president of the channel, he praised the quality of Mr. Olbermann’s show; but when I asked him about coverage of the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday night, all he could say on Friday was, “I hope Keith is part of our political coverage on Tuesday night and beyond,” adding, “That’s up to him.”

(Over the weekend, both sides said that progress had been made, and that although Mr. Olbermann will not be in front of the camera on Tuesday, he will be involved in Current’s election coverage on future nights. He confirmed as much on Twitter late Sunday. Earlier Sunday a spokeswoman for the channel said, “He’s told us he will do upcoming special election coverage, we hope he does and we would love for him to do it.”)

Mr. Olbermann’s contractual rights at Current TV are significant — he has control over the content of his show and his lawyers have argued that the channel has no right to pre-empt it for special election coverage — and management has very little leverage over him. So the channel is left to check his Twitter updates for indications of his mood, which is usually not very good.

Executives at Current TV told me they contacted Mr. Olbermann two months before the Iowa caucuses about being the anchor and executive producer of their coverage, and he declined. Mr. Olbermann thought it was silly to attempt to expand coverage when the channel’s marquee show lacked reliable production. But that didn’t stop him from calling in his staff for a news meeting on the day of the Iowa caucuses as if his show were going to appear, when he clearly knew that no such thing was going to happen, a pretty callous stunt by any measure. It fell to Mr. Bohrman to send a memo to the staff saying there would be no installment of “Countdown” that night. Ugly business, that.

But if Mr. Olbermann is disappointed in the widespread technical failures at Current TV, it should be pointed out that he helped choose the studio, an old building on the far west side of Manhattan that has turned out to be a lemon. He is a part of the management team, and you generally don’t get to rail against the Man if the Man is you.

Executives at the channel say the embarrassing public fight has more to do with his unwillingness to play, let alone play well, with others. Which is kind of a running meme in Mr. Olbermann’s career, but this time was supposed to be different.

By enrolling him at a high level in the remaking of Current TV and keeping the bureaucracy at a minimum at the small, privately held company, Mr. Gore and Joel Hyatt, the founders, hoped that the brilliant but chronically oppressed anchor would find the angel of his better nature. No angel has been forthcoming. Instead Mr. Olbermann has expressed multiple grievances through letters from his lawyers.

(Problems have only deepened since Mark Rosenthal, a chief executive Mr. Olbermann got along with, left in the middle of last summer and Mr. Bohrman, an experienced news executive, was brought in from CNN.) Current TV wants to be a player in the cable news/opinion world and most especially in the 2012 election, but their production capabilities are not ready for prime time and the man who was supposed to take the lead has barricaded himself within the four corners of his show and, so far, he’s not coming out. Mr. Hyatt, who is also the chief executive of Current TV, did not see that coming when we spoke last May.

“We think of Keith as our partner and as our friend,” he said then. “We don’t think of him as our employee, we don’t think of him as we’re a conglomerate and management, he’s the talent or worse, the employee.”

He was right about the last part. If Mr. Olbermann were simply an employee, they could tell him to show up at 7 p.m. Tuesday to anchor coverage of the New Hampshire primary. They can’t, and he won’t.

Vice President Al Gore made a stunning, unexpected return to politics for the 2012 Iowa Caucus as a political analyst for his own cable channel, Current TV.

For those who migrated over to watch Keith Olbermann, there was a moment of shock and awe as the former vice president and 2000 presidential candidate gave his political views on the Republican candidates, Supreme Court decisions, Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and the perils of being called a “flip flopper.”

With hands pressed together, fingers intertwined, and wearing a sports coat with an open collar French blue shirt, VP Gore pointed out the “most significant endorsement of the day” occurred outside of Iowa: Rupert Murdoch electrified the Twitteratti with his tacit endorsement of candidate Rick Santorum as the “only candidate with genuine big vision” for the United States. Gore went on to point out the political impact for all the candidates of the Murdoch tweets saying, “Romney cannot be very happy.” With his analyst hat squarely on his head, Gore reminded the audience of Senator Santorum’s very big loss in his re-election bid in Pennsylvania: “For an incumbent to lose by 18 points…. the vulnerabilities in his record is responsible for the 18-point loss.”

Gore was angry when he talked about Ron Paul’s comments about race saying, “The messages were so shockingly racist, outright racist. It’s just not enough to let that stand there when there are things beyond the newsletters…. I think we are kidding ourselves.”

Surrounded by unidentified “Young Turks” and former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, Gore reminded the audience of how his re-election campaign bloodied GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole “in 1996 because the Clinton Gore campaign ran a lot of ads in the heartland… against Dole.”

He compared it to the negative ads run by independent groups against Gingrich in Iowa saying, “that opened the proverbial flood gates… devastating on Newt Gingrich.”

The former vice president seemed to struggle to be measured about Gingrich, stating, “He has an interesting mind. I am trying to be charitable. I don’t think we have seen the last of him. Unlike the proverbial cat he probably only has three lives… he has a role to play in this unfolding drama.”

When asked by Current TV host Cenk Uygur if Gingrich will survive this, Gore replied, “He still has something to say,” and with a nod “the media on all sides has an interest in keeping this going. He will go to South Carolina and probably Florida.”

Gore spoke directly to Democrats saying that, “Should they count so much corporate money and special interest money trying to defeat president Obama we cannot lose sight of how it tilts the playing field,” with this final warning, “And nobody knows where it comes from.”

Like the veteran vote counter he is, Gore points out: “It’s no long winner take all before March 1 on the republican side. It stays that way… that is the delegates they will get and it still gives a slingshot effect. The person that wins, gets the prize. It’s still a significant thing to come in first.” No one in politics knows the pain and truth of these words more than Vice President Gore.

Welcome back to politics, Mr. Vice President.

Tammy Haddad, President, Haddad Media, co-founder, White House Correspondents Insider, and former MSNBC Vice President for Washington.

“Now that Iowa is behind us, it’s on to New Hampshire. ABC airs a GOP debate Saturday night and NBC has one Sunday morning — both with one less candidate — as a special “Meet the Press” and inconjunction with Facebook.

MTP goes live at 9amET each Sunday, but airs at various times on NBC affiliates across the country. But this Sunday, the debate will also air live on MSNBC at 9am. At the same time, this page will be up and running for Facebook users to ask questions and share thoughts about the candidates.

For the past few months NBC News and Facebook have been asking voting-age users what they think is the most pressing issue facing them. Here’s the break down:

In New Hampshire:
Economy: 58%
Federal Budget Deficit: 19%
Health Care: 11%
Illegal Immigration: 6%
Foreign Policy: 5%

Nationally:
Economy: 56%
Health Care: 12%
Illegal Immigration: 9%
Foreign Policy: 5%
Federal Budget Deficit: 5%.

The NBC News Facebook Debate on “Meet the Press” will also:
• air live and re-air on MSNBC
• air live on New England Cable News (NECN) throughout New Hampshire and New England
• stream live and be available on demand on msnbc.com and on facebook.com/Uspolitics”

“During the long night that was the 2012 Iowa Caucus, Fox News came out on top in the ratings. For the first contest of the 2012 GOP presidential nomination process, FNC averaged 2.6 million Total Viewers in primetime. That’s about what the network does on an average night, but it doubled CNN’s take of 1.3 million (which is about double what CNN does on an average night). FNC also lead in A25-54 viewers averaging 683,988. Among the three cable news channels, Fox News was also the only one to see Total Viewer and A25-54 increases from the 2008 Iowa Caucus, when Democrats and Republicans both had candidates vying for their party’s nomination.”

• Primetime (8-11pmET)

FNC: 2,630,909 / 683,988 A25-54
CNN: 1,310,366 / 486,184 A25-54
MSNBC: 1,195,230 / 302,631 A25-54

• Full night (7pmET to-3amET)

FNC: 2,144,817 / 636,868
CNN: 999,518 / 390,118
MSNBC: 932,412 / 258,602

• Ratings Peaks

FNC: 10:00-10:15pm with 3.1M / 880,000 A25-54
CNN: 10:15-10:30pm with 1.5M / 664,0000 A25-54
MSNBC: 10:00-10:15pm with 1.3M; 12:00-12:15a with 385,000 A25-54

• Comparisons to Iowa 2008 (7pm-3amET):

FNC: +30% in Total Viewers / +7% A25-54
CNN: -36% in Total Viewers / -38% A25-54
MSNBC: +1% in Total Viewers / -36% A25-54

(Source: Nielsen Fast Nationals)

CLICK on http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/fox-news-leads-in-coverage-from-iowa-peaks-with-3-1-million-at-10pm_b105138

Two women get rare promotions in the cable news world. Rachel Maddow is MSNBC’s sole anchor of their coverage and new CNN anchor Erin Burnett has earned a slot on the CNN’s election desk.  Keith Olbermann anchors CURRENT TV’s coverage.  Here is the New York Times’ Brian Stetler’s preview of your favorite channel’s coverage.

“America’s trifecta of cable news channels, Fox News, MSNBC and CNN, are just about ready to show off their election year staffs.

Each channel plans to cover the one-night Iowa caucus for a stretch of several days, maximizing both their investments in the state and the ratings potential of a Republican presidential campaign.

On caucus night, Jan. 3, each channel will replace its usual prime time schedule with special reports. The extensive coverage plans highlight the importance of politics to the bottom lines of the cable news channels.

Past ratings indicate that the more seriously the channels treat events like the Iowa caucus, the more viewers tune in. So the networks are starting early.

Candy Crowley, the chief political correspondent for CNN, will report from Iowa starting Wednesday. Chris Matthews will anchor his MSNBC show, “Hardball,” from there starting Thursday, and the MSNBC anchors Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell will be there starting Friday.

But the coverage will be most visible starting Sunday, when the weekly public affairs programs like “Fox News Sunday,” anchored by Chris Wallace, and “State of the Union,” anchored by Ms. Crowley, will emanate from the state. On Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern, both Fox and CNN will have caucus previews.

On Monday, the day before the caucus, more cable anchors will plant themselves in Iowa, including the Fox News anchor Shepard Smith and the cast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Sean Hannity also will have his radio show and prime time Fox show there.

A new generation of anchors have stepped up since the last presidential election, so the coverage this year will look quite different than it did on Iowa caucus night in 2008. Back then, Brit Hume and Mr. Wallace led Fox’s coverage; this time, the co-anchors will be Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly.

They will both be in Iowa beginning Sunday. On Tuesday, they will be on from 8 to 11 p.m.; Mr. Hannity will then be on until midnight.

Similarly, in 2008, Keith Olbermann and Mr. Matthews led MSNBC’s coverage; this time, Rachel Maddow will be the main anchor, joined by Mr. Matthews and the channel’s other three prime time hosts, Ed Schultz, Lawrence O’Donnell and the Rev. Al Sharpton.

They will be on from 6 p.m. until midnight; then Chris Hayes, a weekend host, will be on until 1 a.m.

Current TV, the upstart competitor to MSNBC, has scheduled four hours of special caucus coverage on Tuesday starting at 7 p.m.

CNN’s top two anchors back in 2008, Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper, will be on again this year, but joined this time by Erin Burnett, who joined the network earlier this year from CNBC. They will also be joined by Ms. Crowley and John King, who will be stationed at his “Magic Wall.”

They will be on from 7 p.m. to midnight, when Piers Morgan will take over for an hour.

CNN, which generally is lower rated than Fox or MSNBC, but benefits from big periods of breaking news, seems to be positioning itself as a nonpartisan option for viewers who perceive Fox to favor Republicans and MSNBC to favor Democrats.

In a news release on Wednesday, CNN’s Washington bureau chief, Sam Feist, said, “As the only cable news channel that has not chosen a side in this election, CNN will tap into the expertise of our anchors, reporters and analysts to equip viewers with information to decide for themselves about the candidates.”

The main anchors for the network news divisions also will be in Iowa for the caucus. Additionally, CBS says that Bob Schieffer, the Sunday morning “Face the Nation” host, will be an anchor on “The Early Show” on the morning of the caucus. “The Early Show” is being replaced a few days later by a new morning program called “CBS This Morning.”

CNN, meanwhile, is using the caucus to introduce its new morning team. On Tuesday, Ashleigh Banfield and Zoraida Sambolin will start their new 5 to 7 a.m. shift, and Soledad O’Brien will start her new 7 to 9 a.m. shift.”

Christopher Hitchens and Graham Moore

Every pundit that has tried to make a point, throw a punch, or declare victory should pause today to salute Christopher Hitchens.

He burst on the U.S. media scene first on William F. Buckley Jr.’s television series Firing Line, then on CNN’s Larry King Live and Crossfire in the early Reagan Presidency. He (along with now presidential candidate Newt Gingrich) knew immediately that cable television was the new media play for serious public policy combat. The “disruptors,” as our web friends say now. Hitchens didn’t talk to the empty chairs each night on C-SPAN as Gingrich did to make his points and show the American people that he was still at work, he just swung for the rafters with every comment on the only two cable shows.

Pat Buchanan, a great verbal brawler in his own right, is the only person I ever saw who could anticipate the blows. Hitch had a big fight with Bob Novak once on Crossfire and Bob banned him from the show for a while. It was like losing a world champion. I think Bob finally let us bring him back because he knew Hitch had real fight in him, and we kept bringing up his name.

Hitch was even more dangerous in person. The twinkle, the total confidence — he never missed anything. To be invited to Hitch’s home was Washington’s equivalent of the Vanity Fair Oscar party. There was no doubt that anyone who mattered would be there. With his incredible wife and partner, the writer Carol Blue, you knew you were at ground zero for intellectual conversation.

When longtime friend Christopher Buckley’s book, Thank You for Smoking, hit the movie screens, I attended a small dinner celebration at the Metropolitan Club. Being with these magical word masters and best of friends on such an important occasion was a total treat. These gladiators of language would throw something in the air and it would burst into fireworks dazzling those lucky enough to watch it rain down. It was then I decided the greatest TV show of all time would be The Dueling Christophers. (Yes, I did later pitch the idea to PBS.)

Carol, Hitch and I went to the Naval Academy to attend the memorial service for the father of our friend, Elizabeth Edwards. Hitch wanted to be there for his friend. After selling millions of books condemning religion, to my surprise, he gently sung all the hymns. I asked when the last time he was in a church and he said six months earlier at Bill Buckley’s funeral.

One of my favorite TV stories was when a young ABC News producer booked him to give funeral commentary for one his favorite targets, Mother Teresa. It was another brief but great Hitchens TV moment. You didn’t have to share his beliefs to share his passion for debate. He was voted one of the top five public intellectuals on a website for a publication only the very elite read; we used to joke he moved down the list when he quit smoking. In the last few years, when I was lucky enough to get to know him well, he was telling me about his summer plans. I interrupted him to tell him I already knew his exact schedule and told him every TV producer in town knew about his annual trips and his phone numbers at the various locations. He was a ringer, a sure thing, and we tracked him like a criminal to bring into an important show.

Last year I asked him if he would talk to a young writer, Graham Moore, who had just signed with Jonathan Karp at Hitch’s publisher, TWELVE. Hitch guided Moore through the publication of the best selling novel, The Sherlockian. During a book party for The Sherlockian at Vice President Biden’s home, Moore got to meet and thank Hitch for his mentoring. Despite serious health challenges, Hitch was determined to go and finally meet his protégé in person; and in the company of all who glitter in Washington no one twinkled more than Hitch, with Carol and his kids at his side. For a town and an industry still mourning the loss of Tim Russert, this is a painful day. So let’s drop our iPhones and iPads, and raise a glass to remember a great gladiator.

While I enjoy Michael’s like the next media maven, what’s so wrong with covering the leader of the free world 30 feet from his office and home? Grove’s complaint about Robert Gibbs tweeting reminds of when we began putting Ross Perot and President Bush and a former governor by the name of Bill Clinton on Larry King Live in 1992.  Our newsroom colleagues lamented the end of journalism, but social media didn’t just start on the Internet; interactivity has always been an important part of journalism.

Ask Dan Pfeiffer, the president’s communications director, how much his press shop likes responding to the five reporters who call with follows on each White House reporters’ tweet.  Take a quick look at the stories and interviews done by NBC’s Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie as well as ABC’s Jake Tapper; you want them to pull back and tweet from Café Milano?

Tell WHC Insider what you think after reading Lloyd Grove’s column.