Florida Republicans Gov. Charlie Crist and State House Speaker Marco Rubio are locked in a heated primary for Sen. Mel Martinez's U.S. Senate seat, and "Fox News Sunday" might soon have Chris Wallace moderate a debate between the two.

According to the Chicago Tribune's The Swamp, Rubio has already agreed and a date has been set -- March 28th on "Fox News Sunday" -- but Gov. Crist has yet to accept.

It would be a big get for "Fox News Sunday," which is coming off its best performance ever in the D.C. market thanks to a big snowstorm and a big sit-down Wallace conducted with Sarah Palin in Nashville.

We noted yesterday that NBC's David Gregory and CBS' Bob Schieffer weighed in on the Sunday show race, with Schieffer saying it had become "a three-way dogfight." While FOX broadcast numbers are still lower for "FNS" than programs on the big three, Wallace's show is now besting CBS in some top 25 markets year-to-date including Dallas, Atlanta, Detroit, and Tampa. "FNS" also gets a boost from replays on Fox News Channel.

We'll have the final numbers for Sunday's shows this Thursday.

	5p:	6p:	7p:	8p:	9p:	10p:	11p:
FNC	Beck:	Baier:	Shep:	O'Reilly:	Hannity:	Greta:	O'Reilly:
	835	629	559	1154	734	478	448
CNN	Blitzer:	Blitzer:	Blitzer:	Brown:	King:	Cooper:	Cooper:
	89	109	158	141	178	225	184
MSNBC	Matthews:	EdShow:	Matthews:	Olbermann:	Maddow:	Olbermann:	Maddow:
	46	112	205	302	230	181	157
HLN	Prime:	Prime:	Issues:	Grace:	Behar:	Grace:	Showbiz:
	119	97	129	245	167	155	143

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Fresh from anchoring Face the Nation on Sunday from Miami, Bob Schieffer headlined some special events this week at his namesake, the Schieffer School of Journalism at Texas Christian University.

A 1959 TCU alum, Schieffer is actively involved with the School. After all, he tells TVNewser, "if it's going to have my name on it, I want it to be the best."

On Monday, the CBS newsman co-hosted a free campus screening of 1987's Broadcast News with CBS' 48 Hours EP Susan Zirinsky. Zirinsky was a technical adviser on the film and the inspiration for Holly Hunter's character.

Then today, Schieffer and wife Pat helped cut a ribbon at the official dedication ceremony for the School's new multi-platform media convergence lab. "We're really proud of it," says Schieffer.

The lab is intended to help students prepare for a shifting media landscape. "It's tough," Schieffer says about the state of journalism. "And it is tough to get jobs...[But] you can't have a democracy without accurate information...there will always be a need for accurate information..."

His trip to Texas complete, Schieffer is now trying to get home to Washington — but his flight today was canceled due to weather. Schieffer instead is hoping to fly to New York tonight on Zirinsky's flight and then take Amtrak to DC tomorrow.

It's a busy pace that Schieffer loves. "I keep saying I'm going to retire, and then something happens, and I never do. I'm not!" he says with a laugh. He says he has a long-term, "open-ended" contract, and "so I'm just going to keep doing Face the Nation as long as they want me to do it."

(Photos: Chance Welch, TCU Daily Skiff)

"CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric was honored last night by the Bowery Mission at their Annual Valentine's Gala. The mission provides shelter, food, clothing and medical care to homeless and needy New Yorkers. Around Thanksgiving, Couric spoke about their work, and she and her daughters are frequent volunteers. WCBS-TV's Kristine Johnson and Chris Wragge emceed, Tony Bennett performed and Mayor Mike Bloomberg spoke.

After Sarah Palin delivered the keynote at the Tea Party Convention Saturday evening, a photo began making the rounds of her hand from the speech, which appeared to show notes she'd written down on it. The photo quickly became a popular joke in the news media.

Yesterday, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell appeared on "Morning Joe" and "The Daily Rundown" with her own notes written on her hand. Last evening on FBN's "Happy Hour," Eric Bolling had "Sarah 2012" written across his palm for the show. Not surprisingly, it was also brought up by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central last night (videos after the jump).

Now, CNN WH correspondent Ed Henry tweets this afternoon that Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is the latest to get in on it. Here's the video from CBS:

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For this week, CNN is taking yet another step away from the Associated Press, eschewing the agency's service for a trial run using only their own wires, reports the Washington Examiner:

As part of the test, the network will evaluate the need for an AP subscription, and will look to staff for feedback on how a lack of AP wires affects workflow. CNN already offers an external wire service to other news outlets.

As a network spokesperson points out, "CNN has made a conscious effort in the last few years to reduce our reliance on outside wire services." CNN launched CNN Wire in 2008 in an effort to compete against the Associated Press particularly for newspaper business.

CNN.com already does not use AP stories or photos and the network dropped Reuters in 2007. An attempt to move away from the AP for CNN's television network is another logical step, though the Examiner reports that some are a little apprehensive.

Pres. Obama made a rare appearance at the daily press briefing today taking questions from the assembled White House Press Corps, with the first question going to Fox News correspondent Major Garrett. The second went to ABC's Jake Tapper.

The last press time Pres. Obama had a full scale news conference was in July. Just yesterday, The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz spoke with members of the press corps who were not happy with the lack of access to Obama. "It's a source of great frustration here," said CBS's Chip Reid.

Developing...

> 1:48pm: After the third question, Obama says he'll take two more questions... "I just want to be sure I'm getting a balance here," says the president who then calls on NBC's Chuck Todd. Todd's colleagues groan. "He's too good, his questions are going to be too precise," says a colleague.

> 1:53pm: ABC News Radio's Ann Compton got the last question. "Thank you for doing this, it's been a while," says Compton.

> 1:59pm: Obama takes one more question related to jobs.

> More: The briefing became a Twitterpalooza. As NBC's Savannah Guthrie snapped a Twitpic of Garrett asking his question, White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton tries to keep the press corps to focused.

> More, more: No Helen Thomas in the front row. "I guess she's snowed in," speculates an insider.

The view from Savannah's seat, after the jump...

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Starting tomorrow Willie Geist will broadcast his "Way Too Early" show even earlier from Vancouver as part of MSNBC's coverage of the Winter Olympic games.

Geist will host the show at 2:30amPT giving the show a "late night feel." Think Carson Daly, only colder. Geist will stay up for "Morning Joe" and contribute to other NBC News shows as well.

MSNBC will also air three live shows hosted by Lester Holt and Chris Jansing. The 90-minute Olympic update shows will air at 5:30pmET on Friday, Feb. 19, Thursday Feb. 25 and Friday, Feb. 26.

MSNBC will air 100 hours of Olympic coverage beginning Saturday including hockey, curling, speed skating and figure skating.

More in the press release after the jump...

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"NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" was was the most-watched evening news program last week, averaging 10 million viewers.

"ABC World News with Diane Sawyer" was second and was the only newscast to increase viewers week-to-week. "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric" was third.

"World News" cut into NBC's lead year-to-year, but "Nightly" is the only newscast with a season-to-date average that's up year-to-year (corrected).

Numbers for the week of Feb. 1:

	NBC	ABC	CBS
• Total Viewers:	10,000,000	8,580,000	6,480,000
• A25-54:	2,980,000	2,510,000	1,990,000

Fox News was the #2 cable network in primetime last week, averaging around 500,000 viewers less than #1 USA Network. MSNBC came in #27 and CNN was #33 in primetime. In total day, Fox was the #4 cable network, while CNN was #28 and MSNBC was #35. You can see the full cable network rankings after the jump.

In the rankings for cable news programs, Fox again had the top 13 led by "The O'Reilly Factor," which averaged almost 4 million viewers the week of Jon Stewart's appearance. FNC's late-late night program, "Red Eye," which airs at 3am on the east coast, ranked ahead of CNN's primetime programs in the A25-54 demo.

The top non-FNC show in the demo was HLN's "Nancy Grace," while MSNBC's "Countdown" was the top non-FNC show in total viewers. HLN's "Showbiz Tonight" and "Morning Express" were also in the demo top 20. After the jump, you can see the cable news program rankings for last week (by demo viewers).

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CNBC's Mark Hoffman knows TV. He also know a lot of people. He's combining his knowledge of both for a video for his son's bar mitzvah later this month.

According to Page Six, the video will include NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer even Yankee slugger Derek Jeter.

"Mark wanted to hire the best," CNBC spokesman Brian Steel tells the Post. "It was long ago company-approved, and he will be paying for it out of his own pocket."

	5p:	6p:	7p:	8p:	9p:	10p:	11p:
FNC	NewsHQ:	FNSunday:	Report:	Huckabee:	Hannity:	Geraldo:	Huckabee:
	294	162	126	53	53	175	170
CNN	Amanpour:	Newsroom:	Newsroom:	Special:	King:	Newsroom:	Special:
	106	72	37	34	42	150	123
MSNBC	Special:	Special:	Special:	Special:	Special:	Special:	Special:
	213	199	205	183	153	219	287
HLN	HLN:	Prime:	Issues:	Grace:	Behar:	Grace:	Showbiz:
	72	31	33	46	35	76	129

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