Live MSNBC programming has been preempted over the last few days on some cable systems in some U.S. cities including Detroit and Sacramento due to the separate MSNBC feeds which occur during the Olympics. It's something first pointed out by InsideCableNews.

Some cable systems are getting a special MSNBC feed -- the so-called vanilla feed -- during the games that excludes Olympics coverage because they "chose" not to take the Olympics feed. But this also means that other daytime programs, including "Morning Joe" and "Daily Rundown" are being preempted, in some cases, by MSNBC's prison documentaries.

An NBCU spokesperson tells TVNewser, "There are a small handful of systems that chose not to carry NBC Universal's enhanced coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games. These systems receive a separate MSNBC feed, which does not include Olympic programming."

Credit: ICN

Unrelated to this issue, CNBC has adjusted its daytime schedule for the duration of the Olympics. "Mad Money airs at NoonET, "Fast Money" airs at 12:30pmET, and "Power Lunch" starts at 1pmET.

CNN hit new low viewership totals during prime time Friday night (8-11pm) in both Total Viewers and A25-54 viewers.

Up against NBC's Olympic Opening Ceremony coverage, CNN averaged just 85,000 A25-54 viewers during Campbell Brown (8p), Larry King (9p) and Anderson Cooper (10p). An average that low has not been seen since May, 23, 2001. And the Total Viewer average of 382,000 was the lowest since Dec. 23, 2005.

And while all the cable news channels saw reduced viewing levels due to the massive audience that flocked to NBC -- only CNN saw its audience cut in half from Thursday night in both younger viewers and Total Viewers.

	5p:	6p:	7p:	8p:	9p:	10p:	11p:
FNC	Beck:	Baier:	Shep:	O'Reilly:	Hannity:	Greta:	O'Reilly:
	617	466	376	713	515	451	491
CNN	Blitzer:	Blitzer:	Blitzer:	Brown:	King:	Cooper:	Cooper:
	149	162	101	68	75	112	110
MSNBC	Matthews:	EdShow:	Matthews:	Olbermann:	Maddow:	Olbermann:	Maddow:
	112	110	143	244	186	135	106
HLN	Prime:	Prime:	Issues:	Grace:	Behar:	Grace:	Showbiz:
	98	105	110	251	135	142	125

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CNN's Rick Sanchez tweets a video today in which he introduces the production and editorial staff of "Rick's List" while sitting at his desk in the CNN office (after the jump). Poor Alicia.

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It's official.

Charlie Gasparino has signed a multi-year deal with Fox Business Network. As TVNewser first reported Sunday night, Gasparino is making the jump from CNBC, where he was the network's on-air editor for the last four years.

At FBN, Gasparino will serve as a senior correspondent, appearing across all shows providing market updates and breaking news reports.

Gasparino, author of the new book, "The Sellout," was a senior writer at Newsweek before joining CNBC. His new gig at Fox Business is a return to the News Corp. fold. Gasparino worked as a reporter at The Wall Street Journal in the early 2000s. (Though the paper was owned by Dow Jones & Company at the time).

WaPo's "Washington Sketch" columnist Dana Milbank is working on a new book about Fox News' Glenn Beck called "Tears of a Clown." Our publishing industry blog, GalleyCat, has more details on the book that's to be published later this year.

Milbank is a former political analyst/contributor for both MSNBC and CNN.

Cartoonist Rob Tornoe notes that David Gregory often uses political cartoons as a part of the discussion on "Meet the Press," but Tornoe's not pleased that the names of the cartoonists have been regularly omitted. Like this Sunday, when Gregory pointed out a work by Mike Keefe, who's a cartoonist for The Denver Post.

Viewers left the show knowing none of that, since Gregory didn't bother to name the cartoonist, highlighting a large double-standard when it comes to political cartoonists as pundits. We're like Rodney Dangerfield; We get no respect! (via HuffPost)

John Cole, a cartoonist for the Scranton Times-Tribune, said the media often treats cartoons "like they're shells found on a beach or forwarded e-mail attachments."

A "Meet the Press" spokesperson tells TVNewser that omitting of cartoonists names was an unintentional oversight:

"We love cartoonists and cartoons which is why we like to show them on 'Meet the Press.' So often they perfectly capture and get to the heart of the matter. Not mentioning the cartoonists by name has been a completely unintentional oversight and we promise we will give them all the credit they deserve moving forward."

With the Presidents' Day stunner that Sen. Evan Bayh would be leaving the Senate, we wonder if TV will be the next stop for the outgoing Indiana congressman.

What do you think?

For the second year in a row, CBS News' "60 Minutes" is being awarded a George Polk Award in Journalism. The program is being honored with the television reporting prize for Steve Kroft's January 2009 segment titled "The Price of Oil." Leslie Cockburn produced. Scott Pelley's "The Waste Land" won last year. The awards luncheon takes place on April 7th.

Former NBC Chief Asia Correspondent Mark Mullen has found a new role at ABC News. He has been freelancing for the Los Angeles bureau of NewsOne, ABC's affiliate service, since mid-December.

Mullen was laid off by NBC at the end of 2008, just after returning from a two-year stint in Beijing covering stories for NBC News, including the 2008 Summer Olympics. It was part of a major round of layoffs made by NBC Universal that December.

From 1996 to the end of 1998, Mullen was a correspondent and anchor for ABC's "World News Now."

PRNewser reports that BBC Director of Global News and BBC Management Board Member Richard Sambrook is joining Edelman in May as the agency's Chief Content Officer. More info here.

Katie Couric will serve as emcee at the fourth annual Mirror Awards luncheon honoring excellence in media industry reporting. The Mirror Awards, sponsored by Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, will be held June 10 at New York City's Plaza Hotel.