Catch her in Carnegie Hill. (ABC/Donna Svennevik)

When we saw that Nightline co-host Cynthia McFadden had sold her three-bedroom co-op at 129 East 69th Street last week, we wondered where she would be moving. Like the 11:35 p.m. time slot on ABC, a pre-war co-op in a white glove Lenox Hill building is prime real estate.

The answer is Carnegie Hill (and, if you're watching ABC, it's 12:35 a.m.). The famed journalist tells The Observer that she and her teenaged son are upgrading to a four-story brownstone on the Upper East Side neighborhood.

"It has beautiful qualities—squeaky stairs, old fireplaces, a great kitchen. It's a wonderful place to entertain," said Ms. McFadden, who had just come back from Washington DC after interviewing Hillary Clinton. (If you're wondering whether Jimmy Kimmel has ever interviewed Hillary Clinton the answer is no, he has not.)

When Ms. McFadden is not speaking with the former Secretary of State and possibly future POTUS, she's planning to do a lot of cooking and gardening in the new place.

"Work has me on the road a lot, but I'm really a homebody," she said. "You'll find me with dirty hands in the backyard."

Ms. McFadden told us that the she bought the new place under ask, for some $5 million; it was listed with Brown Harris Stevens brokers Ann Jeffery and Daniel Kessler. Corocoran broker Sharon Baum, who sold Ms. McFadden's co-op for $3.23 million, represented her in this transaction.

Besides a bigger kitchen and a garden, the newswoman had another reason for making the change.

"The house is not huge, but it seems huge to me. I have a teenaged son, so this allows him to escape," said Ms. McFadden. "I just hope he'll allow his mother to come up to the fourth floor to fumigate."

kvelsey@observer.com

The news was first reported in a press release from ABC that announced a number of staffing changes at the network.

"Jake is leaving ABC News for an opportunity at CNN.  You’ll hear more about his new anchor role from his new network," wrote ABC. "For years, Jake has set the pace for the White House press corps.  A ferocious reporter – and now a best-selling author – he has built a reputation as one of the most prolific and multi-talented journalists on the beat, scoring scoop after scoop."

Mr. Tapper's new network released their statement moments after the ABC announcement came out.

“We are thrilled to have Jake join CNN and take the helm of a brand new weekday program,” said Ken Jautz, executive vice president of CNN/U.S. “Jake is an exceptional reporter and communicator, and we look forward to developing a program that takes advantage of all of his strengths, his passion and his knowledge of national issues and events.”

“With CNN’s impeccable reporting during the elections and the exciting changes in the works for the network, this is a perfect time to join the CNN team,” Mr. Tapper said, in CNN's release. “I am excited about the prospect of working with both the new leadership and some old friends and colleagues.”

Mr. Tapper made news yesterday when he asked Barack Obama where he has been on gun control during the president's press conference on gun policy.

The new not normal (CBS)

So we already knew that David Pogue was a little bit...off. The New York Times reporter has a reputation for being both the most famous tech writer in the country as well as the most controversial. He's been accused of shilling for Apple and FoxConn, which produces Apple products, and possibly dating one of their publicists. These are all pretty sketchy things.

But nothing explains this Christmas video he made for CBS Sunday Morning, where he appears as a weekend tech consultant correspondent in a strange, non-conflict of interest arrangement. In the video he plays Techno Claus who for some reason sounds a lot like Mike Myers's Linda Richman in "Coffee Talk." And that's just the beginning.


So just some quick notes here:
a) Although he doesn't blatantly promote any Apple gizmos, Techno Claus does include a $30 Monopoly game which is only different from regular Monopoly because you use your iPad to transfer the fake cash, and appears to be holding an iPhone while plugging the POP Bluetooth handset. And there are about five iPads sitting in the shot where he tries to sell $100 wireless speakers.

b) "You might think I'm hiding some elf puppeteers, but no—these are actually brain-controlled ears!" is something an INSANE person might say.

c) This product also power to control the brains of four high-school-aged girls, who all rush to kiss the 49-year-old in a Santa costume and brain-controlled cat ears.

d) No seriously, why is he talking like that?

e) The part where he suggests a Kindle for a good Christmas gift because it's cheap, and then spends the whole time deriding it for not being more like a tablet.

f) For Techno Claus, these are all pretty shitty presents. Most of them existed last year, and with the exception of the GPS dog tracker, none of them actuallymake your life easier. (Just weirder, and potentially involving a statutory rape conviction.)

Then again, what else can you expect from the guy who started his 2006 TED Talk with a parody of "Sound of Silence" that morphs into a weird confession about how he fantasizes about the guys from tech support dying in motorcycle crashes?

Well, whatever. Who's to judge. We're not the ones with the Emmy or NYT column, after all.

The show was nowhere near as racy and edgy as the posters might lead a person to believe.

It looks like 666 Park Avenue learned the hard way that the only thing harder to find than a sprawling rent-controlled apartment was renewal for another 13 episodes.

The supernatural evening soap opera, which was shameless when it came to the inaccurate portrayal of  Manhattan real estate, has been evicted from ABC's Sunday night lineup for a lackluster performance, according to Variety.

There's nothing scarier than failing to attract viewers.

Did viewers simply become fed up with having to pretend the Ansonia was on the Upper East Side? Were they angry that we never got to see that dramatic spiral stair featured so prominently in the ads (a spiral staircase that the real Ansonia actually has)?

Did they, like us, spend their time thinking that whatever miseries were visited upon poor Jane they couldn't possibly be that bad. After all, she had a free Park Avenue apartment. We would watch her shiver and beg to leave and we'd feel nothing so much as disgust. Let her try a dingy studio in Washington Heights that costs half her income.

No, probably the cancellation had more to do with the erratic plot, the wooden acting, the lack of any sympathetic characters and for those who care about these kinds of things, the incoherence of the "evil" plaguing the building. Even The Shining's Overlook Hotel, whose bag of tricks was all over the place, made more sense than the Drake's evil. Maybe part of the problem was that the show spent half its time having the evil owners play fairy godparents to the two leads. Fancy dinners, diamond rings, designer dresses, job opportunities, all on top of that mouth-watering apartment.

Moreover, Jane and Henry were dull as dirt, their characters undeveloped. All they talked about was what a great opportunity for Henry this all was, how much the evil landlords had done for them, how much they loved one another and whether or not they should move back to Ohio. Jane, despite poking into all the odd corners of the building for us, was oddly complacent and complaint.

But now we're betraying the fact that we've actually been watching. It was kind of addictive. For those wondering what will become of the evil box or Jane's family secrets, ABC will screen the remainder of the first 13-episode order.

kvelsey@observer.com

- Rob Lowe, Stephen Colbert, and the cast of Modern Family will be filling in for Robin Roberts on Good Morning America this week while the ABC host undergoes a bone marrow transplant. Hey, we'd take a soggy piece of bread over last week's substitute, Jessica Simpson.

- Would you like to go bowling with Paul Rudd, Rashida Jones, Denis O'Hare, John Oliver, and not one but two stars of a Law&Order franchise? Of course you do. We don't even need to mention that the whole thing's for charity. You were already sold.

- Candace Bushnell keeps having to resettle the same old lawsuit with former manager (and alleged Stanford inspiration) Clifford Streit. She keeps giving him money for his part in helping her get Sex and the City on HBO, and he keeps telling her its not enough. She should just stop and ask herself, WWCBD?

-Alec Baldwin's dream Portlandia role: "A meat salesman with all kinds of charts and graphs of the loins and the sections of the pig and the cow and the organs." Just no pig, please...we're keeping kosher this week.

NBC has lost ground in the morning recently to ABC; their slipping in late-night may leave them without a single one of their areas of traditional dominance intact.

The difference between NBC's and ABC's comedy-centric strategies seems to be that ABC's series are all on-brand: titles using words like Parents, Family, and Neighbors. The network of Roseanne and the T.G.I.F. block got jolted back to its history after the success of Modern Family, and the Wednesday block of four family comedies (The Middle, Suburgatory, Modern Family, and The Neighbors)--to be preceded in January by a Tuesday night of similarly-oriented shows. Meanwhile, Thursday night's two hours of soaps (Grey's Anatomy and Scandal) are to be preceded at 8 by Last Resort, a risky military drama unlike the scandalous-drama-and-family-comedy ABC recipe. ABC's strategy might best be summed up on Sunday night, with two hours of broad family television--America's Funniest Home Videos and Once Upon a Time--followed by the Hamptons luxury-soap Revenge (moving into Desperate Housewives's old slot) and the new drama 666 Park Avenue.

Katie Couric (Getty Images)

Onetime queen of the morning Katie Couric is reclaiming her throne--for one short week. She'll be guest-hosting Good Morning America for the week beginning April 2, as part of her new utility-player duties at ABC in the leadup to her new chat show, Katie, in the fall.

This comes at a pivotal time for morning news, as Ann Curry reportedly is losing or has lost the esteem of her colleagues at Today (where she occupies Ms. Couric's old seat) and Matt Lauer ponders whether he can get more money elsewhere. A world-beating week for ABC might raise blood pressures among Today producers accustomed to first place.

That's your McD face.

Bonus footage: The awkward banter between ABC's World News Now cohosts Paula Faris and Rob Nelson. Does he really not know what an Angus Burger is? Did she really just make a "I love meat in my mouth" comment? They're like ABC's version of Kathy Lee and Hoda.

Kathy Griffin bares all

(Both videos via Mediaite, God bless them, which stood sentry all night to record the horror show.)