Pat Kiernan. (Photo via NY1).

NY1 morning anchor Pat Kiernan's CNBC show Crowd Rules has been pulled off of the primetime schedule after just two weeks due to poor ratings, The New York Post reported (and Mr. Kiernan read on this morning's "In the Papers" segment). The business competition show, which was co-hosted by jewelery designer Kendra Scott, featured three small companies competing for $50,000 to save their business.

Just last week, a CNBC rep told the Post that the network was sticking with the show, despite the fact that it only got 47,000 viewers for the May 14 premiere episode.

“While the ratings were laughably low, the advantage of being first in business worldwide during the day is that you can have patience at night,” the Post quoted a CNBC rep as saying. But apparently it wasn't actually all that patient. Although the show has been pulled from the primetime line-up, there is still hope that CNBC will find a home for the six as yet unaired episodes, wrote The Hollywood Reporter.

"I agree that the ratings were dismal. But it's a good show with a nice mission that is capable of drawing a respectable audience if given time to grow," Mr. Kiernan told us via email. "There are 30 million small businesses in America. If one percent of those entrepreneurs found the show we'd have a number we could work with."

So what's next for the NY1 morning fixture?

"I guess my first response to that question is that there doesn't need to be an immediate answer. I love my NY1 gig," Mr. Kiernan said. Last Fall, Mr. Kiernan tried out to replace Regis Philbin on Live! With Kelly but the position ultimately went to former Giants defensive end Michael Strahan. "My desire to stretch my legs in other areas of programming shouldn't be interpreted as dissatisfaction with my morning job."

And there is always Jeopardy.

"I remain vigilant on the Jeopardy front," Mr. Kiernan told us. "At some point Alex will opt to retire and they'll have to find another Canadian to take over."

And then there is always the possibility of expanding the morning slot into something longer.

"Other partially developed ideas: I've brainstormed with my NY1 colleague Jamie Shupak about how we could best package our on-air chemistry for consumption in segments longer than 30 seconds," said Mr. Kiernan. "Also—I remain convinced that there's a way to meld 'In the Papers' with the sensibility of The Daily Show and do a funny but factual review of the day's news."

Correction: Although Crowd Rules has been pulled from the schedule, it has not been cancelled.

Jerry Stiller and Angela Lansbury. (Photo credit: Getty Images).

In a glossy media city that values professional polish, NY1, Time Warner’s no-frills news channel, enjoys a certain cult following, as evidenced by the high-profile fans who gathered at the New York Public Library last Thursday to celebrate two decades of “weather on the ones.”

The event reflected the unassuming charms of the station, where anchors style themselves and pan-away shots reveal a bullpen that is more Community than The Newsroom. Though there was an open bar, the wine glasses had thick stems, and the hors d’oeuvres, while tasty, might have arrived straight from Trader Joe’s.

“I love being part of New York City, and a part of New York City that is very unique is a small station called NY1,” said Jerry Stiller. “Pat Kiernan is wonderful with the newspapers. He starts reading them at 6 o’clock and you are ahead of the game already,” Mr. Stiller continued. “But there are no twists. It’s just the pure news; no other station does that.”

Earlier this year, Mr. Kiernan—whose In the Papers segment has made him as famous as one can be in New York without being famous everywhere—publicly lobbied to sit next to Kelly Ripa on Live! With Kelly at the more humane hour of 9 o’clock. Then, very publicly, he didn’t get the job. “It usually isn’t so public,” he told the Transom. “Even for TV jobs, you usually just go into a studio somewhere and the crew knows you are auditioning, but you haven’t had five million people critique your audition.”

Many of the guests at the anniversary party were relieved Mr. Kiernan didn’t get the gig.

“My girlfriend, Sandra, can’t live a day without it,” said Scott Adsit, who plays Pete the producer on 30 Rock. “We’ve been to a lot of Hollywood-type parties and Broadway-type parties, but I’ve never seen her this excited to meet celebrities in my life. She’s beside herself to be in the same room as Pat Kiernan.”

So he was trying to impress her?

“Yes! I’m trying to get some,” Mr. Adsit replied.

“Is that—what’s her name, the woman who does the parenting report?” Sandra Bauleo, Mr. Adsit’s tall brunette girlfriend, whispered. Indeed, it was Shelly Goldberg, who has been recommending kid-friendly activities to viewers for years.

Meanwhile, mayoral hopefuls (when asked, most said that they will announce “after the presidential election”) came to kiss Errol Louis’s ring. Mr. Louis hosts Inside City Hall, the nightly show about city politics.

“They are my constituents; I represented them when they were on 42nd Street and I represent them in Chelsea Market,” City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said.

“I’ve been watching NY1 literally since they started. I was on the Dinkins campaign,” said Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. “I’m a ‘weather on the ones’ type of guy. And of course, Inside City Hall.”

“There are two shows I DVR: the first is Boardwalk Empire and the second is Inside City Hall,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

Veteran NY1 anchors Roma Torre, Louis Dodley and Budd Mishkin accepted praise and blue Tiffany’s boxes—they were part of the original team of reporters who started 20 years ago.

“I couldn’t live without NY1. I wake up to it and I go to sleep to it,” said Angela Lansbury. “It’s like a very dear friend.” Ms. Lansbury hummed the channel’s soft-jazz theme music.

Waiters passed around miniature black-and-white cookies and cake lollipops. It was time to head home.

The anniversary party was the same night as the vice-presidential debate, so the library cleared out promptly as everyone rushed home to watch Joe Biden duke it out with his “friend, the congressman.”

The next morning, like always, we woke up to NY1

XXL Goes XL: Multiple sources familiar with the situation told The Observer that hip-hop magazine XXL is cutting back to "XL" (figuratively, but also, kind of literally). No, it won't be changing its name, but the 15-year-old magazine will be trimming down its publication schedule from nine to to six issues a year. It's another tough blow to music media in recent weeks, coming on the heels of the recent BuzzMedia acquisition of Spin (and subsequent layoffs that hit 11 of that magazine's 36 staffers). Along with the reduction in yearly newsstand appearances, XXL also experienced cutbacks on the editorial side, having hedged two staffers from the magazine recently.

XXL’s publisher Dennis Page indeed confirmed the newsstand cutback to six issues, as well as the staff cuts, but went on to explain that there would be no further layoffs there: "We're pretty much set for quite a while, but it is a rough environment. There's a big move to digital," but, he added, "we're still very much a newsstand publisher. We're still the number one selling music magazine (single copy) on the newsstand," which is accurate via an end-of-year 2011 audit (their first-half 2012 newsstand numbers are still under audit). So: If that is the case, why the cuts to the staff and regularity of the magazine, then? In Page's words: "It's just the economy, and all the related factors."

Barry Diller's Bid To Buy About.com, Dot Com: Reuters's Peter Lauria and Jennifer Saba are reporting that IAC chief Barry Diller is reaching into the war chest to compete with Answers.com for the purchase of About.com to the tune of $300M, three hundred million dollars, or $300,000,000.oo. Let that sink in for a moment. Also, this: "There are still interested buyers who feel that the $280 million price is low and can be easily matched." Shameless domain squatters everywhere are inspired. [Reuters]

Pat Kiernan's Revenge Narrative Begins ... Now: That spot that NY1’s Pat Kiernan was supposed to occupy next to Kelly Ripa as the new co-host of Live, With Kelly? It's going to former New York Giant Michael Strahan. Which: Huh? And that's how the world works, we guess. The beloved Kiernan will get his Big Time shot soon enough. Or turn into Bane. Hopefully the former. [TMZ]  

TINAWEEK! How serious is Tina Brown? And how serious of a question is that as anything but rhetorical? Tom McGeveran goes in: "Tina Brown is dressing up [Niall] Ferguson's failure as a provocation and conversation-starter." There's plenty more real talk where that came from. [Capital New York]

Primetime Gets Jimmy'd: So how did Jimmy Kimmel get his 11:30 spot that "Nightline" previously occupied? Simple: He wanted it. TV Newser hears he demanded it in his contract. [TV Newser]

Jay Gets Primetime'd: Speaking of network late-night—something so traditionally blasé and watered-down in its current state that we generally try to avoid that kind of thing altogether here—Jay Leno created the first compelling moment on his show in recent memory by laying into NBC's parent company, Comcast. It's actually a fairly decent joke. [Media Decoder]

Brûlé Torch Needed: If you, like the rest of the world, are convinced that the reader Monocle magazine aspires to cater to doesn't exist in any other iteration besides editor Tyler Brûlé, and that most people just buy it to appear ostensibly worldly, this back-and-forth between Andrew Goldman of the New York Times Magazine and Brûlé ...

I don’t know anyone like the people in Monocle, your current magazine, wearing exquisite clothes and traveling to exciting places constantly. 

"Maybe you’re not meeting them because they’re all in London on their way to a boat in the South of France to sail to Croatia. They’re out there, trust me."

... will do nothing to convince you otherwise. Just because this guy was shot in the hand does not mean you should trust him. You know who else got shot up and wanted you to trust him? Exactly. [NYT Magazine]

"Everyone Has His Asking Price." Finally, if you'll allow a moment of the self-referential stripe, this writer was on Russia Today last night discussing Mark Ames and Yasha Levine's S.H.A.M.E. Project, and their ethics hunting expedition for NPR’s “Planet Money”host Adam Davidson. 

Brief background: Ames and Levine found that the sponsor of “Planet Money,’ Ally Bank, had lobbied against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau prior to its creation, which Elizabeth Warren acts as a special adviser to. Davidson once famously and erratically conducted a notoriously hostile interview with Warren in the lead-up to the Bureau's creation, leading Ames and Levine to cite Ally's sponsorship of “Planet Money” as an insidious conflict of interest.

As it turns out, Ally Bank sponsored the hour of Russia Today that we were on last night, which, beginning at 6:03, we helpfully tried to point out ...

... all of which goes to say that (A) Why did we blink so much? And (B) everything is tied together, and all money and media share some figurative protoplasmic goo in one way or another, and everything will one day just evaporate. It also yielded one of the most odd and wonderful disclosures CNBC will ever publish—ever—courtesy John Carney, with who this writer is (full disclosure) part of a terrible media conspiracy of linking back to one another that has yet to find a sponsor as moneyed as Ally Bank. [NetNet/CNBC]

— — —

That's more than enough for today. Tips, disclosures, funny fortune cookies, Formsping.Me questions for Elizabeth Spiers and anything else, just send it right this way.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Pat Kiernan Deserves Better: According to a recent report, SNL head writer Seth Myers is inexplicably in the lead to be Kelly Ripa’s permanent co-host when she returns from vacation, while NY1 cult fan favorite Pat Kiernan is supposedly in "second." The world deserves better. [Showbiz 411]

Page Six as the NewsCorp Nuptials Page: Today in Page Six, an announcement about the birth of one New York Post staffer's son, and another about a Post staffer's marriage. While admittedly adorable, what's funny about this isn't the fact that it's under the "WE HEAR" heading—You couldn't confirm it?—but that it seems to keep happening. We should note, though, that this item is in fact both more positive and less restrained than the stiff-necked gun-to-back coverage of Post executive editor Jesse Angelo’swedding. [Page Six] 

A Few Good Fareeds: Did you happen to see Newsweek International editor Tunku Varadarajan’s defense of Time's Fareed Zakaria on The Daily Beast/in Newsweek? A few things of note:

1. Invoking the words "lynch mob" in reference to what happened to Fareed Zakaria.

2. The stated idea that "media reporters of the kind who hounded Mr. Zakaria occupy the lowest rung and exult at the prospect of pulling people down."

3. Use of the term "Schadenfareed," which was not attributed to Ron Mwangaguhung—which it should be, because he was the first to coin it.

4. This is in defense of Mr. Zakaria: "He also writes academic-lite books that presidents clutch as they clamber aboard planes, and gives speeches at—it is said—$75,000 a pop."

Mr. Varadarajan's perspective implies he is so deep inside a certain media institution that he has only a colonoscopic view of anything outside of said media institution. Mr. Zakaria, for his part, resigned from a position at Yale recently, which is definitely not an admission of anything and which you should clearly take to mean nothing. [The Daily Beast, NH Register]

Matt Drudge Just Wants to Dance With Somebody: BuzzFeed's John Herrman posted a brilliant story tying Matt Drudge to the insidious forces of Israeli house music. This is brilliant, hilarious and wonderful. [BuzzFeed]

Lede of the Day: This one comes to us via New York Times dining writer Jennifer Steinhauer:

JUST as the culinary cognoscenti press us into embracing certain food trends (“You will eat pork belly! Love cupcakes now! Hate cupcakes now!”) so, too, do they dictate our drinks.

Meta, much? It's a piece from someone actively participating in the "culinary cognoscenti" engaging in the exact act she is decrying. An astute copy editor need only make two small changes in order to lend this sentence accuracy:

JUST as the culinary cognoscenti press us into embracing certain food trends (“You will eat pork belly! Love cupcakes now! Hate cupcakes now!”) so, too, do they we dictate our your drinks.

See? Easy. [NYT Dining]

Syndication Power: Why is CNN Money so successful? Its partnerships and syndicated content. A simple, smart and important take, here. [24/7 Wall Street via Talking Biz]

Roger Clark Deserves Better: NY1’s gonzo reporter Roger Clark could not get into infamous nightclub Tunnel in the ’90s. We need to know more about this in the form of a picture of his hair from that era. [@RogerClark41]

Leathery Lacey: Yesterday, David Carr took on the matter of former Village Voice staff writer Rosie Gray, who penned a think piece for BuzzFeed (they do those!) about the ongoing downsizing at the Voice. It's odd to hear Village Voice Media's Kegmeister and Pledge Hazing Chair Mike Lacey imply—to the New York Times, no less—that one of his staffers was "let go" when she actually quit. Carr noted:

“Of course it is disappointing to let Rosie Gray, or any staff person, go,” he wrote. (Ms. Gray actually left the paper, she was not laid off.) 

Is that objectively sleazy? We think it might be! [Media Decoder, Buzzfeed]

Long Drop Off A Short Pier(s): Here's a video of Piers Morgan interviewing a chair. Compelling stuff. [Dylan Byers/Politico]

Pando Penenberg: The Adam Penenberg—yes, the guy who busted Stephen Glass—is joining Sarah Lacy’s PandoDaily as editor. Yes, the PandoDaily of Sarah Lacy, a site whose mission statement alone stood for everything terribly conflicted about tech journalism. Conclusion: This is either a turning point for Lacy, or for Penenberg. Here's hoping it's the former. [PandoDaily]

From Soft News to Soft Drinks: Speaking of moves to dark sides, the head of ABC's This Week is leaving to work for Pepsi. Unfortunate for This Week and ABC News on the whole, which isn't exactly having a great week. [NYT Media Decoder, Atlantic Wire]

Sharp Penn: They might not have much of a football program these days, but incoming Penn State students who aspire to get into this journalism racket are in the right place: Their campus newspaper rightly made the top spot among its contemporaries. [College Media Matters via Romenesko]

- - -

Sleazy media gossip? Tips? Ideas? Conspiracy theories? Favorite words on Urban Dictionary? Please, by all means, let us live, and send them our way.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

The Kiernans traded sky living for stoop sitting.

Pat Kiernan might not be taking over Regis Philbin's spot at “Live! With Kelly,” but at least the cultishly-popular NY1 anchor can console himself with the $3.8 million that he just made on the sale of his Upper West Side penthouse, according to city records.

Even if Mr. Kiernan and wife Dawn did set a neighborhood record when they paid $2.05 million for their new house in Williamsburg, the couple will  have more than a little extra pocket change from the sale of the four-bedroom co-op at 215 West 75th Street.

The buyers, Mary Haviland and Thomas Neff, who list their current address as Lyme, Conn., paid only a little under the $3.95 ask for the apartment, which the Kiernans built out of a collection of maid's rooms and a superintendent's apartments that they bought in 2001.

Mr. Kiernan had, apparently, tired of looking down on the city from on high and wanted to be among the people on Bedford Avenue, living in a siding-clad townhouse that he admitted to The New York Times was not "a trophy property from the front."

The couple's 75th Street penthouse, on the other hand, has an impressive 800-square-feet of outdoor space and views that mimic the city backdrops of a nightly news broadcast. The house appears to have gone on the market in February, although the listing is no longer available.

Such a change, while cementing Mr. Kiernan's place in the hearts of New Yorkers, may have indicated to producers that he wasn't snooty enough for the likes of the show, given that previous host Regis Philbin considered a move to the Upper West Side slumming it.

kvelsey@observer.com

The O.G. Algonquin Round Table (Al Hirschfeld)

Well, luckily there were more than 11 people on the Round Table (original flavor), and there is certainly room for more speculation. So, here are the new submissions...and as always, send us your picks!

Recently, former Jessica Simpson beau Nick Lachey—who has also done guest stints on Kelly! released a video of himself in the rapture of song, arguing his case for the job.

Not one to be shown up, Pat Kiernan teamed up with the Ice Theater of New York to submit his own entry: A take on Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline," cleverly reworked for the lyrics "Sweet Kelly R." This is one Canadian who will not go down without a fight (in song):

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Pat Kiernan is moving to Williamsburg.

Williamsburg's local celebrity cache—previously owned almost exclusively by Muppets and Omar Little Michael K. Williams—has just been upped, as Kiernan is migrating his family (or as they are now known, The First Family of Williamsburg—Canadian Branch) from the Upper West Side to a nice little spot on Bedford Avenue. Not that you're likely to share a cramped L-Train with him on your way to work seeing as how he goes at like 4AM or whenever it is, but he is installing his clan on one of the busier streets in the 'Burg.

Brownstoner reports:

The NY1 anchor, and possible heir to the Regis throne, just paid $2.025 million for 135 Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg...a source in the brokerage community has this to say to us about it: "The sale price is unprecedented in that $2,025,000 is the highest price ever paid for a single family home in Williamsburg."

There is a (not-Pat-Kiernan-hosted) video of the property here. It is really, really nice.

The early bird may get the worm, but the guy who has had consistently earlier mornings for a longer period of time than anybody else in New York's TV news got an appropriately baller house.

We anticipate and eagerly await the great Tweets that Pat Kiernan living in Williamsburg will yield.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Via a press release copied to his Pat's Papers website:

April 30, 2012 – NY1 anchor PAT KIERNAN co-hosts with Kelly today. Kelly and Pat sit down with Donald Trump to discuss the newest season of "Celebrity Apprentice," and the latest eliminated contestant from "American Idol" performs.

May 1, 2012 – PAT KIERNAN is back as Kelly’s co-host this morning. "Hawaii Five-O" star Daniel Dae Kim chats with the hosts, and iconic DJ Samantha Ronson steps out from behind the turntables to perform her original song, "Summer of Sam."

Fans of Kiernan have been attempting to get the NY1 morning anchor with a cult following named to the spot for over a year now—yes, they have a Facebook page—which is to say nothing of Kiernan's high regard for the gig.

Finally, to editorialize, ever-so-momentarily: We greatly look forward to Kiernan, a mild-mannered brilliant commander of subtle wit, speaking with Donald Trump. That will be good television.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek