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DOW JONES NEWSWIRES Fitch Ratings lifted its rating on Iceland to investment grade, citing the nation's progress in stabilizing its economy and pushing ahead with structural reforms. The upgrade puts Iceland's long-term foreign currency issuer default rating at triple-B-minus, placing it on the first rung of investment-grade territory. The outlook is stable. As one of the first countries to take a hit from the global financial crisis, the country is now showing a "promising" economic recovery, said Paul Rawkins, a senior director at the ratings firm. He added that Iceland has successfully completed a program with the International Monetary Fund...

Oprah Winfrey may be feeling the pressure over her fledgling network’s sputtering ratings. A tweet from the talk show host’s Twitter account asked followers, “Every 1 who can please turn to OWN especially if u have a Nielsen box,” in what seems to be a plea to boost ratings numbers. Winfrey publically apologized for the tweet, which was subsequently deleted — after being informed that the move may have violated Nielsen policy prohibiting networks from influencing ratings. “I removed the tweet at the request of Nielsen,” Winfrey said in a statement Monday. “ I intended no harm and apologize for...

S&P Sounds Alarm On US, G20 Downgrades Antonia van de Velde, CNBC January 31, 2012 Concerns over the size of United States debt reared their head once again as ratings agency Standard & Poor’s warned that health care costs for a number of highly-rated Group of 20 countries, including the U.S., could hurt growth prospects and harm their sovereign creditworthiness from the middle of this decade. S&P downgraded the United States credit rating for the first time ever in August of last year. "Governments' fiscal burdens will increase significantly over the coming decade, with the highest deterioration in public finances...

FITCH GOES ON RAMPAGE: CUTS SPAIN, ITALY, BELGIUM, CYPRUS, AND SLOVENIA Simone Foxman January 27,2012 Fitch just cut the long-term issuer ratings of 5 EU countries: Belgium: AA+ to AA Spain: AA- to A Italy: A+ to A- Cyprus: BBB to BBB- Slovenia: AA- to A It affirmed Ireland's BBB+ rating with a negative outlook. Borrowing costs have been sinking for these countries lately–particularly for Italy and Spain—after the European Central Bank announced liquidity support measures in early December that have lessened mounting worries about the health of the banking system. While Fitch says that it supports EU leaders actions...

38 Million Watch State of the Union Address for 2012 January 25, 2012 – On Tuesday, January 24, 2012 President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union address. The address was carried live from 9:00PM to approximately 10:15 PM on 14 networks.* The sum of average audience for those networks was 37,752,613 viewers, with a combined household rating of 24.0. The networks carrying the address were ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNBC, CNN, FBN, FOXNC, GALA, MSNBC, MUN2 and on tape delay on TEL, TF and UNI. p>

Link only as per posting guidelines: USA Today Gist of article: Ratings for title game down 8 percent from last year; barely (by 0.3 percent) above all time low; all BCS games down 12 percent from last year

"We’re experiencing the beginning of the repercussions of the financial crisis,” said Michel-Edouard Leclerc on Wednesday during an interview on Europe 1, France’s largest radio network. He is the CEO of the second largest retailer in France, E. Leclerc, a privately owned cooperative association with 555 stores—mostly hypermarkets—in France and 117 stores in other countries. Sounding like a CEO one minute and like a populist presidential candidate the next, he emphasized that his company has done relatively well in 2011, sales being up 5%. Strategy: offer deals and cut prices. The whole industry, he said, “ate up inflation” with their...

Fox News is still leading the cable news ratings race—but for how long? Fox's overall ratings for November dropped 13% compared to the same month last year, reports Mediabistro.

BANK DOWNGRADE RAMPAGE: Goldman, Bank Of America, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, And Citigroup Just Got Cut By S&P Simone Foxman Nov. 29, 2011, 4:48 PM Standard & Poor's ratings service just cut the ratings of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup from A to A-, according to Bloomberg. Wells Fargo was also cut from AA- to A+. The agency gave both Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs have a negative outlook. Those cuts were part of more than 37 ratings reviewed by the agency. Bloomberg says those are dependent upon "criteria change[s]" that were published on November 9....

NBC's downward slide is getting steeper. Long a ratings laggard, the network has fallen further behind its competitors this fall, heightening the challenge facing its new owner Comcast Corp. as it works to mount a turnaround. Through the first four weeks of the TV season ending Oct. 16, about 3.3 million adults under 50 years old have been watching prime-time TV shows on NBC, according to the latest figures from Nielsen Holdings NV. That is down 9.3% from the same period a year earlier. Much of the decline is concentrated in NBC's entertainment shows. Leaving out National Football League games,...

Roger Ailes tells the AP that there was nothing political in his decision to hire Sarah Palin as a Fox News contributor. “I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got ratings,” he told Frazier Moore, AP’s television writer, in a long and wide-ranging interview.

Turns out Keith Olbermann's fans may not be willing to follow him to the ends of the earth. Or in this case Current TV. The Daily News reports that Olbermann's show has lost nearly half its viewers since its June Debut. Current doesn't make Olbermann's ratings public (unless the show has a particularly good week as it did in the last week of August), but the NYDN got its hands on some numbers and they're not great.

Obama ratings sink to new lows as hope fadesBy Jon Cohen and Dan Balz, Tuesday, September 6, 12:05 AM Public pessimism about the direction of the country has jumped to its highest level in nearly three years, erasing the sense of hope that followed President Obama’s inauguration and pushing his approval ratings to a record low, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. More than 60 percent of those surveyed say they disapprove of the way the president is handling the economy and, what has become issue No. 1, the stagnant jobs situation. Just 43 percent now approve of...

Gallup Daily: Obama Job Approval.Gallup tracks daily the percentage of Americans who approve or disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as president. Results are based on telephone interviews with approximately 1,500 national adults; Margin of error is ±3 percentage points. Obama approval 38%, disapprove 54%

highlights of Harrington's story below. Here are some key points: Moody's ratings often do not reflect its analysts' private conclusions. Instead, rating committees privately conclude that certain securities deserve certain ratings--but then vote with management to give the securities the higher ratings that issuer clients want. Moody's management and "compliance" officers do everything possible to make issuer clients happy--and they view analysts who do not do the same as "troublesome." Management employs a variety of tactics to transform these troublesome analysts into "pliant corporate citizens" who have Moody's best interests at heart. Moody's product managers participate in--and vote on--ratings decisions....

President Obama may well come to look back at the summer of 2011 as the halcyon days of high approval ratings despite his current 39-54 negative job approval in the Gallup Poll. The indications are that his ratings will continue to crater and are likely to drop even lower….and then lower again. Underlying his overall job approval rating is his approval rating, in the Gallup Poll, on specific issues. These internals suggest that even more trouble is ahead for the beleaguered president. On the economy — the central issue now by far — only 26% approve of the job he...

Fitch Ratings said Tuesday it will keep its rating on U.S. debt at the highest grade, AAA. It also says its outlook on the U.S. ratings is stable. The move gives the U.S. a reprieve after fellow ratings agency Standard & Poor's set off a tempest in the stock market last week by downgrading part of the U.S. debt rating from the highest grade to the second-highest grade. Fitch cited the United States' "flexible, diversified and wealthy economy," as well as its flexibility in monetary and exchange rates that allows it to adjust to marketplace shocks. The other main ratings...

Moody's Analytics on Monday lowered its outlook for growth in the U.S. economy this year and next, saying it sees "significantly weaker" prospects for the economy than just a month ago as the country struggles to avoid another recession. The report ...cites the recent political wrangling over the U.S. debt ceiling and the revived debt crisis in Europe as leading factors in the bleaker economic picture. "The odds of a renewed recession over the next 12 months, already one in three, will increase if stock prices continue to fall

Jeff Saut: It's Too Late To Panic Joe Weisenthal Aug. 8, 2011, 9:05 AM The latest strategy comment from Jeff Saut is below. Gist: It's too late to panic. That's what you should hvae done months ago. The call for this week: For weeks I have stated that a credit rating downgrade was a fait accompli and possibly already discounted by the markets; this morning that doesn't seem to be the case with the pre-opening futures down ~30 points. Whatever the various markets' near-term reaction, the fact is that everyone is merely offering their intelligent guesses as to the outcome...

...Domestically, you are still better off with federal paper than state or municipals. The S&P is merely confirming the Sovereign Debt Crisis. There is no doubt that we have a serious Sovereign Debt Crisis. However, if that is the real reason for the S&P Downgrade, then it should apply to ALL countries and the real rating should be BELOW JUNK! Why? There is NO collateral! If a country defaults, you cannot go to court and seize property. You can’t run down to the National Art Gallery and start walking out with Renoirs. Illustrated above is a chart of the Total...

The decision by credit agency Standard and Poor’s to downgrade America’s AAA credit rating for the first time in 70 years is a massive blow to the credibility of the Obama administration, and a damning indictment of its handling of the economy. No doubt the White House will pathetically try to blame the Bush Administration, Republicans in Congress, and of course its favourite target, the Tea Party, for the move by S&P. But without a shadow of a doubt, responsibility for the country’s financial mess and staggering levels of debt lie with the current US president and his administration. They...

We have lowered our long-term sovereign credit rating on the United States of America to 'AA+' from 'AAA' and affirmed the 'A-1+' short-term rating.We have also removed both the short- and long-term ratings from CreditWatch negative.The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics.More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges...

Christina Romer, the former chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers on Friday offered a rather strong opinion concerning the announcement by Standard & Poor's that the credit rating agency downgraded America's debt to AA+. Appearing on HBO's "Real Time," Romer said we're "pretty darn f--ked" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no commentary needed): ---- BILL MAHER, HOST: So, excuse my language, but we used to do a segment on this show called “How F—ked Are We?” (VIDEO CLIP) MAHER: I didn’t expect that there. This, just before we went on the air they said our rating got downgraded....

Is it silly that I feel so sad over S&P’s downgrade of the US credit rating? Like a lifelong friend who has fallen on hard times, I feel profoundly sad for my country. I literally almost want to cry. I don’t even have the heart to place the blame tonight, but I’m sure it will be back tomorrow. My husband and I have discussed what we will do in a “worst case scenario” of rising interest rates and a falling economy, and I firmly believe that the two of us will be just fine. But it isn’t just about us,...

When NBC News and Cenk Uygur "mutually agreed" to part ways last week, Uygur took to his internet news program to explain his departure. He boasted that his YouTube show had "up to a million views per day." This suggests that the world was hungry for Uygur's special brand of progressive political commentary. We here at Breitbart.tv have taken a look inside the numbers and the fact is that political commentary is not what online viewers of "The Young Turks" keep clicking for. In fact, they aren’t looking for "news" either. The "up to a million views per day" are...

Question: How many U.S. banks and insurance companies do you think will remain rated AAA if the U.S. government gets downgraded? That is not a rhetorical question. The direct consequences of a downgrade of Uncle Sam’s credit on U.S. public finances would be pretty bad. But, as with natural disasters, the aftershocks of this man-made catastrophe might prove more devastating than the main event. In this case, imagine a tsunami of rolling corporate downgrades following the earthquake of a Treasury downgrade, a run on the banks, a discredited FDIC, frozen money-market funds, and a plunging dollar. It’s not Beijing that’s...

Another major bond rating firm on Monday reiterated its threat to downgrade the U.S. government to a B-plus rating if the debt ceiling isn’t raised by August 2 and the government defaults on its debts. The warning from Fitch Ratings comes after Moody’s and S&P warned last week that they would lower the U.S. rating from the top mark of AAA if the country is unable to repay its debts next month. Fitch said Monday that it will place the U.S. rating in what it calls “ratings watch negative,” a status that can lead to downgrading in three-to-six months. The...

If The U.S. Government Loses Its AAA Rating It Could Potentially Unleash Financial Hell Across The United StatesJuly 15, 2011 For decades, the U.S. government has had a AAA rating. On the scales used by the big three credit rating agencies, that is the highest credit rating that a government can get. Moody's scale actually uses lettering that is a little different from the other two big agencies ("Aaa" instead of "AAA"), but you get the point. Right now, the U.S. government is closer than ever to losing its AAA rating. The threat of a rating downgrade is going to...

As you may have heard once or twice before, it’s a marathon, not a sprint (unless, of course, you’re talking about a sprint, then it’s a sprint, not a marathon). But we digress. Mark Rosenthal, CEO of Current TV, uses the sports metaphor to express his lack of concern over the second-week ratings drop for Keith Olbermann’s Countdown. The show saw its ratings shrink by nearly a third during the week of June 27, averaging 93,000 viewers in the key 25-54 demographic.

How many times have you judged a movie by its cover and its rating? As the summer gets underway parents across the country are fielding multiple requests from their kids to rent movies and/or head to the theatre to see the latest release. Many fine parents rely only on the Hollywood-drafted descriptions and Hollywood-created ratings system to determine which movies their sons and daughters can watch. But relying on Hollywood is a big mistake. The truth is, Hollywood peppers –and often fills - movies they claim are appropriate for children with sex and violence.Research verifies what savvy parents know by...

Most voters believe the popularity boost President Obama has received following the killing of Osama bin Laden will disappear quickly, according to a new poll conducted for The Hill. Almost three in five likely voters think the “bin Laden bounce” will vanish within three months, the poll indicates. Only one in four believes that Obama will still be benefitting in six months’ time. Obama is currently enjoying a major spike in his approval ratings: A New York Times/CBS poll last week showed an 11-point jump in his approval rating compared to two weeks before. Gallup’s daily tracking poll showed Obama’s...

Even at MSNBC, which gets crushed of course by Fox News in every prime-time slot, Cenk Uygur manages to come in dead last in ratings among his liberal peers. So when Cenk claims that he covers Donald Trump not because he wants to--suggesting he'd rather be reporting on Pawlenty/Romney's latest doings--the baloney-meter starts screaming. View video here.

Very quietly, in late March, CBS gave away the greatest secret in television. As AdWeek reported, CBS Corp. Chief Research Officer David Poltrack announced that “age and sex don’t matter when it comes to TV ad effectiveness.” Alone, this doesn’t sound like anything groundbreaking. After all, most of us figure that ads generally appeal to all of us on an equal basis. But in truth, the admission is absolutely stunning. As I explain in my upcoming book, Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV (Broadside Books, May 31), for over forty years, the...

New poll numbers indicate that Sarah Palin is now as unpopular as Nancy Pelosi.

Cash-strapped US states and cities face the prospect of downgrades after Fitch Ratings changed the way it analyses their burgeoning pension bills. In a report published on Thursday, Fitch warns the new approach could lead to “limited negative rating action”, particularly for local governments with big wage bills. The changes to the way it assesses pension liabilities come amid growing concern over the scale of municipal debt problems and the effect on state and city finances of generous, unfunded public sector pension schemes that will run for many years. Sharp falls in equities and other risky assets during the financial...

MSNBC’s Cenk Uygur sat down with news magazine AlterNet to talk about MSNBC, Fox News, and his web show “The Young Turks.” Uygur described the difference between the web and MSNBC — where he was named a contributor and substitute anchor in October 2010. He told the magazine that “television gives you an opportunity to really put together a great product and visually make your case to the audience better.”

Two leading credit rating agencies on Thursday cautioned the U.S. on its credit rating, expressing concern over a deteriorating fiscal situation that they say needs correction. Moody's Investors Service said in a report Thursday that the U.S. will need to reverse an upward trajectory in the debt ratios to support its triple-A rating. "We have become increasingly clear about the fact that if there are not offsetting measures to reverse the deterioration in negative fundamentals in the U.S., the likelihood of a negative outlook over the next two years will increase," said Sarah Carlson, senior analyst at Moody's. Standard &...

2010 was not a good year for CNN. The network had its worst primetime performance in both total viewers and adults 25-54 since at least 1996, and tied (with 1999) for its lowest performance ever in adults 25-54 in total day. In primetime, the network was down an alarming 34% in both total viewers and the demo compared to 2009. * Primetime: 591,000 total viewers/ 173,000 A25-54 * Total Day: 433,000 total viewers/ 133,000 A25-54 CNN’s highest rated program was “Larry King Live,” which placed 18th overall among cable news programs, averaging 672,000 total viewers and 176,000 A25-54. As has...

Jim Sinclair’s Commentary Moody’s had taken comfort in their role of the short of the euro play. They took protection in Federal court from suits over the accuracy of ratings based on free speech. Legally that is looking shaky but they still have Federal Court to take comfort in. The second they downgrade US credit, they have signed their litigation death warrant. They know this and might be playing a game of chicken.

Is CNN becoming irrelevant? According to TVByTheNumbers.com, the self-proclaimed most trusted name in news's prime time ratings this year are the lowest since at least 1997: CNN’s woes worsened this year. Despite the somewhat bogus total reach-touting, the network hit primetime ratings lows (or at least going back to 1997, which is all we could dig up data for) for total viewers and viewers 25-54. A look at Tuesday's prime time numbers should give you an idea of just how terribly this cable network is doing. Fox New's "O'Reilly Factor" now frequently gets more viewers than CNN's extended prime...

No one can deny Sarah Palin’s charisma, common-sense approach to issues and media savvy, and few will deny she was an overall plus for the GOP this past election. However, I find it rare in conservative and Tea Party circles for anyone to support her as the serious Republican presidential nominee in 2012, much less the winner. Conservatives are well aware of Palin’s shortcomings, yet the media seems to be rather blind to them at the moment. In fact, every time I turn on the TV, all I hear the mainstream talk about when it comes to 2012 nominees is...

After setting a TLC ratings record last week, Sarah Palin's reality show plummeted for its second episode. Sarah Palin's Alaska fell 40% on Sunday night to 3 million viewers. Not many were in the key adult demo either. Only 885,000 viewers were ages 18-49, dropping 44% from last week. In fact, the median age of the show is 57 -- that's 15 years older than TLC's average. TLC expected a ratings drop coming off the high-flying premiere; executives realized some of their numbers were driven by sheer curiosity rather than eagerness to see an Alaska-based travelogue reality show. Competition from...

Sarah Palin's documentary / travelogue / reality-tainment / promotional-biopic shattered TLC ratings records Sunday night. The debut of Sarah Palin's Alaska delivered a whopping 5 million viewers. The first episode of the eight-part series was the most-watched program launch in TLC's history.

The ratings are in, and it looks like “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” is a hit. TLC says nearly 5 million total viewers tuned in to the premiere of the series. In case you haven’t seen our previous coverage, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” is a documentary series from producer Mark Burnett and starring former Alaska governor and Fox News Channel contributor Sarah Palin. TLC says 4.96 million total viewers tuned in, including 1.8 million adults 25-54, and 1.6 million adults 18-49, two of the network’s key demos. That is the best premiere in network history with regards to total viewers, beating the 2003...

New ratings tell story of average daily viewers FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,734,000 FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,720,000 FOXNEWS GRETA 2,296,000< FOXNEWS BAIER 2,284,000 FOXNEWS SHEP 2,244,000 FOXNEWS BECK 2,154,000 MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,190,000 MSNBC MADDOW 1,087,000 MSNBC O'DONNELL 1,048,000 MSNBC SCHULTZ 724,000 CNNHN GRACE 670,000 MSNBC HARDBALL 628,000 CNN COOPER 591,000 CNN KING 560,000 CNNHN BEHAR 339,000

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Fitch Ratings said Friday it may downgrade the long-term and short-term issuer default ratings on Bank of America Corp.

CHICAGO (AP) -- Former President George W. Bush and Michael Jackson's parents are among the big names "The Oprah Winfrey Show" has booked for the November ratings sweeps.

Last night’s “Parker-Spitzer” saw the lowest numbers yet for the program and the show did little to help the one that followed on the schedule — “Larry King Live” which had its worst numbers in more than 10 years. In its sixth outing, “Parker-Spitzer” drew 311,000 Total Viewers and 86,000 A25-54 viewers. That’s lower than the previous low for the time period set by Campbell Brown earlier this year. (332,000 / 87,000). Last week, Parker-Spitzer finished fourth in the time period averaging 465,000 Total Viewers and 124,000 A25-54. At 9pmET, “Larry King Live” put up its lowest A25-54 demo viewership...

SIERRA VISTA — While most Arizonans believe that major changes are needed in the state budgeting process, they also have the highest opinion of their lawmakers out of five states faced with similar severe budget issues, according to a study out today. The study, “Facing Facts: Public Attitudes and Fiscal Realities in Five Stressed States,” found that one-third of Arizonans trust their state government “all or most of the time.” That rating was higher than those of the respondents from all other states in the survey, which included California, Florida, Illinois and New York. Along with Florida, the Grand Canyon...

CNN's new show “Parker Spitzer,” which made its debut Monday night, attracted only 454,000 viewers, a decline from the show it replaced, The New York Times reported Tuesday. The show netted 118,000 viewers in the 25-54 age demographic coveted by advertisers. The program features former New York Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer -- who resigned in disgrace in 2008 after a prostitute scandal -- and Kathleen Parker, a conservative columnist, in a dual anchor format. It lagged well behind 8pm ET rivals “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News Channel and “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” on MSNBC. Those two shows drew audiences...