Republicans and Democrats are divided as ever with their favorite TV shows, new research shows. Jay Leno is a conservative GOP favorite. Liberal Dems like Letterman. Shocker: Jon Stewart does better among lefties than Pat Robertson. And it's too bad for struggling NBC that the entire Nielsen panel isn't made up of liberal Democrats: five of their scripted shows are favored by them. And yet, even as some right-leaners, want to chop federal funding for PBS, they seem to be watching it. Among the top-25 shows with the highest concentration of self-identifying conservative Republicans: three are on the Pretentious Broadcasting …

It was difficult not to be impressed with Kathy Timko as she made what appeared to be her first public appearance last week since taking over Canoe Ventures. For a business that has seemed to harbor doubters from day one, she seems to have found a way to move ahead with a mix of deference and confidence.

As Viacom began expressing doubts about major drops in Nielsen ratings at Nickelodeon, CEO Philippe Dauman cited an alternate ratings source, set-top-box data, as evidence of possible under-counting. A comparison between Nielsen and that data shows Nickelodeon may be doing better than Nielsen's tracking in key dayparts. Take Saturday and Sunday mornings in October (8 a.m. to 12 p.m.), Nielsen shows a 10% drop. Set-top-box data provider Rentrak shows a 5% increase.

For a while now, Arbitron's COO Sean Creamer has been inferring that the portable people meter (PPM) could play a more prominent role in TV measurement. During comments last week, a J.P. Morgan executive wondered whether the company had offered Viacom help recently -- it was tongue in cheek. But the dominant radio measurement company has invested heavily in the PPMs, so why not look to gain revenue with them in other fields? And Arbitron is using an initiative with the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) and its out-of-home TV ratings service to gain a foothold.

In this month's "Leaders & Bleeders," Disney gets high marks for succession planning and ABC's new hits under Paul Lee, while CNN has an interesting approach to grabbing election-year dollars from the ideological Fox News and MSNBC. Meanwhile, Nickelodeon ratings are down and shaking up Viacom, while "Conan" ratings are down, though TBS seems content.

For years, Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen has offered keen insight on the media sector, so when she goes guru, it's one of those cliched E.F. Hutton situations. On Thursday, she weighed in on topics from the value of content (huge) to the future of Rupert Murdoch's company post-"News of the World" (promising) to Comcast's acquisition of NBCUniversal (Comcast "stole" it). How much credence should be placed in predictions she offers? Looking back on ones made a decade ago sitting across the table from Charlie Rose, a good bit. She had some misses, but some darn good hits.