Anna in the Morning (Mostly on CBS)

If the signature nightly newscasts were reticent about Smith, their morning show cousins took up the slack, giving over 15% of their first half hour of programming to the story.

One way to evaluate interest in the death of Anna Nicole Smith is to compare that coverage with the two biggest ongoing stories.

Taken as a whole, the three broadcast network morning shows, CBS’s “Early Show,” NBC’s “Today” show and ABC’s “Good Morning America” in their newsier first half-hour of programming devoted more attention to her than to the crowded 2008 presidential race (11%). It also exceeded their coverage of Iraq during this time. Just 6% of airtime was spent on the policy debate surrounding the war, and if you combine all three areas of Iraq coverage—policy, homefront and events in Iraq which add up to 11%—Anna Nicole still came out ahead.

Yet even these across-the-board numbers for the morning shows don’t tell the whole story. Some networks were far more interested than others. From February 8 to March 2, CBS’s “The Early Show,” with anchors Harry Smith and Julie Chen, filled 20% of its time with Smith-related stories. That’s almost double the play given to the presidential campaign (11%) and to Iraq (11%).

NBC’s “Today” show was not far behind. On the program fronted by Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera, Smith coverage accounted for 17% of the newshole. That narrowly topped its coverage of the Presidential campaign (15%) and significantly exceeded the attention given to the war (10%).

ABC’s “Good Morning America” hosted by Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts evinced considerably less enthusiasm for the saga. It filled 10% of its time with news about Smith. That still represented more coverage than the 2008 campaign generated (8%), but less than the 13% devoted to all aspects of the Iraq conflict.