Hedge fund managers Steve Kuhn, Jim Chanos, restauranteur Danny Meyer and host Betty Liu. (Bloomberg TV)

On a seasonably cold Monday night in Manhattan earlier this month, four hedge fund managers--who oversee more than $20 billion in assets between them--gathered in a private back room of The Modern, Danny Meyer's bustling, upscale restaurant adjacent to the Museum of Modern Art.

They dined on Alaskan king crab salad and foie gras terrine, beef tenderloin with butternut squash, venison loin and chestnut petit beurre. Over several bottles of wine, they discussed big spending and big banks. Even Meyer himself made a table-side appearance at the end of the two-and-a-half-hour meal to discuss his various restaurant investments.

But this was not your typical after-work meet-and-greet between hedge-fund heavyweights. Bloomberg TV cameras were recording the evening for a new primetime show, "Titans at the Table," set to debut Thursday at 9 p.m.

The dinner atmosphere was a way to get buttoned-up hedge fund types to open up. But the show also underscores the fundamental challenge all business networks face: getting its day-trading viewers--their TVs fixed on CNBC, Bloomberg and the fledgling Fox Business network all day--to stay tuned in at night.

At dinner, Steve Kuhn, head of fixed income trading at Pine River Capital Management, said the mortgage crisis had been "wonderful" for his business, eliminating competitors like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Mike Novogratz, a hard-working, hard-living macro trader and president of Fortress Investment Group dressed in lime green slacks, discussed the "hedge fund hell" of the fourth quarter. Jim Chanos, a short-seller famous for being early on Enron, talked about being bearish on China. And Jamie Zimmerman, founder of hedge fund Litespeed Management, spoke up as the lone female voice in a sea of men.

"When you're interviewing someone on a set, you tend to get canned answers," Andrew Morse, head of Bloomberg's U.S. television operation, told Yahoo News in a recent interview. "With the dinner setting, we're hoping to get something much more intimate, more unplugged, more personal—and ultimately different."

The show, conceived by Bloomberg "In the Loop" anchor Betty Liu, who also hosts "Titans," is currently planned as a quarterly special, mainly because the logistics of booking A-list dinner guests is no easy feat. (In fact, most of the three months it took to produce "Titans" was spent coordinating the executives' tightly-packed schedules, said executive producer Courtney Chapman.) Getting them to open up in a taped, on-the-record discussion actually proved much easier than scheduling. "We'll just keep feeding them wine," Liu said before the shoot.

The dinner had a decidedly reality-TV feel to it, and that may be partly the point.

Last year, CNBC averaged 228,000 total viewers a day, according to Nielsen estimates—most of them while the markets were open. Fox Business averaged 54,000 over the same 12-month period. (Bloomberg TV, available in more than 300 million homes, is not rated by Nielsen.)

On Feb. 9, Fox Business canceled its entire primetime lineup, replacing a three-hour block of shows with repeats of earlier airings of "The Willis Report," "Cavuto" and "Lou Dobbs Tonight." The day before, CNBC announced the hiring of Jim Ackerman, a longtime VH1 reality show producer, as a senior vice president of "primetime alternative programming"—i.e. reality shows.

Bloomberg isn't ruling out doing the same.

Colbert (AP/Chris Pizzello)

Stephen Colbert returned to "The Colbert Report" on Monday, a week after production on the show was suspended, giving the fake talk show host time to tend to his ailing 91-year-old mother.

Colbert abandoned his usual faux-fear-mongering schtick at the top of the show to talk about his absence.

"Before we start the broadcast tonight I just want to address my recent absence from the national conversation, as the hub around which the republic turns," Colbert said. "I can understand why the machinery of this great nation ground to a halt last week when you were denied this. I'm sure you felt the same as I do when I'm in a room with no mirrors."

Colbert also cataloged the "wild rumors" about why he was gone.

"Some people said my show was canceled by the Federal Communications Commission at the request of the Federal Election Commission because I was about to announce my presidential candidacy," he said. "Others said I was canceled because I offended the Catholic church when I compared the pope's hat to a giant yet stylish prophylactic. Still others said I was in rehab--always an attractive option, if they have that for Diet Coke." Joan Rivers, Colbert noted, even accused him of taking time off to have plastic surgery.

The host never mentioned his mother directly, but alluded to what he called a "confidential to a special lady."

"Evidently having 11 children makes you tough as nails," he said, referring to his mother and his many brothers and sisters.

Comedy Central abruptly canceled last Wednesday's taping, alerting audience members with tickets to the late afternoon production in an email. "Due to unforeseen circumstances, the show will air repeat episodes on Wednesday, February 15 and Thursday, February 16," a spokesman for the network said at the time.

It was later reported that Colbert had a family emergency.

Watch the full clip of Colbert's return below:

Billboard promoting Wodka in New York. (Katie Kitamura)

Remember that vodka ad on a New York billboard that was removed late last year after residents and Jewish groups complained its message ("CHRISTMAS QUALITY. HANNUKAH PRICING") was anti-Semitic?

Well, the folks behind it are at it again.

A new billboard advertising Wodka has surfaced on Seventh Avenue near New York's Penn Station with a similarly offensive message--this one referencing prostitutes:

ESCORT QUALITY
HOOKER PRICING

"Our intent was not to be offensive toward women," Brian Gordon, president of MMG, the firm that created the campaign, told Yahoo News.

"We're a bit of a lightning rod after the last one," Gordon continued. "There was justified sensitivity, which is why we took it down.