As my colleague Ted Johnson has documented, an organized sponsor boycott against Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck has left his program a little light in the sales department, with ad pods populated mostly by cut-rate direct-response advertisers.

Yet any thoughts that the campaign against Beck will significantly harm his status at Fox -- other than giving Beck an opportunity to paint himself as a victim, and thus fortify bonds with his audience -- seems highly unlikely.

For starters, the revenue from Beck's program itself seems increasingly irrelevant, inasmuch as his gaudy ratings at 5 p.m. ET have helped boost Fox's entire lineup, creating a hammock between Beck and "The O'Reilly Factor" that has elevated the hours between them. Whatever Fox might sacrifice by losing sponsors within Beck's show, that's almost surely being offset by the higher rates the channel can charge elsewhere throughout the day.

So while the boycott by colorofchange.org has been effective in calling attention to the excesses of Beck's rhetoric, the impact of that could ultimately be negligible. Sounding increasingly like a modern-day Joan of Arc, Beck has made it pretty clear he has no intention of toning down his program on either radio or TV. Fox, meanwhile, is acting like it has no control over what Beck says (the same strategy CNN has employed in dealing with criticism of Lou Dobbs), and all the attention is simply rallying more people to watch him. Heck, even former Alaska governor Sarah Palin put in a plug for Beck on her Facebook page.

In other words, Beck's implications that he is under siege has the feel of deft play-acting, since his lucrative career hardly appears to be in any jeopardy -- unless, perhaps, he begins to believe his own hyperbole.

There was a strange omission in my Sunday-morning reading, found within a New York Times Business section feature, "The Boss," focusing on Lifetime CEO Andrea Wong.

The piece -- an "as told to" first-person account -- oddly skips over Wong's tenure as Disney CEO Robert Iger's executive assistant. Instead, Wong goes directly from being a researcher at ABC News to the following: "A couple of years later I got lucky at ABC: I became vice president, alternative programming, specials and latenight."

The passage struck me because it's so well-known (if perhaps not to the Times) that Wong served as Iger's assistant and that he subsequently promoted her into programming, as executives often do with promising assistants. Here, for example, is a recap of that interlude from a Los Angeles Times profile of Wong that ran last year:

She was hooked and decided she wanted to be a news producer. After graduation, Wong took a job as a researcher for ABC's "Primetime Live." When Robert Iger -- then the president of ABC, now the president and chief executive of Disney -- was looking for an assistant with an MBA to groom, she got the call.

"I was so fortunate, because I really got to learn how a television network works," said Wong, who worked for Iger for four years.

Not really a big deal, I suppose, except that a piece with the headline "A Long Road to Television" conspicuously omits what was likely the most significant turn that Wong took along the way, as well as one of the most familiar methods of breaking into the entertainment industry's executive ranks -- namely, paying your dues as an assistant before being promoted.

The new TV season always brings Nielsen's revised estimates of the U.S. TV viewing audience, which has now risen (drumroll please) to 114.9 million homes and 292 million viewers age 2 and up. (Note: Nielsen doesn't count infants, but if you're letting them watch "Mad Men," I heartily endorse that.)

Steady audience growth has been a blessing to the major networks, helping somewhat offset their declining share of the overall audience, which keeps eroding. The number of TV homes has grown by 12% over the last decade.

My favorite statistic in the new data, though, is that "more than half of the homes in the U.S. have three or more TVs" and that the average home has 2.86 sets -- an 18% rise since 2000.

Moreover, since the average home has roughly 2.5 people living in it (114.9 million X 2.5 = 287.3 million), that averages out to slightly more than one TV per person.

That's right, let that sink in for a moment: On average, every American has their own TV.

No wonder we don't talk anymore.

Death can create strange bedfellows, as Ted Kennedy's funeral coverage Saturday will bump up against a number of cable tributes tied to Michael Jackson's Aug. 29 birthday.

While the major broadcasters and cable news networks cover the Kennedy service, as part of the Jackson deluge E! is planning a full day of Jackson-themed programming, BET will premiere "Michael Jackson: Our Icon" and The Fuse will air six straight hours of Jackson's music videos.

The Kennedy memorial will receive pretty much blanket coverage at 7 a.m. PT, with several of the front-line anchors being pressed into service. (TVnewser has the details.)

One can only imagine how much more coverage Kennedy would have received if he could Moonwalk.

The traditional August lull historically yields odd behavior on television, and this year -- between the lingering Jackson aftermath and the stridency surrounding the healthcare town halls -- Labor Day can't come soon enough.

VH1 President Tom Calderone has told the Los Angeles Times that the network wants to tweak its formula to diminish its heavy reliance on dating shows like "Megan Wants a Millionaire" and "I Love Money," which have been shelved after Ryan Jenkins -- a participant in both programs -- was sought in the murder of his ex-wife and subsequently committed suicide.

Let's say I'll believe it when I see it.

It's common for networks to talk about doing kinder, gentler or at least more varied nonfiction ("reality" seems a stretch in this case) programming, especially in response to a crisis of some kind. But the truth is that VH1 is so deeply embedded in this genre -- with shows like "The Surreal Life" and "Flavor of Love" giving rise to offshoots like "I Love New York" and "Charm School" (gratuitously pictured) -- it's going to have a hard time turning the boat around anytime soon.

So while it's difficult to fault Calderone for publicly addressing this PR nightmare and trying to get past it -- at no small cost, by the way, in dumping two completed programs -- it will take months before there's any evidence as to whether VH1 has made good on his comments about altering or evolving the network's profile.

Until then, I suspect you'll see plenty of boozin' floozies and celeb-reality. And don't hold your breath waiting for the adorable puppies and unicorns.

Jay Leno has always prided himself on being an equal-opportunity offender when it comes to politics. But by airing on NBC, he's now a target for an occasional guest on his show: Fox News' Bill O'Reilly.

At the end of Wednesday's program, O'Reilly featured Leno in his "Pinheads & Patriots" segment, right after the pictures of topless protesters. Well actually, not Leno so much -- that was just the tease to go hunting for bigger game.

"If Jay Leno fails at 10 p.m.," O'Reilly said, the entire network might be "doomed for another year." He then moved on to deride NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker for ruining NBC and referred to Keith Olbermann merely as "someone" on MSNBC, which is as close as O'Reilly will come to saying Olbermann's hated name. Of course, on Tuesday's show, Olbermann said he has the de facto top-rated program in cable news, since Fox doesn't qualify as a news network.

Once again, New York Times, great work on that "Voices From Above Silence a Cable TV Feud" Page One story.

Earlier in the show O'Reilly hosted Fox's Glenn Beck, as he regularly does, this time to allow Beck to talk about the orchestrated protest against him that has cost Beck's program about three dozen sponsors. O'Reilly never seems quite to know what to make of Beck, which is understandable: Olbermann has taken to calling him Lonesome Rhodes -- a reference to Andy Griffith's loathsome TV huckster in Elia Kazan's prescient movie "A Face in the Crowd" -- and Beck manages to stay interesting mostly by always appearing as if he's thisclose to a complete on-air meltdown.

Not to say that the whole feud/name-calling thing is growing tedious, but in hindsight, my favorite part was probably the topless protesters.

As it happens I just finished watching "The Kennedy Brothers: A Hardball Documentary" when word came regarding the death of Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy at age 77.

Like much of what happens on "Hardball," the Chris Matthews-hosted doc is a once-over-lightly look at the issue, cramming the presidential aspirations of all three Kennedys -- John, Bobby and finally Ted -- into a not particularly enlightening hour.

MSNBC will preview the telecast on Aug. 26 -- which will also still air as scheduled on Aug. 27 -- in light of Kennedy's death. But a far better bet is "Teddy: In His Own Words," the recent HBO documentary, which sister Time Warner network CNN will air tonight, according to the mediabistro.com/tvnewser site.

The best thing you'll probably see all day on Kennedy, though, is Vice President Joe Biden's emotional tribute to his longtime Senate colleague, which the cable networks carried live this morning. Fighting back tears, Biden spoke eloquently and from the heart about his 36-year relationship with Kennedy.

Biden has often been reduced to a latenight punchline during the early days of the Obama administration -- almost of necessity, since the president is a somewhat elusive comedic target -- but he has always possessed a genuine quality in his TV appearances that sets him apart from many other politicians.

Biden's remarks are below, and they're more than worth the few minutes it takes to watch them.

It's never a good idea to put too much stock in online comments, but this one cropped up attached to my review of the Fox special "Octomom: The Incredible Unseen Footage:"

"Lowry should [receive] a raise for sitting through that."

Hear, hear! And that wasn't even the worst thing I've watched this month. Where were you, by the way, when I blogged five hours of Michael Jackson memorial coverage? Or endured three episodes of "The Wendy Williams Show?"

Anyway, thank you, "LPB," self-identified "New Orleans actor." And keep a good thought for me when you're reading my thought-provoking analysis of "Cougartown."

Reports that Ryan Jenkins -- the murder suspect featured on the VH1 shows "Megan Wants a Millionaire" and the upcoming "I Love Money" -- was found dead in Canada shouldn't allow the producers or the network to weasel out of further explanation for their apparent failure in vetting their "talent."

VH1 simply punted responsibility to the production company, 51 Minds, which as The Washington Post's Lisa de Moraes reported, put out a mealy-mouthed, "Golly-Gee-How-Did-This-Happen" statement that read as follows:

51 Minds was not aware of Ryan Jenkins' record when it cast him on "Megan Wants a Millionaire." Obviously, if the company had been given a full picture of his background, he would never have been allowed on the show.

The company did have in place what it thought was a thorough vetting process that involved complete background checks by an outside company for all contestants on its shows. Clearly, the process did not work properly in this case.

All well and good, except that's asking us to simply trust that the company's process has worked properly in the past, or that, indeed, it even employs rigorous vetting. That's hard to believe here, since there were plenty of warning flags that Jenkins was a sleazebag. And VH1 can't simply hide behind the "We didn't produce it" defense, since the network is ultimately responsible for what it airs.

The bottom line is that while this story is going to cool now that the manhunt phase is over -- as TMZ moves on to some fresh outrage -- VH1 and 51 Minds need to be transparent about what went wrong if this case was indeed an anomaly and must demonstrate how the "problem" has been corrected.

As I said the first time I wrote about this, an old adage comes to mind in this world of seeking outlandish characters to feature in unscripted TV shows -- namely, the warning that when you lie down with dogs, you run the risk of getting up with fleas.

In case you missed it, Coldwell Banker is so proud of representing Candy and Aaron Spelling's estate, a.k.a. Spelling Manor, that it was the cover of a glossy real-estate circular that the company included in weekend newspapers.

The asking price for the 56,000-square-foot mansion that "Dynasty" and "Charlie's Angels" helped erect: A cool $150 million.

Candy Spelling put the Manor up for sale in March, and while I'm no real-estate wiz, the number of buyers at that price could be an impediment to a deal. Actually, I've thought about making a bid, but it's harder these days to find banks that will let you put .001 percent down and finance the rest, though I still hear the occasional ad for that.

Seeing the Manor advertised on that magazine did bring back a vivid memory from years ago, when the Spellings -- after the protracted construction and legal wrangling surrounding their 120-some-odd-room abode -- finally sent out an announcement that said simply, "We've moved!"

"The Manor blends visionary design, passionate attention to detail, and one-of-a-kind artistic touches to create a masterful opulence once only reserved for nobility," the CB ad states. "Quite simply, The Manor cannot be matched in grandeur and scope. Forever forged in history, The Manor is truly designed for a modern-day dynasty."

OK, so the writing kind of sucks, but you get the idea, and frankly, I'm sold. The offer's $10,000 down and a used Honda up front, against $125 million to be paid over the next 400 years. If you don't move this baby by December, then ready when you are, CB.

NBC News political editor Chuck Todd hid behind the nostalgia defense in a panel appearance on HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher," saying that the longing for the journalistic values of CBS stalwarts like Walter Cronkite and Don Hewitt -- who each died recently -- was simply pining for "the good ol' days."

The best journalists, Todd suggested, are always the ones that used to do it -- in the same way (his analogy) that people like to say the best baseball players are the old-timers. Well, at least they weren't on steroids.

Sorry, but that's a rather pathetic abdication of responsibility in discussing TV news' excesses and failings, which in this summer of the anti-Obama "birther" movement and wildly overstated health-care claims were neatly summarized by Jamison Foser on the website Mediamatters.org. Whatever one thinks of the watchdog group's politics, Foser gets it right when he states:

In fact, it is the media's behavior that has made this summer's madness inevitable. When they let the loudest yellers and most audacious liars drive the discourse, they guarantee that people who can't win on the merits will yell and lie. When they focus on politics rather than policy, they guarantee the public will remain in the dark about basic facts. When they repeat false claims, or treat them as he-said, she-said situations, they guarantee that those false claims will sway confused citizens. When they continue to give a platform to people who have a history of lying -- and assume those people are telling the truth this time -- they guarantee those people will continue to lie.

Moreover, Todd seemed to contradict himself mere moments later, by questioning whether the media behaved responsibly in rushing to put guys who wore guns to presidential appearances and town halls on television. But Todd frequently appears on MSNBC, which couldn't get one gun-toter on the air fast enough, for an interview with Chris Matthews. Sure, Matthews unloaded on the guy, but that was after giving him a forum to talk about "sprinkling the tree of liberty," etc. And sure enough, there were more guys openly carrying guns at subsequent events.

Todd's right that there's a tendency to be overly romantic about the good ol' days of broadcast news, especially in the context of memorials and obituaries. But in dismissing legitimate criticism he's exhibiting his own very modern condition -- the one that says in order to address a problem, you first have to be able to step back and admit that you have a problem.

"Inventing LA: The Chandlers & Their Times" won't premiere on PBS until October, but it's particularly timely in light of Los Angeles Times editor Russ Stanton's Marketwatch interview in which he discusses the paper's down-sized ambitions in its new configuration under the embattled, bankruptcy-filing Tribune Co.

"Inventing LA" chronicles the paper's colorful history as its founding family presided over the land grab explored in the movie "Chinatown" (there are even some strains of that memorable music in the score), vigorously fought against organized labor and helped champion the political career of a young congressman named Richard Nixon.

The most pertinent passages, however, are how fair-haired son Otis Chandler broke with that conservative tradition and sought to transform the Times into a first-rate paper that could legitimately compete with the East Coast establishment. Notably, his efforts are dismissed by some relatives as having operated the paper strictly to impress the Pulitzer Prize committee -- exhibiting obvious disdain for the notion of high-minded journalism.

As a Times alumnus (1996-2003, with the Tribune sale landing squarely in the middle) I did see some of the corrosive effects of prize-seeking at the Times first-hand, but there's no denying that Chandler oversaw one of the nation's best papers -- and viewed the enterprise as more than just a license for his otherwise-secretive family to pad their trust funds.

Beyond the circumstances leading up to the paper's sale to Tribune, the project doesn't spend much time exploring that deal's aftermath or the Times' status in the 21st century, other than a sobering postscript about the staff having been halved from its peak of 1,200 employees a decade or so ago. Still, for anyone with an interest in or appreciation of L.A.'s history, "Inventing LA" is a must-see.

Kind of a ho-hum performance by Fox's two-hour "Octomom: The Incredible Unseen Footage," which averaged a mere 4.2 million viewers. That only works out to a little more than 500,000 viewers per octuplet. Not much of a return on investment.

The ho-hum numbers are more surprising given that the special -- whatever one thinks of the topic -- was pretty compelling in a train-wreck kind of way. For my full review, see here.

In fact, with AMC's "Mad Men" drawing its biggest audience ever for the show's stellar third-season premiere and this sort of usually reliable trash proving less reliable, I may have to start recalibrating some of my assumptions about the TV audience. Either that, or the major networks' low summer circulation is more of a problem than many have recognized.

On the plus side, "Octomom's" mediocre results probably mean that Fox won't proceed with all the other "octo"-related programming that it had waiting in the wings, including a reunion of the "Octopussy" cast and a reality show based on "Eight Million Ways to Die."

OK, I'm making that last part up.

Once again, "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" has given Fox News Channel's hosts a pretty stiff jab to the stomach, exposing their complete turnaround (dare I say "flip-flop?") on the legitimacy of public dissent when the protesters are targeting a Democratic president instead of George W. Bush.

Stewart's conclusion: Based on their own past pronouncements about liberals disrespecting authority and speaking out against the president in time of war, Fox's stalwarts are now "liberals."

Pretty fabulously funny stuff, and another triumph by the army of gnomes on the show's research staff. That said, inasmuch as he dredged up the notorious "Inside Edition" clip of Bill O'Reilly experiencing an expletive-spouting meltdown on the set, it'll be interesting to see if any of the Fox hosts take the bait and try to fire back.

My advice: Remember how well that worked out for Jim Cramer? Let it roll off your backs, gang.

UPDATE: Gotta love O'Reilly and his inability to let any criticism -- even from puny print columnists -- slip by without a retort or, in some instances, retaliation. As predicted, here's a link to his on-air response to the Stewart piece. But please, let's not label this a "feud" yet. God knows we've had enough of those.

Three unrelated stories that loosely break down as "The Good, The Good and the Bad, and the Ugly:"

-- HBO documentary czar Sheila Nevins is an extremely deserving choice for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' annual Governors Award, which recognizes extraordinary use of the medium.

At times, it seems as if Nevins and HBO have been single-handedly supporting the serious documentary business, especially with so little first-rate reporting done by the network newsmagazines.

Here are some of the vital stats from the academy's release:

This year, in addition to the Governors Award, Nevins is nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards: three nominations for The Alzheimer's Project including Grandpa Do You Know Who I Am?; as well as a nomination for  Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery.  Over the course of the 21 years that Nevins and her HBO documentary unit have been participating in the Primetime Emmy Awards, she has personally amassed 54 nominations and 22 wins, including 2008's White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for "Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking,"   Classical Baby for "Outstanding Children's Program,” When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts for "Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking”; and Ghosts of Abu Ghraib for "Outstanding Nonfiction Special" in 2007, and many more. 

During Nevins tenure, HBO’s critically acclaimed documentaries have gone on to win 20 Academy Awards. As an executive producer or producer, she has received 22 Primetime Emmy^® Awards, 25 News and Documentary Emmys^® and 31 George Foster Peabody Awards, as well as a personal Peabody Award.  In 2005, she was given the News and Documentary Emmy for Lifetime Achievement by the National Television Academy in New York, as well as another Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Documentary Association.  She was inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2000.

-- Don Hewitt deserves every accolade thrown his way for creating "60 Minutes," but as even the producer -- who died at age 86 -- discussed in his later years, there was a darker side to the program's popularity.

Once news divisions were perceived as a profit center, it changed the way that networks thought about them -- and helped grease the wheels for the bastardization of broadcast news that we've seen over the years.

The irony is that Hewitt's CBS program -- which continued to indulge in tough investigative reporting -- inspired a host of imitators that took all the wrong lessons away from its success.

-- Too little is known to draw any informed conclusions about Ryan Jenkins -- the murder suspect featured in VH1's "Megan Wants a Millionaire" -- but I feel pretty safe in saying that this is another reminder that people who make a career out of going from one reality TV show to another are a mercurial bunch.

As police search for Jenkins, VH1 has announced that it is pulling "Megan." And according to TMZ, Jenkins is also featured in the third edition of "I Love Money," which might also have to be shelved if the contestant faces a murder charge.

All this needs to be sorted out, but on its face, that old adage "If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas" comes to mind. 

After a lawsuit by NBC Universal, "Project Runway" makes its much-delayed debut on Lifetime on Aug. 20, and the building sense of anticipation is just terrible.

Kidding! I've never made it through an entire episode of the show and couldn't possibly care less.

Still, it's a big, big deal for Lifetime, which has experienced its programming troubles and is clearly hoping that the reality competition will jump-start its lineup. And because in cable anything worth doing is worth overdoing, the one-hour premiere will merely be the centerpiece in a 3 1/2-hour programming block, kicking off with a two-hour reunion of past contestants, "Project Runway: All-Star Challenge," and followed by a half-hour companion series titled "Models of the Runway."

Actually, Lifetime sent out a truncated version of the season premiere that cut off the last third, presumably so nasty critics won't spoil the outcome. So here's my one-sentence review: "Wow, Heidi Klum looks great, but if I had to sit through this 'Omigod, what will the judges think of my dress' nonsense week after week, I'd poke my eyes out with sewing needles. P.S. Why is that contestant already crying when I still don't even know who he is?"

Of course, my idea of fashion is when the 20%-off coupons hit the papers for the Macy's Labor Day sale, so I might not be the target audience.

Networks sometimes don't get enough credit (or blame) for scheduling moves and the use of summer to lay the groundwork for the fall. So hats off to CBS for the summer surge exhibited by its comedy "The Big Bang Theory," which looks poised to blow up during the 2009-10 season in its new timeslot following "Two and a Half Men."

"TBBT" (as it's known to lazy friends with a fondness for symmetry) is now consistently building on "Men's" lead-in among adults age 18-49, which suggests that audience is coming to and sampling the show during the summer. Moreover, it skews younger than "Men," which explains why it can deliver a higher 18-49 rating (2.7 to 2.5) while still attracting a smaller audience (8 million on Monday, vs. "Men's" 8.6 million).

If the sophomore series can continue matching "Men's" demo performance in the fall it will provide CBS a hugely formidable 9 o'clock tandem -- and a valuable building block for expanding (or at least continuing) its success with conventional multicamera sitcoms. (That's Emmy nominee Jim Parsons, by the way, looking appropriately smug, pictured.)

Moreover, "Big Bang" is precisely the kind of show that could have considerable value to its production company, Warner Bros., down the road given its bull's-eye appeal among young men.

Producer Chuck Lorre -- who oversees "Men" and "Big Bang" -- often enjoys poking fun at CBS with his vanity cards, but if the latter explodes come September in part because of the network's savvy scheduling move, he's going to have one less thing to complain about.

Then again, as a longtime admirer of those soul-baring end-of-show messages, I have no doubt he'll have no trouble finding something else to fill the void.

In case you're thinking the same thing I am, no, you are not nuts: An incredibly small percentage of the women, many of them over 50, who watch "Dancing With the Stars" give a rat's ass that former congressman Tom DeLay is joining the cast of celebrities for the upcoming season.

So who cares? Newspaper editors, that's who.

There's still an inherent tension at most papers between the arts/entertainment areas (provided they still have the staffs to field one) and the news sections. So anything that allows entertainment to cross over into news -- like a controversial politician appearing on a primetime reality show -- is the epitome of a no-brainer.

So yes, the Texas pol they once called "the Hammer" is indeed being used, with the producers exhibiting some savvy in terms of ways to get journalists writing about their show at this stage of the game. Meanwhile, DeLay is using the network right back to soften his image amid various legal troubles.

This is known as the old Texas two-step.

Although I have never been a huge fan of Seth MacFarlane's shows -- the rat-a-tat, 10-jokes-a-minute animated humor has always struck me as a little too high on the "miss" end of the hit-miss equation -- I found myself extremely impressed with his recent Playboy interview.

It wasn't just that MacFarlane took a big dump all over Fox News Channel, which is part of the same News Corp. empire that supports him. Frankly, as acts of defiance go, biting the hand that feeds you feels a little passe.

What stood out, rather, was both MacFarlane's well-reasoned defense of "liberal Hollywood" and his willingness to name names when asked, "Name five people who don't make you laugh."

To the latter, MacFarlane dutifully rattled off the following: "Rob Schneider. Rob Schneider again. Oh, Rainn Wilson -- I'm sure he's a super nice guy, but he doesn't make me laugh. I'm sure Adam Sandler is still funny, but he doesn't do funny things anymore; it's that Eddie Murphy curse. ... And 'Shrek,' not funny. The thing that drives me nuts about those Pixar movies, those DreamWorks CGI movies, is that they're gorgeous to look at, impressive beyond belief, but not incredibly nutritious. A lot of the jokes are obvious and kind of tired."

OK, I'd disagree with him about Pixar (find me a better movie this year than "Up"), but I'm pretty much in agreement with him on much of that list -- and more than anything, impressed that he would brazenly violate the "Thou shalt not speak ill of others in the community" commandment. I suppose being wildly wealthy at a relatively young age (he's now 35) will do that for you, but the image of publicists squirming nervously is pretty irresistible.

As for that wealth, MacFarlane also tackled the notion that people in Hollywood are "out of touch," pointing out that he came from extremely modest means: "For years I lived in a shitty one-room apartment with no air-conditioning, barely able to pay my rent. Look at the Bushes. That's out of touch. It's also a very ill-thought-out label. Hollywood is not full of people who are wealthy because they were born that way. It's full of people who are wealthy because they did something people were interested in."

Bingo. Many conservative talking heads love to ridicule liberal celebrities, but beyond those born into the biz, many of those celebrities actually represent the kinds of self-made success stories that the right loves to champion -- often speaking out, by the way, against their economic self-interest as members of the highest tax bracket.

MacFarlane also says that he can drink a lot of Jack Daniel's and still function reasonably well, which I used to be able to do when I was in my 30s.

So while I might not be the biggest supporter of "Family Guy" and "American Dad," let me be the first to recommend the full Playboy interview -- to be slowly consumed while hoisting a Jack Daniel's in the producer's honor.

Somebody at ABC has a real fascination with Shaquille O'Neal. If only the well-traveled NBA center actually translated to reality TV.

After a previous stab at primetime stardom with "Shaq's Big Challenge," a feel-good concept in which the sometimes-out-of-shape big man tried to help kids lose weight, he's back with "Shaq Vs.," in which the basketball star faces off against other athletes in their sports. Pittsburgh Steeler QB Ben Roethlisberger is featured in the premiere, with Olympic volleyball stars Kerri Walsh (pictured) and Misty May-Treanor, baseball slugger Albert Pujols, tennis' Serena Williams, swimmer Michael Phelps and boxer Oscar de la Hoya  in subsequent episodes.

It's actually a really cool, interesting idea -- the notion of seeing athletes compete across disciplines. If only it wasn't being done with O'Neal.

The full pilot wasn't available for review, but the clips posted by ABC reinforce the perceptions that while O'Neal is (literally) a larger-than-life figure, he's also a somewhat boorish one who has an untelegenic propensity for mumbling and isn't nearly as funny as he seems to think he is. Whatever his future after basketball -- which he and his reps obviously seem to be planning for with gusto -- becoming a TV personality seems like a bit of a reach.

ABC didn't fare particularly well with a recent "Superstars" revival, but I like the basic template of doing reality shows with actual athletes engaging in genuine competitions. They have a sense of reality that's often lacking in manufactured competition series. So let's hope if "Shaq Vs." goes the same route as "Shaq's Big Challenge" that it doesn't scuttle a promising concept.

See ya in Cleveland, big guy. Oh yeah, and just between us: Anybody who plays basketball for a living ought to be able to hit more than 50% of their free throws.

Update: Watched the show, and it's what I feared -- a good idea but terribly executed. The final "game" pitting Shaq against the QB was so undemanding that I could have stood back there lobbing balls to receivers. And O'Neal's antics got old very, very quickly.

Finally, O'Neal simply isn't in the kind of shape to make this interesting. Doing it with another basketball player -- or even O'Neal in his prime -- might have been more compelling, but the concerns about a player getting hurt in this sort of silly competition limit what the producers can do. All I know is I'm really glad I wasn't one of the fans sitting in the stands to watch the lame finale.

Activists on the left and the right might not agree on much, but everyone seems to love boycotting advertisers as a way of expressing their displeasure with program content.

The latest two targets: Fox News Channel's "Glenn Beck," and the Comedy Central "Roast of Joan Rivers."

The Parents Television Council has not only issued a strongly worded press release of condemnation (fortunately, all the PTC's press releases sound this way, so it's nothing to get too alarmed about) regarding the vulgarity of the Rivers roast but even warned viewers in advance. And something like 2.8 million of them still tuned in (perverts), although that represented a steep decline from the last showcase featuring Larry the Cable Guy.

Frankly, I tried to watch some of the roast and quickly turned it off -- not because it was offensive to my delicate sensibilities, but simply because it was awful, unfunny and most of the comics on hand make me weep all over again for the loss of George Carlin.

Beck, meanwhile, has come under fire since a rant in which he called President Obama a "racist" and said he has a "deep-seated hatred for white people," which is among the more sober and restrained things that the Howard Beale wannabe has said lately. The New York Times reports that about a dozen sponsors have withdrawn from Beck's program, which is always amusing -- like these sponsors were shocked, shocked to discover that lunacy is going on in this establishment.

Frankly, sponsor boycotts make the protesters feel better but seldom serve much of a purpose in the long term. If a program's successful, the advertisers that slip away will be replaced or eventually return. It's happened over and over, from "NYPD Blue" (too blue for Christian conservatives) to "Dr. Laura" (who drew fire from gay-rights activists).

In other words, it's a shell game -- one that networks have pretty well mastered, whether the fire comes from the left or the right.

Given that this year's Emmys -- even if they manage to produce a great show -- will very likely get their clock cleaned in the ratings up against a Dallas Cowboys-New York Giants football game, the recent handling of this year's presentation seems rather appropriate.

A fumble, followed by another punt.

After all, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences board agreed to change the ceremony in February. But when members of the TV movie community protested, they punted the problem down the road -- insisting that no decisions had been made, and wouldn't be until CBS named an executive producer. That was, at best, parsing words.

A lot of people weren't completely happy about it, but finally, the board overwhelmingly approved the idea to "time-shift" eight of the 28 awards. When the plan was officially announced in late July, ATAS President John Shaffner punted again -- this time to said executive producer, Don Mischer, who was left to outline the changes.

On Wednesday, the academy announced that it was retreating from the original plan back to the status quo, but nobody representing the academy was willing to discuss the matter beyond a cursory canned statement. Granted, this is an honorary organization, but its leadership needs to take at least some ownership of their actions.

Then again, perhaps we should just be happy that this gang isn't responsible for trying to reform the health-care system.

Update: Although I normally wouldn't bother quoting an anonymous comment from another site, couldn't resist the one on deadlinehollywooddaily.com that said the reporting on this issue has helped ruin the Emmy telecast and told Nikki Finke to "go sit in the corner with Brian Lowry."

First off, that's really unfair, since DHD didn't do much reporting on this story other than to occasionally print the statements issued by the guilds and call the TV academy folks "dumbasses." So let's give credit (or blame) where it's due.

Fortunately, the new administration is taking steps to outlaw torture, so such punishment for either side of that equation, thankfully, is unlikely to occur.

In the web world it's called "sock puppetry" -- that is, posting favorable comments under a fake name or without fully identifying yourself in order to bolster your cause. And apparently one of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences governors got caught doing precisely that on Twitter, where he sought to tamp down the criticism in a message thread titled #emmysfail.

Brian Seth Hurst is a governor representing the academy's interactive media branch and runs a new-media consulting firm. But he seemingly took it upon himself to join in the conversation about changes in the Emmy presentation -- the ones that would have pretaped (or "time-shifted") eight awards -- to put a more positive spin on the discussion.

Unfortunately for Hurst, he was outed as a member of the TV academy leadership (though wrongly accused of overseeing its PR efforts) and chided for disseminating "Emmys propaganda."

Of course, with Wednesday's announcement that the Emmys would retreat from the proposed changes, the whole situation has been pretty well rendered moot. But there is a cautionary note here about the pitfalls of such campaigning. Journalists, after all, have been reprimanded and worse for using pseudonyms, including Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik, who was temporarily suspended for the practice in 2006.

Hurst didn't respond to emails seeking comment, despite the fact that I would have happily given him more than 140 characters to do so.

Keith Olbermann skewered Glenn Beck and the "Fox & Friends" gang on Monday. Bill O'Reilly insisted again that NBC News is corrupt, accused MSNBC of "left-wing lunacy" and gloated (despite saying that he wasn't) about Fox News Channel's booming ratings.

Gee, if this is a truce, it's hard to imagine what war would look like.

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz assembled a good deconstruction of the supposed Fox News-MSNBC truce that wasn't, and also visited the issue on his CNN program "Reliable Sources" (clip below). Meanwhile, the New York Times' Brian Stelter seemed more determined to defend his original over-statement of the story than actually advance it in his follow-up piece.

Kurtz's key passage states that the high-level talks between News Corp. and General Electric about their respective networks was "never intended to be a cease-fire." Rather, he writes, "The best that the men who run two of the nation's media giants were hoping to achieve was a ratcheting down of the rhetoric between their warring commentators. But Keith Olbermann refused to play along this week, Bill O'Reilly returned fire, and the New York Times got wounded in the crossfire."

Kurtz also paraphrases Fox News CEO Roger Ailes as saying that he can control his nutcases but that GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt couldn't wrangle his. This dovetails with my latest column, which makes the point that diva talent isn't easy to control.

Frankly, I still think the simple goal of toning down the barbs and restoring a semblance of civility is a laudable one. The big problem is where it originated.

If the guys actually running these networks imposed editorial control over their news stars, that would be fine. In print, after all, that's what editors are supposed to do.

In other words, it wouldn't be unreasonable if MSNBC President Phil Griffin prevailed upon Olbermann to be less personal or merely less relentless in skewering O'Reilly -- and let's face it, he often veers outside his lane just to run him over -- in the same way CNN Prez Jonathan Klein theoretically ought to talk to Lou Dobbs about backing off on his "birther" movement obsession, and Ailes should curb the rhetorical excesses of his "nutcases."

What's troubling is for that mandate to filter down from Immelt, who was clearly reacting to O'Reilly's unsubstantiated slams against the company. Update in response to comment below:  These include charges that Immelt is a "despicable human being" directly responsible for the death of American soldiers because GE conducted business with Iran and allegations that NBC has given the Obama administration favorable coverage in exchange for favors from the government. At one point, O'Reilly said it's "not a stretch to assume" that NBC might be assisting Obama hoping for a payoff. Sorry, but that's innuendo, not evidence.

As for Ailes, if all the reporting is accurate he has been fairly unabashed about the quid pro quo twist that says, "Leash your dogs and I'll restrain mine."

The odd part is the hand-wringing assumption that criticism of Fox News would somehow be silenced if MSNBC dialed down its nightly jabs. Historically, though, networks haven't targeted each other (think of it as "Honor among thieves"), leaving it to print critics -- or more recently, satirical outlets such as "The Daily Show" -- to analyze, expose and shame TV channels.

This whole "feud" started, remember, when Olbermann began mischievously punching up at O'Reilly, who took the bait more fabulously than he ever could have imagined -- to the point where the FNC host now sees "smear merchants" around every corner.

But now -- with so much vitriol already in the ether -- the tit for tat has grown petty. There are bigger fish to fry, and these networks should get to the business of frying them. As for the Times' Stelter, he should probably wait until he actually sees a white flag waving before reporting on the next "truce."

Hey, when I wrote that KFWB-AM (980)'s Hollywood-news approach stank in a recent post, my goal wasn't to make the station bail out on the news format entirely.

Yet that's what the venerable CBS-owned station has done, announcing that it will go to a news/talk format starting in September with Dr. Laura Schlesinger (currently heard on KFI-AM 640), Laura Ingraham and Michael Smerconish as the nationally syndicated blatherers anchoring its talk-heavy lineup.

This leaves sister station KNX-AM 1070 as the market's one all-news (sort of) station, and even that isn't what it used to be.

Great, just what we need; more over-heated talk, less under-heated news. Pick your poison ... and a rather sad sign of the times.

Here's the revised KFWB lineup starting Sept. 8:

6:00-9:00AM: Local News hosted by Phil Hulett and Penny Griego

9:00AM-12:00Noon: Laura Ingraham

12:00Noon-3:00PM: Dr. Laura

3:00-6:00PM: Local Talk/News (host TBA)

6:00-9:00PM: Michael Smerconish

It's been a cruel summer for original network programming, and Sunday was no exception based on preliminary results, as two of reality TV's most prominent producers -- Mark Burnett and Mike Fleiss -- went to battle against each other and were both sacked by a preseason football game.

Burnett's ABC series "Shark Tank" averaged a mere 4.2 million viewers coming out of the premiere of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," which at 7 million looked a bit bitter but didn't exactly exhibit a Midas touch. On CBS, Fleiss' latest "There Goes the Neighborhood" (5.1 million viewers) outperformed "Tank" but slipped further off its 8 o'clock lead-in from "Big Brother."

A quick capsule review of "Millionaire," by the way: Regis Philbin remains quick and fresh as the host, but few of the stylistic changes helped matters, including a silly celebrity segment at the end with Katy Perry. And the new "phone a celebrity" lifeline left poor Sam Donaldson looking like he was orbiting the Earth in a space shuttle -- which, come to think of it, isn't a bad idea.

One more artistic note: ABC's space soap "Defying Gravity" (which clearly didn't live up to its title, with 2.8 million viewers) tanked even worse than "Shark Tank," which is sort of a shame. The third episode (after a two-hour launch) continues to drag too much in terms of its storytelling, but the show boasts a solid cast and the premise is intriguing. Too bad the series appears unlikely to fulfill its summer run, much less a "six-year mission."

ABC's 10th anniversary edition of "Millionaire" still seems like a good idea, especially because Sunday's hour was filled with promos for the network's new fall series. If ABC can gain any traction with the gameshow, in other words, that will assist its marketing campaign heading into the fall.

Still, as ABC Entertainment Prez Stephen McPherson acknowledged last week, the major networks are still fumbling for the right programming balance (original, both scripted and unscripted, and reruns) during the summer. And despite the get-rich themes of "Millionaire" and "Shark Tank," nobody's gonna retire off the kind of numbers they posted on Sunday night.

The TV Critics Assn. tour is officially over, meaning that I won't have to wait for my car at the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena again for awhile, and thank God for that.

Thanks to fortuitous timing, the first post-Comic-Con press tour wasn't a complete news-free zone. In fact, we learned the following from the latest gathering:

-- Every network except NBC feels entitled to take a few parting shots at NBC, and more than a few producers are determined to get their licks in as well.

-- All network executives love Paula Abdul and think she's an interesting, fascinating and wonderful piece of talent, at least until they sort out what she'll be doing next. Once she lands on another network one suspects she'll be considerably less interesting to everybody.

-- The out-of-town press really couldn't give a rat's ass about the skirmish involving the "time-shifting" of acceptance speeches during the Primetime Emmy Awards.

-- Even if the press tour is spiraling toward irrelevance, reporters and critics still take umbrage when they feel they are disrespected by networks failing to dispatch top executives to the event, especially if there has been a management shift. (Translation: If this thing's still around in January, NBC should put Jeff Gaspin on the stage for questions.)

-- The sessions might have been full of people barking questions, but the number of longtime critics who were absent this time around provided a nagging, constant and depressing reminder of the changes and cutbacks that have assailed the newspaper industry in general and critics in particular. Fortunately, old standbys like the Philadelphia Inquirer's Jonathan Storm were still there to call CBS' Nina Tassler "Nancy," so the tour wasn't entirely devoid of comic relief.

Christiane Amanpour certainly classes up a room -- and in the case of her latest endeavor, an entire network.

After her three-part CNN undertaking "God's Warriors," she's back with "Generation Islam," a rock-solid two-hour documentary that premieres Aug. 13. There are no easy answers in this project, which explores "the battle for young Muslim hearts and minds," and what can be done to prevent the poor, vulnerable and "ripe for recruitment" from turning hostility toward the west into jihad, martyrdom and terrorism.

The juxtaposition of beaming young faces with the prospect of whether these kids will "grow up to hate, or to fight" is one of potential tragedy in the making. Yet it's clear that there are no simple solutions -- and that many of the youths have been scarred by the war surrounding them, with some already saying that they want to grow up to be "martyrs."

Amanpour has been given relatively free rein to explore international issues and the Muslim world -- theoretically fertile terrain for CNN as other news organizations dial back their ambitions by focusing on studio-bound talking heads. Indeed, a documentary such as this feels like an especially bracing tonic after the Michael Jackson mania that consumed the news business during July.

The correspondent is getting a regular weekday program on CNN International, "Amanpour," starting Sept. 21, but underscoring the domestic queasiness about overseas coverage, that will be boiled down to a weekly hour on CNN.

With Amanpour and Fareed Zakaria (who also hosts a Sunday show devoted to foreign affairs and has an interview with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on his next hour), CNN does have international credentials that the other cable news outlets can't match. It's only too bad that the channel doesn't do more -- or trust its audience enough -- to capitalize upon them fully in the U.S.

KFWB's long-time slogan has been "Give us 22 minutes, and we'll give you the world." Now, with a new direction charted to accentuate entertainment coverage -- and differentiate itself from sister AM news station KNX (1070) -- it also uses the tag, "Hollywood listens to KFWB."

Honestly, I've tried, but I keep asking myself -- other than wanting to know whether traffic is moving on the 101 freeway between Barham and Western -- why on earth "Hollywood," which presumably knows something about its own machinations, would listen to something as ill-informed as KFWB?

If CBS Radio (which operates both news outlets) is genuinely committed to carving out an entertainment presence on the Los Angeles station, the company needs to hire a few people that have some feel for the field, which actually does require a modicum of specialized expertise. By contrast, having your newswriters and anchors simply read truncated versions of stories out of Variety and the Los Angeles Times' Calendar section -- instead of reading stories out of the Times' front section, as they used to -- won't cut it. Listeners are too sophisticated for that -- even those that aren't directly part of "Hollywood."

This opinion is informed in part by the fact that I've done two recent interviews with the station (980 on the dial) about articles published in Variety, and each time, the anchors seemed to have only the slightest clue as to what we were talking about. Listening to the station strictly as a consumer/commuter, I find that to be true on a regular basis.

As it stands, a station that once proudly jousted with KNX for news listeners sounds as if it's dying the death of a thousand cuts. The stations experienced significant layoffs last October (who hasn't?), which clearly excised a good deal of institutional knowledge. KFWB also inked a deal to carry Angels baseball on weekdays beginning this season.

As the Times' Jim Rainey reported, KFWB now airs infomercials pretty much around the clock on weekends, so unless you're looking for quickie mortgage advice while sitting in traffic, it's essentially useless as a news source those days.

In April, director of news programming Andy Ludlum told the Times that KFWB's focus on the business of entertainment represented "the ultimate local story." And that it might be -- if the station covered the industry in a more intelligent manner, instead of like some half-assed, wire-service version of People magazine.

With CBS radio revenue down more than 20% based on second-quarter results, throwing money at the problem seems unlikely. But until someone addresses these shortcomings and embraces this new niche, there's little reason to afford KFWB a second thought, much less give it 22 minutes to prove that there's not much left of local newsradio except weather and sports.

Kudos to Fox for getting the TV Critics Assn. and tackling the Paula Abdul question head-on during their press tour session Thursday. Fox's handling of the matter was in pretty stark contrast to NBC, where the execs who were left to appear seemed ill-prepared to address the inevitable "So what happened to that Ben Silverman guy?"

Granted, NBC's scripted programming chief Angela Bromstad and reality topper Paul Telegdy are the wrong people to ask those questions, but since nobody above their pay grade was on the panels -- and new exec Jeff Gaspin didn't show up until the network's Wednesday-night party -- a little more prep might have spared Bromstad from eliciting guffaws when she responded to Silverman's departure.

Fox Entertainment Prez Kevin Reilly also registered an interesting point that's been discussed here regarding NBC. While taking the high road generally, he noted that any analysis of Jay Leno's new program has to be undertaken "holistically" -- that is, in the context of how the network's faring from 8-10 p.m., as well as what sort of tremors Leno's 10 o'clock performance might send through late local news and into latenight, where much of the network's older audience has already left "The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien."

Meanwhile, still-minty-fresh Fox Entertainment Chairman Peter Rice received smatters of applause just for showing up, reflecting how the TCA executive sessions are shrinking in both duration (now about a half-hour each) and stature, with top network officials often skipping those events. What, are they allergic to bloggers or something?

After a session where Abdul/"American Idol"-related questions accounted for about half of those asked (fewer than I would have bet on going in), Rice actually sounded like he enjoyed himself. "These guys are funny," he said at one point, suggesting that his comedy standards are already being compromised.

Yep, TCA's a laugh riot. But given the general drift of things most of it qualifies as gallows humor.

Disney essentially broke down and admitted that it had made a mistake with its "go younger" mandate on "At the Movies," announcing that it would replace Ben Mankiewicz and Ben Lyons with the New York Times' A.O. Scott and Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips as hosts of the syndicated movie-review program.

Mankiewicz -- a regular presence on Turner Classic Movies -- was tolerable as one of the reviewers, but Lyons simply wasn't, and the show's credibility suffered along with its watchability.

Although I was never much of a Richard Roeper fan, after a year with Lyons in the seat he once occupied opposite Roger Ebert, all is forgiven.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Ebert -- who originated the format with the late Gene Siskel under a different name in 1975 -- endorsed the new duo, telling the paper via email, "I have the highest regard for both Michael Phillips and Tony Scott."

By contrast, Ebert had done little to hide his disdain for Lyons, assembling a "rule book" for critics where several of the guidelines were not very subtly aimed at him. These included warnings to "Keep track of your praise," "Accept no favors" and to shun commercial endorsements. 

It was left to Brian Frons, president of daytime for the Disney-ABC Television Group, to deliver a very Hollywood-style kiss-off to the outgoing hosts, saying, “We tried something new last season and we think the world of Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz. They did everything we asked of them and they have been complete professionals. However, we’ve decided to return the show to its original essence – two traditional film critics discussing current motion picture and DVD releases. We thank them for their hard work and dedication this past year and wish them nothing but the best on all of their future endeavors.”

Translation: "And don't let those thumbs hit you on the way out!"

Erratic woman in her mid-40s who is a lightning rod for controversy, speaks gibberish and quits a plum job prematurely....

I think we're looking at the next Governor of Alaska!

Given the challenges we all face, print journalists should take no pleasure in the misfortunes of colleagues at this point. But any way you slice it, this has been a bad week for the TV coverage at the New York Times.

First, public editor Clark Hoyt wrote a column about TV critic Alessandra Stanley's correction-filled tribute to Walter Cronkite under the headline "How Did This Happen?" In the course of that piece, Hoyt made the rather remarkable disclosure that Stanley "was the cause of so many corrections in 2005 that she was assigned a single copy editor responsible for checking her facts." In the wake of the Cronkite memorial, he added, she will "again get special editing attention."

Knowing a little something about the state of journalism, it's hard to see many newspapers supporting a one-to-one editor-to-critic ratio under current staffing levels.

Then on Monday, Keith Olbermann returned to MSNBC's "Countdown" and pretty much eviscerated Times reporter Brian Stelter's Page 1 piece titled "Voices From Above Silence a Cable TV Feud."  In it, Stelter reported that brass at parents General Electric and News Corp. had essentially brokered a truce between the feuding networks.

Olbermann had stated in the Times article that he was party to no such deal, and proceeded to prove it and then some Monday by labeling Stelter, Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch as his "Worst Persons in the World."

Even allowing for the fact that Olbermann was having some fun by thumbing his nose at the Times and GE -- and that the real goal of the truce isn't so much to muzzle the hosts as simply tone down the rhetoric flying back and forth between the networks -- it's hard to conclude that the story wasn't significantly overplayed, despite evidence (topped by Olbermann's statement) that might have raised caution flags. Notably, the Los Angeles Times' Joe Flint (full disclosure: a former colleague) took a much more measured and skeptical approach in reporting on the efforts at corporate peacemaking.

Let's just say sometimes the hunger for a great story can get a few steps ahead of the story itself.

On the plus side, I don't see the need for a correction. After all, Stelter did say the corporate intervention regarding the feud was designed to "bring it to at least a temporary end." The paper just wasn't specific as to precisely how temporary that was going to be.

Forgive this second-hand account, but I don't normally go to the TV Critics Assn. Awards, since I'm not a member and -- being based in Los Angeles -- don't stay at the hotel. So I was amused to hear that E! latenight host Chelsea Handler opened her remarks emceeing the event Saturday by quoting from my initial review of her program.

Terribly sorry I couldn't be there, but I had Hollywood Bowl tickets, which sounded preferable to sitting through yet another tedious awards show -- in this case, one where the headliner is Chelsea Handler. What, was Kathy Griffin unavailable? Kidding!!!

Actually, I must confess that Handler's success by E! standards -- earning her a three-year contract extension that was announced in March -- indicates that her brand of snark is well-calibrated (as I said even at the time) to our web-based world of entertainment coverage. Still, I really think it's time she get over this whole negative review thing. I mean, geez, it was two years ago. And besides, she says stuff about other celebrities that's way worse than anything I wrote about her -- though I must confess, reading it again, that line about how her voice could "curve the spine" is a keeper.

In the meantime, please let me know well in advance the next time Handler's going to perform somewhere, and I'll be happy to provide another legitimate excuse as to why I couldn't be there.
 

Clearly signaling that its affiliation with the New York Times is yesterday's news, Investigation Discovery (or ID for short) rolls out yet another reality program designed to tap into the fascination with forensics. At least we don't need an investigation to figure out what's motivating that.

Premiering Aug. 3, "Forensics: You Decide" explores the evidence in a criminal trial before revealing what the jury ultimately determined. Sounds fine, but they muck up the science with all kinds of dramatic recreations and other unnecessary flourishes, in an obvious attempt to foster Perry Mason-style suspense.

My favorite moment comes when one of the criminologists fires a bullet into chicken livers and a packet of human blood to check the splatter pattern. It's disgusting, sure, but not quite as bad as the slow-motion animation of a bullet going through a head.

ID has ordered 13 episodes, and they're certainly a bit edgier than what we've generally seen on the channel in the past. How well it will fit into the cable net's evolving formula has yet to be determined, as the network explores a new direction under former Court TV and Hallmark Channel topper Henry Schleiff, who was named ID's president-GM in June.

The bottom line is if you're interested in forensics and want something that labors this hard at generating drama, I'd suggest taking the middle man out of the deal and simply watching "CSI."