Other than asking alleged White House party crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi if they were paid to appear on NBC, Matt Lauer mostly tossed puffballs at the couple in their exclusive "Today" show interview Tuesday morning -- and didn't ask about their role in the upcoming "Real Housewives of Washington" on Bravo, a sister network under the NBC Universal banner.

Of course, it's possible they were playing nice with NBC News because they hope Bravo will pay them, but Lauer didn't register that point, saying only that much of what has been reported about them has "not been at all positive." Oh, snap!

(As noted in a previous post, Bravo has only said the Salahis are "under consideration," which sounds a bit like a bad Oscar campaign. A spokesperson for the channel also remained noncommittal in my colleague Ted Johnson's piece today on the Salahis' likelihood of becoming "Real Housewives" participants.)

The couple certainly played the wounded party in this public-relations storm, and mostly punted on their answers regarding anything specific, citing their talks with the Secret Service. Lauer -- who apparently left his journalism chops somewhere on one of his "Where in the world?" trips -- didn't press them.

It was about as close to empty calories as TV gets, and another good reason why I find it increasingly impossible to watch the infotainment mix that passes for news in the morning. In fact, zapping through "Today" on my TiVo to find the Salahis offered a disheartening blur of Tiger Woods, the party couple and a fleeting glimpse of Afghanistan.

By the 8 o'clock hour, the show and its giddy hosts had moved on to the stuff that they really do well -- "Fashion for Dummies" advice and a live performance by Barry Manilow.

Presumably all of them were invited.

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In the final analysis, the "Seinfeld" reunion finale on HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" was less than advertised -- a recurring side plot, really, in the Larry David character's season-long scheme to win back his wife, played by Cheryl Hines.

Then again, turning the central "Seinfeld" quartet into expensive props dovetails nicely with the meta nature of "Curb," which is all about utter self-absorption. Sure, there was the supposed "Seinfeld" reunion special within "Curb's" penultimate episode and season finale, but those scenes ultimately proved little more than a garnish to the win-back-Cheryl bid. And seriously, if a thread about George losing all his money to Bernie Madoff is the best David has to offer in adding to the original show's legacy, then he really has screwed up another "Seinfeld" finale.

Having said that (hee hee), simply seeing David and Jerry Seinfeld banter back and forth did offer some insight into the alchemy behind "Seinfeld's" success. And there was something deliciously perverse about local HBO spots for "Curb" running during NBC's current Thursday comedy block -- an adding-insult-to-injury scenario for the Peacock network if there ever was one, calling back as it did to significantly better times.

Perhaps the best thing about Sunday's "Curb" (modest spoiler alert) was that David danced up to the precipice of sentimentality and then quickly dialed it back -- reminding us that living with someone as quirky and self-obsessed as the fictional version of himself can never be much of a picnic. This was hardly the best season of "Curb" on record, and it wasn't even the best hour of television on Sunday night. That distinction belonged to "Dexter," which may have permanently rewritten the books and reset the bar for special Thanksgiving-themed episodes.

Still, all told it was kind of nice seeing the "Seinfeld" gang back together again, and yada yada yada, "Curb's" long-deferred return was pretty (but only pretty) good.

"Friday Night Lights" is in the midst of another staggeringly good season, which is something of a shame, inasmuch as it's only available to DirecTV subscribers and isn't expected to hit NBC until some time this summer.

Having lost several cast members, the show has reloaded spectacularly well, with special kudos to its casting people. The plot lines are also advancing along a number of terrific paths, as football coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler, in the role of a lifetime) seeks to establish the football program at a new high school, while his wife (the marvelous Connie Britton) struggles with the boosters after enforcing rules that result in the departure of a key player at her school, West Dillon High.

In hindsight, the DirecTV deal has appeared to be liberating to the show creatively -- dealing with issues like race and what it's like to be gay in God- and gun-loving Texas. The show-sharing pact also marks one of the genuine highlights from Ben Silverman's short-lived tenure at NBC, inasmuch as the network found a way to keep one of the finest shows on television alive, despite low ratings.

The bottom line is if you're not a DirecTV subscriber, you're missing one hell of a good game -- albeit one being played outside the glare of the bright lights, on Wednesdays.

Had to laugh at a comment posted on my review of "Merry Madagascar," the NBC animated special from DreamWorks that aired this week.

"You friggin scrooge," wrote "santa@thenorthpole.com." "It's a holiday special for kids not the next Mona Lisa! Geesh get with the season."

Sorry, Santa, but I grew up on a diet of great holiday kids shows: "A Charlie Brown Christmas." "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" -- stuff that has withstood the test of time. And given all the advantages that are available today from a production/technology standpoint, there's no reason that the modern versions ought to be dreck -- or get a free pass for it.

In fact, there is a terrific animated holiday special coming up on ABC -- not surprisingly, one produced under the aegis of Pixar's John Lasseter, "Prep & Landing," about Christmas elves. (As opposed to, I guess, "Lord of the Rings" elves.) A more detailed review will come later (the show airs on Dec. 1), but it's precisely the kind of holiday offering I fondly remember -- one that both kids and adults can enjoy.

Children consume enough junk food as it is, and that includes a lot of the TV they watch. The holiday confections served to them ought to be held to a higher standard.

And if you don't like it, Santa, then at the risk of winding up with coal in my stocking, I suggest you stick it up the chimney with care.

"Curb Your Enthusiasm's" non-reunion "Seinfeld" reunion must be an extremely odd and frustrating meta-moment for the folks over at NBC.

The latest "Curb" featured the "Seinfeld" cast playing out fictional scenes from the fictional special that could really help the not-so-fictional network on which it's fictionally supposed to air.

Nearly all of the "Seinfeld" zoo, including many supporting players, popped in during the extended episode, which also incorporated a riotous riff on Michael Richards' notorious outburst at African-American hecklers during a comedy club appearance a few years ago. That, and another subplot that played off a misunderstanding regarding pedophilia, should be a reminder to everyone (are you listening, Catholic League?) that "Curb" is a series that doesn't recognize the existence of sacred cows.

The really strange part, though, was that the bogus reunion special looked like it would potentially be a big ratings draw for NBC -- it's certainly a link to happy days at the network, back when "Seinfeld" reigned supreme in the 1990s -- given all the hoopla that would have surrounded such an event. Instead, a fictional network suit is watching the run-throughs rubbing his grubby little hands together.

The next episode marks "Curb's" season finale, and the teaser suggested more of the reunion -- including a lot of squabbling about whether this was a chance to do a proper finale after "Seinfeld" screwed up its farewell episode and left a lot of fans grumbling, a la "The Sopranos."

It's nice to see that David and company can still laugh at themselves. Yet if I was at NBC right now, seeing them trip down memory lane on HBO might be a little too painful to watch.

Variety's Rick Kissell includes this jaw-dropping statistic in his latest ratings recap regarding the relative competitive standing of "The Jay Leno Show:"

"In part because of baseball making for an additional strong competitor at 10, 'Leno' last week placed sixth in 18-49 on Monday and Wednesday, fifth on Tuesday and tied for fourth on Thursday. Among the Big Three, though, the NBC show is competitive with rookie ABC dramas on both Tuesday and Wednesday."

For relative old-timers -- i.e. anyone who remembers when there were actually two guys named "Brandon" simultaneously running broadcast networks -- it's easy to still think of a four-network playing field and a separate (considerably smaller) cable universe. Yet the reality is that on any given night one cable network or another can surpass a broadcast network, and two or three in tandem can do so easily.

What "Leno" has done is hasten this process and level the playing field, making it more possible for a series like USA's "White Collar" to rival broadcast numbers -- both because USA is up and NBC is down.

So while it's tempting to look at those network rating grids and draw snap conclusions about who's "winning," the process -- and the competitive playing field -- has become far more complicated than that.

New executives always get a chance to put their imprint on a network, and it looks like Jeff Gaspin -- newly in charge of NBC -- has his own template in mind.

 Namely, be more like USA, the cable network with which NBC Universal is enjoying so much success.

In an interview with The Wrap, Gaspin said of his vision for NBC in regard to the decision to drop "Southland," "The way we need to rebuild NBC is with broad, somewhat blue-sky, somewhat more optimistic programming. And unfortunately a show like 'Southland' didn't fit that bill."

That sounds a whole lot like the "blue-sky" attitude that USA has adopted with series like "Burn Notice" and "Royal Pains," along with the recently well-reviewed "White Collar."

The only problem with this strategy is that NBC has conspicuously tried "blue-sky" itself, without much to show for it. Indeed, the pile-up of failures under the old blue-sky approach include "Crusoe," the "Knight Rider" reboot and, if you're willing to go back that far, something called "Hawaii."

Of course, it all boils down to execution -- and timing -- as to whether shows work or not. But my experience has been that series tend to dictate a struggling network's direction rather than the other way around -- that is, when something surprisingly succeeds, that breakthrough often leads a network down a path that it hadn't necessarily intended to follow. (In recent TV history, see "Housewives, Desperate.")

My sense of the "Southland" decision, by the way, is a whole lot simpler than what's been discussed. As a new set of eyes in the process, Gaspin looked at an expensive series that the network was throwing into a dead-end timeslot on Friday night and probably asked, "Why are we doing this again?" My only quibble with the move is that NBC should have delayed the show, waited for an inevitable opening earlier in the week -- say, in place of "Trauma" -- and given it a second shot there. Even if the cop drama had failed, it wouldn't have sent a "Quality doesn't live here anymore" message to the creative community as well as the show's admirers.

Gaspin is a very savvy executive and might very well be right with his "blue-sky" analysis. For now, though, such a forecast is going to have to wait until a lot of clouds clear over NBC.

Random thoughts from a full evening of Thursday TV viewing:

-- "FlashForward" does a nice job with its end-of-show cliffhangers/teasers. It's everything leading up to those moments that has significantly dragged the last two weeks. The ratings continue to hold up reasonably well, but the series had better pick up the pace or the audience is going to start getting antsy -- in the same way that critics at Slate and Salon took recent potshots.  

-- Best "Grey's Anatomy" of the year. Taut, smart and compelling, pulling the viewer along through the mystery of what happened to a patient. The merging of the two hospitals has brought a welcome burst of energy and drama to the show -- centering around (gasp) concerns about medical costs instead of the staff's personal lives -- after last season's often absurd bouts of melodrama.

-- Worst "The Office" of the season so far. Listening to Michael and Pam shriek at each other got boring pretty fast. (In the "different strokes" dept., critic Alan Sepinwall disagrees.)

That said, the series remains terrific overall -- and deserves credit for doing as well as it is (8.7 million viewers on Thursday, with a 4.4 rating among adults age 18-49) given the relative weakness of the NBC comedies surrounding it.

-- Watching the dude faint on "Survivor" wasn't as harrowing as I was lead to believe it was going to be. But I did enjoy the part where Jeff Probst acted like he was making all the decisions for the show on his own, without consulting the producers.

Well, critics had better get used to squinting into their computer screens instead of plopping on the couch to watch network screeners.

NBC has joined ABC by announcing that it will make its screeners available online, touting that as a "more 'green' way to review NBC Universal shows." It's also a "more green" way, presumably, for the networks, in that posting programs online is cheaper than having to mail them out to critics and reporters. Plus it blunts piracy concerns about people selling DVDs.

Of course, critics don't love this, and producers have reason not to be thrilled either. Although I previewed ABC's "V" at Comic-Con with an audience, I just went back and re-viewed the pilot online. Those shots of people staring up in awe as great big spaceships hover over cities don't look quite as imposing on my 15-inch monitor as they would on my 46-inch TV.

Personally, I don't mind watching a pilot online, provided it's a half-hour or an hour (really only about 43 minutes). But watching anything longer than that is (literally) kind of a pain in the ass -- and sort of like consuming a 15-page New Yorker article online, when printing it out and reading it is much more convenient.

Although I sympathize with the networks about mail being slightly passe and even appreciate their environmental good citizenship, in some respects, "Godzilla" had it right: Size really does matter.

The creative community is still smarting over NBC's decision to strip "The Jay Leno Show" at 10 p.m. Canceling the gritty John Wells-produced cop drama "Southland" before the show can begin its second season only exacerbates the sense that the network is in full-on cost-containment-over-quality mode.

This is a series that not only opened to strong reviews (here's mine from last April) but carried an elite producer pedigree, with former "ER" exec producer and newly elected Writers Guild of America West President Wells at the helm, and Ann Biderman as its principal writer. Although some elements of the large cast worked better than others, Michael Cudlitz and Ben McKenzie were simply outstanding as the tough older cop nurturing the fresh-faced younger one.

By acting to in essence cut its losses, NBC has sent a chilling message to drama producers and production companies, indicating that concepts that are moderately demanding have little future there. And while it's understandable that the network would worry about the prospects for such a dark series -- the proposed Friday timeslot was a bad idea from the get-go -- bailing out now amounts to not only a slap to the show's audience but a double whammy for writers disappointed that the former home of "L.A. Law" and "Hill Street Blues" abandoned 10 o'clock dramas. (See my earlier column on that topic.)

Newly installed NBC overseer Jeff Gaspin clearly has his work cut out for him, but the "Southland" move -- almost certainly a bitter pill to swallow for Warner Bros. Television, which produces the program -- won't make the inevitable "We love you, bring us your best stuff" pitch from Gaspin and scripted chief Angela Bromstad any easier.

Then again, "Southland" was notable for its realism, and in what looks like its last act the show's fictional cops have mirrored the lot of real ones: Despite admirably doing their jobs, they're faced with bean-counting cutbacks.

Welcome to L.A.

It's obviously not a major factor, but it's interesting to ponder whether General Electric's openness to a deal that might involve giving up majority control of NBC Universal has anything to do with the headaches that the Fox News Channel-MSNBC feud have dropped in the lap of GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt.

The mere fact that GE brass would be drawn into past (and unsuccessful) efforts to negotiate a kind of ceasefire suggest that Immelt was tired of having Bill O'Reilly giving out his email address and accusing him of secretly working on behalf of Iran to undermine U.S. interests. (That's only a slight exaggeration of the charges that O'Reilly has thrown at GE and NBC U as retaliation for allowing Keith Olbermann to name him "Worst Person in the World" every other night.)

Of course, the larger reason has to do with economic factors and NBC's degraded place within the TV universe. The old "Six Sigma" philosophy says to be first in every one of your businesses. At this point, as evidenced by "The Jay Leno Show" cost-saving maneuver, NBC is playing defense, not offense, and Universal has experienced a similarly underwhelming run at the boxoffice.

Foremost, though, Jeff Zucker has stated repeatedly that NBC Universal is primarily a cable company now, and those assets mesh perfectly with Comcast's profile.

Still, if nothing else Immelt could see shedding some of the peripheral grief that goes with the stewardship of NBC in these politically polarized times -- including the assaults from O'Reilly -- as a welcome bonus to a possible deal.

Conan O'Brien did a nice job handling the tumble that resulted in him smacking his head -- and an episode of his show getting bumped last week -- on Monday's show, but man, that looks like a tough way to get attention. O'Brien has done a lot of big physical stuff since taking over "The Tonight Show" -- including some amusing bits with a stunt man -- but after this, it might be time to dial those down a bit.

The ship has sailed, seemingly, for NBC's "Heroes," whose two-hour premiere did little to address the creative flaws in last season's storylines, and which opened to tepid ratings -- indicating the audience that has abandoned the show is likely gone for good.

Monday's two-hour launch averaged a mere 6.1 million viewers and a more respectable 2.8 rating among adults 18-49 -- fourth in its timeslot by both measures. Yet even with a tough "House" premiere as competition, it's hard to imagine those numbers rising after the uninspired debut.

Once one of TV's hottest series, "Heroes" has become a cautionary tale for serialized dramas. After growing too ambitious and teeming with new characters early in its run, the show has struggled to reclaim any kind of rhythm -- and hasn't helped its cause by introducing a new threat (played by Robert Knepper) and several more new faces in the season kickoff.

The show's time-traveling exploits -- with Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka) again jumping back and threatening to alter the present and future -- has also been to its detriment, confusing and silly all at once. The storytelling increasingly seems less informed by comic-book sensibilities -- which was part of the program's initial charm -- than merely sloppy, including the off-putting twist from last year of having a shape-shifting Sylar (Zachary Quinto) stand in for the slain Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar). Other than keeping both actors employed, it remains a mystery what purpose that plot serves.

Even with the benefit of having TiVo-ed the premiere, I found myself walking out of the room and simply letting the recording run. And while I've seen every episode and would like to keep that streak alive, it's going to be a challenge to stay interested if the series continues along its current track. The only suggestion I could offer would be to dramatically streamline the cast down to a handful of characters, but that's obviously not going to happen on the fly.

As my colleague Rick Kissell noted in his indispensable ratings recaps, NBC "had a tough night all around," as "Heroes'" weak bow did nothing to help "The Jay Leno Show," which took a predictable hit against season premieres.

At one point, the NBC drama seemed poised to challenge "Lost" on the buzz meter among TV's serialized sci-fi obsessions, but that battle's over. And in the real world, there's no going back in time to fix where "Heroes" went wrong.

 

NBC's Thursday lineup launches this week, with one of the funniest episodes of "The Office" that I've seen in awhile.

In it, Michael (Steve Carell) begins concocting fabulous lies about the staff to cover up one uncomfortable truth that he discovers, not knowing that one of the "secrets" he's spreading -- that Pam is pregnant -- happens to be true.

Not only are there multiple laugh-out-loud moments, but the show continues to display considerable bravery in playing around with its characters.

As for "The Office" producers' second venture, "Parks and Recreation," that series returns somewhat improved from last season's first few episodes, though without the same inspiration as its predecessor. Amy Poehler remains engagingly clueless as a small-town official -- the premiere sees her become an unlikely gay-rights champion -- but the supporting cast still hasn't fully found its groove. The second episode (airing Sept. 24) proves slightly better than the first, but it still feels like "The Office" is sandwiched between clearly inferior comedies (see my review of "Community"), on a night where the competition could be more formidable with Fox's "Fringe" (here's Stu Levine's take on its second-season premiere) and ABC's "FlashForward" taking up residence on the night.

It will also be interesting to see how "The Jay Leno Show" fares on Thursday, and whether the network's one sitcom block provides a more compatible flow into the program than, say, "The Biggest Loser" or the new series "Trauma." (Leno did get a nice boost Wednesday from the "America's Got Talent" finale, but again, that's before the big guns arrive on the other networks next week.)

NBC is holding "30 Rock" back until October, airing "Saturday Night Live" to fill that extra half-hour. Presumably, the network is hoping another showy Emmy performance will help give the series some additional momentum heading into the fall, but after all the hoopla surrounding Tina Fey in the run-up to the 2008 election, the heat surrounding the show last year will be difficult to replicate.

Quote of the day, from Jeff Gaspin, Chairman, NBC Universal Television Entertainment, regarding the debut of "The Jay Leno Show" on Monday: "It's great to launch this innovative new show with such strong initial sampling, but we realize this is just one night and that we're going to build our business in this time period with ratings that will level out over time. Our focus is on delivering a great show and developing a consistent comedy viewing habit at 10 p.m. over the long haul."

Translation: "You're not going to get to bitch-slap us all over again for proclaiming anybody the 'new king' of anything after one night, like we did with Conan O'Brien."

Smart guy, that Gaspin. And also smart of NBC to include the 25-54 demographic prominently in its press release, since Leno figures to do markedly better by that older-skewing measure over time than among adults age 18-49, the standard that NBC and other networks usually tout.

Here was the tale-o'-the-tape breakdown on Monday for Leno:

Total viewers: 18.4 million

Adults 18-49: 5.3 rating

Adults 25-54: 6.4 rating

And one afterthought on some of the reaction to the program that's been dribbling in: My guess is some of the people criticizing the premiere hadn't actually tried sitting through an entire episode of "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" in ages, except perhaps for his final episode. Frankly, "Same show, different time" would have nearly sufficed as a review, but where's the fun in that?

Finally, I must confess to being a trifle amused (and more than a little terrified) about the comment posted on my review by someone seemingly obsessed with the size of Leno's feet.

His feet? Really? I mean, sure, he looked like he was standing on a symbol from "The Da Vinci Code," but his feet?

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

Both the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times are reporting about a supposed truce between Fox News Channel and MSNBC brokered by top News Corp. and General Electric executives.

Although I've long advocated that the two sides exercise some restraint in their increasingly heated war of rhetoric -- which has come to resemble the HBO movie "Weapons of Mass Distraction" -- let's just say I'll completely believe it when I see it. Hell, even corporate behemoths might discover that when it comes to star personalities, creating monsters is easier than controlling them.

At the source of the fracas are MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and FNC's Bill O'Reilly. Having been made the butt of Olbermann's barbs for the last several years, the thin-skinned O'Reilly has become increasingly venomous in leveling counter-attacks at NBC News and GE, clearly hoping to retaliate against those who employ his tormentor. (The odd part is that while Olbermann mentions O'Reilly almost nightly -- regularly naming him "The worst person in the world" -- O'Reilly will never stoop, in his view, to utter Olbermann's name.)

Olbermann has been off the last couple of weeks, but via email he told the New York Times' Brian Stelter that he was "party to no deal." Without Olbermann agreeing to dial back his invective toward O'Reilly, it's hard to imagine a unilateral cessation by Fox.

At least marginally toning down the vitriol would be a step in the right direction. It's gotten to the point where the opposing sides have come close to accusing the other of murder -- O'Reilly maintaining that GE is contributing to the death of Americans by doing business with Iran, Olbermann by alleging that O'Reilly's frequent reports about George Tiller, a doctor who performed abortions, helped lead to his killing. Urging them to play a little nicer hardly seems out of line.

Thanks in part to Lou Dobbs and his pigheaded insistence on flogging the "birther" movement questioning President Obama's origins, both networks seem to agree on at least one thing -- sharing a common contempt for CNN, albeit not for the same reasons.

Given the overheated, conflict-driven climate in the talk/opinion space from which these networks have handsomely profited, it's difficult to squeeze the genie back into the bottle. About the best the bosses can hope for, perhaps, is trading in one bogeyman for another.

Update: Salon's Glenn Greenwald zeroes in on the most disturbing aspect of the story: That GE would seek to muzzle Olbermann (and potentially other MSNBC hosts) in order to protect its corporate interests. By that measure, O'Reilly's retaliatory assault on GE Chairman Jeffrey Immelt and NBC News -- one often characterized by distortions and unsubstantiated allegations -- will have paid off. Indeed, O'Reilly has transparently gone after GE specifically to bring about this sort of concession.

The real question, yet to be determined, is how the supposed "truce" will work in practice -- and whether Olbermann can abide by the restrictions. If it's strictly a matter of toning down or dialing back his commentary -- as opposed to eliminating criticism of FNC -- that falls under the heading of the network exercising editorial discretion over its talent. MSNBC brass has a right to ask that O'Reilly bashing no longer need be a nightly occurrence. The motives might be venal, but it's not unheard of, which is why CNN is receiving such well-deserved criticism for behaving as if it has no control over what comes tumbling out of Dobbs' mouth, just as Fox merits criticism for Glenn Beck's more unhinged statements.

On the flip side, it's hard to envision Olbermann (who is scheduled to return from his vacation next week) accepting an order to completely expunge references to O'Reilly or Fox News from his coverage simply to take the heat off of GE. If that's really what's happening here, this is a much more serious issue.

At times, the dueling spin coming from networks begins to approach the level of alternative realities -- a bit like flipping back and forth between MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Fox News' Sean Hannity, or scanning the lead items on the Drudge Report and the Huffington Post.

So it is with the David Letterman-Conan O'Brien derby, where NBC is frantically touting "The Tonight Show's" younger demos while CBS crows about Letterman drawing a larger audience than his latenight counterpart for the first time in more than three years.

The most interesting figure being pushed by NBC is the median age of the audience -- namely, that O'Brien's viewers clock in at just under 46 by that measure, while Letterman's posse perhaps not unexpectedly skews significantly older, at 57. That's reasonably close to the age gap between the two hosts.

That means that the O'Brien audience is more attractive to media buyers chasing younger men, but also that the older contingent that had been watching Jay Leno has pretty quickly abandoned him -- as evidenced by the just-released total audience figures for the week of June 15-19: "Late Show With David Letterman," 3.5 million; "The Tonight Show," 3.3 million. Even with a clear boost for Letterman thanks to the fabricated, media-stoked flap involving Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, that's a fairly steep decline for O'Brien from "Tonight's" overall average under Leno.

The truth is latenight is no longer a zero-sum game given all the options that are available, so both shows can thrive in slightly different quadrants. Yet NBC has been perhaps understandably fierce about proclaiming O'Brien the "new king of latenight" and madly spinning to reinforce that impression. (See my earlier column on this.)

The real mistake would be reading a shift as a failure somehow on O'Brien's part. If anything, both shows are doing a pretty good job of defying gravity, given how mediocre the primetime ratings for the major networks have been since Memorial Day.

Meanwhile, the ratings breakdown of the two programs puts the consumer press, in particular, in an awkward spot: In terms of cultural sway, total viewers is the obvious number to go by, as well as the easiest for lay people to understand, as in "X million people watched." From a business perspective, though, staying ahead among younger demos is significant. So at this point, who wins the war of spinning the referees, as it were, is far from an inconsequential point.

So you be the judge. Here are a few key passages from the respective releases.

CONAN HAS INCREASED 'TONIGHT'S' DEMO DOMINANCE, WINNING THE WEEK BY A 67 PERCENT MARGIN OVER 'LATE SHOW,' UP FROM A 53 PERCENT WIN LAST YEAR AND A 34 PERCENT LEAD EARLIER THIS SEASON

CONAN DELIVERS DECISIVE DEMO MARGINS OVER ALL BROADCAST AND CABLE COMPETITION FOR THE WEEK 

CONAN'S AUDIENCE IS 11 YEARS YOUNGER THAN 'LATE SHOW'S,' AND CONAN IS EVEN YOUNGER THAN HE WAS ON 'LATE NIGHT' FOR THE SAME WEEK LAST YEAR

The median age of Conan's audience last week was 45.8, more than 11 years younger than Letterman's 57.0.  Conan is also younger than he was a year ago on "Late Night," where the median age of his audience for this same week one year ago was 48.5.

In the younger half of the key 18-49 demographic, adults 18-34, Conan won the week by a towering 164 percent margin (930,000 adults 18-34 vs. "Late Show's" 352,000), up from 103 percent for the same week last year and up from 50 percent for "Tonight" this season through the end of May.

Meanwhile, from CBS' press department, a more straightforward assertion -- and a "first time since 2005" breakthrough, which ought to command tomorrow's headlines:

"LATE SHOW" BEATS "THE TONIGHT SHOW"

"Late Show with David Letterman" Tops "The Tonight Show"

Among Viewers in a Full Week of Original Broadcasts for the First Time Since 2005

 

"Late Show" Continues To Narrow the Gap in Adults 18-49

"The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" Closes the Gap

with "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon"

           

            CBS's LATE SHOW with DAVID LETTERMAN beat "The Tonight Show" in viewers for the first time in a full week of original broadcasts since December 2005, according to Nielsen live plus same day ratings for the week ending June 19, the third week since Conan O'Brien took over as host of "The Tonight Show."

 

LATE SHOW with DAVID LETTERMAN delivered a 2.5/06 in households with an average of 3.46m viewers, up +14% in households (from 2.2/06) and +13% in viewers (from 3.05m) compared to the same week last year. 

 

LATE SHOW beat "The Tonight Show" in households (2.5/06 vs. 2.3/06, +9%) and viewers (3.46m vs. 3.32m, +4%).  LATE SHOW beat "The Tonight Show" in viewers against an all-first run week of "Tonight Show" broadcasts for the first time since the week ending December 2, 2005 (the week Oprah Winfrey appeared on LATE SHOW). 

Alec Baldwin has been a bright spot for NBC will his brilliant performance as a TV (and microwave oven) executive on "30 Rock." Now NBC is exhibiting a commitment to employ the less-talented members of the acting Baldwin clan on the reality show "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!," bringing in Daniel Baldwin in Wednesday's episode to join his brother, Stephen, in the Costa Rican jungle.

Can Billy Baldwin be far behind?

Of course, both Stephen and Daniel have past reality-TV experience -- the former in "The Apprentice," the latter in VH1's "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew." Billy was last seen as a regular on the ABC drama "Dirty Sexy Money," which seems appropriate, since it's difficult to think of a way for a celebrity to make money that's any dirtier than this.

Apparently, NBC also stands for No Baldwin Control. On the plus side, the Baldwin invasion does suggest the title for a potential spinoff, tentatively titled, "I'm an NBC Star ... Please Get My Relatives Off My Network!" Or maybe "The Brothers McMorons." We'll have to see which one clears legal.

Conan O'Brien's second night on "The Tonight Show" exhibited signs of improvement but indicated that the host is still finding the new program, the raucous audience response and extended ovations notwithstanding.

The monologue again proved slightly uneven, as did a taped piece in which O'Brien went on a shopping spree through the Crenshaw district. Oddly enough, the real highlight came courtesy of Brian Williams' interview with President Obama, who spoke earnestly about the Leno-to-Conan transition, promising that there would be no bailout.

The one major area of improvement on Tuesday had little to do with the host, as Tom Hanks did pretty much everything you can ask of a talkshow guest: He was witty, engaging, prepped with good stories (including a Ron Howard impersonation that made the director sound like an early Jerry Lewis), and even expressed human-sounding enthusiasm for a local burger chain.

O'Brien also showed flashes of his ability to create the show at the desk, with a small bit about his California driver's license photo that generated solid laughs. The more he can do that -- without feeling the need to rely on elaborate taped pieces -- the better off he'll be. By contrast, a spoof about Twitter had promise but went nowhere.

Still, if you were scoring on points, the referee's decision again went to David Letterman. He delivered a firstrate monologue and again joked about the latenight turmoil over at NBC, including an aside about North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il being offered "the 10 o'clock slot" to make him go away.

So all told, a pretty good night for Conan -- but a better one for Dave. The real question will be how well the "Tonight Show" numbers hold up from Monday after the initial burst of curiosity. O'Brien has a golden opportunity to woo fringe voters, as it were, over the next few weeks -- but the real test for NBC will come in the fall, when Leno shakes up the 10 p.m. hour.

Until then, savor those ovations.

Occasionally, showbiz folk become a little too enamored with the hoopla surrounding their programs, getting caught up in all the media buzz. So it was with the premiere of "The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien," which gave off the impression of a college student who had too much time to study and basically over-crammed for the big test.

With months of prep time, O'Brien loaded up Monday night's debut hour with taped pieces and L.A.-centric bits. A few of them worked -- his energetic opening, running across America to make his debut; or shanghaiing a Universal Studios tour tram and taking it into the local neighborhood -- but just as many of them didn't, such as Conan sitting in the rafters at a Lakers game.

The monologue was, dare I say it, a little too Leno-esque, with an overly broad gag about Vice President Joe Biden and a jab at the Los Angeles Clippers. There was also a fairly obvious slap at the cruel fates assailing both last-place NBC and bankrupt California, but at least that felt appropriate to the occasion.

In terms of a smooth start, it didn't help that O'Brien's first guest, Will Ferrell, basically played his whole segment as an extended comedy routine, never engaging the host in anything that approached genuine conversation. Nor does the new format make much use of sidekick Andy Richter -- who stood near the studio audience -- though one suspects that his role will evolve over time, as it did during his stint on "Late Night."

On the plus side, the new set looks great. Now O'Brien has to settle into it, and settle down by playing to his established strengths and silencing any of that nagging "fifth 'Tonight Show' host in history" voice in the back of his head. Yes, the new L.A. venue represents a departure from New York, but how many gags about stealing letters off the Hollywood (or make that "Hollywoo") sign can you really do?

Notably, across the dial, David Letterman weighed right in with several jokes about the switch-over happening at NBC. He opened by wryly stating that he had "knocked off another competitor," and insinuated that his mother, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il and Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor would all be watching Conan -- at least on Monday. He even threw in a little Jay Leno impersonation (as did O'Brien), before quipping in regard to his new timeslot rival, "I know that years ago, he killed a guy."

O'Brien will surely be sampled by those curious to see how he looks in the new digs, but the bottom line is there's no reinventing the wheel. And for all the self-effacing lines about losing round one, my guess is that Letterman is feeling reinvigorated, sensing that after trailing Leno for so many years he has a chance to reclaim the latenight ratings crown that he once possessed.

Those are also precisely the kind of considerations that O'Brien needs to zone out right now. OK, so he's made his headlong sprint from New York to L.A. Now it's time to hunker down for what amounts to a marathon.

"Tonight Show" Night Two guest: Tom Hanks. Stay tuned. I'll be updating throughout the week.

Jay Leno's farewell to "The Tonight Show" was, appropriately, a mostly unsentimental affair -- inasmuch as Leno isn't really going anywhere.

Sure, there was extended applause when he came out Friday, loud whoops from the audience, a rather stilted tribute to the staff, and a formal baton pass to Conan O'Brien. "Please give Conan as much support as you've given me through the years," Leno said over the cheers.

But who's kidding whom? The truth is, if Leno had truly been concerned about supporting Conan, he would have ridden into the sunset and gone on to do something else other than host a five-day-a-week comedy show. He certainly wouldn't have left the world speculating for months about whether he was going to continue doing a latenight show -- in direct competition with O'Brien and NBC -- for ABC or Fox.

No, the real story is that NBC -- desperate not to lose O'Brien -- elbowed Leno to step aside before he was ready in 2004, hoping he would be ready by 2009. He wasn't, leaving NBC desperate not to lose Leno. And here we are.

Meanwhile, O'Brien has always lauded Leno for his graciousness -- as he did again during Friday's guest appearance -- but has never really hidden the fact that in terms of comedic sensibilities, Letterman was a huge, formative influence on him and is much more his cup of tea.

Not surprisingly, Leno joked about NBC during an otherwise pretty much run-of-the-mill monologue, except for a bizarre interlude titled "White Trash Theater." Let's hope that bit (which looked like video plucked off YouTube) doesn't resurface on "The Jay Leno Show" in the fall.

During the opening, Leno said he was taking a post-"Tonight" break by going to "a secluded spot where nobody can find me" -- namely, NBC's primetime lineup. Funny stuff, but maybe a little too close to the truth.

All told, the highlight was a taped package of the "Jaywalking" segment -- one of "Tonight's" most consistent gags under Leno, and usually superior to his overly programmed studio interviews. Even more than Conan's ability to adapt to 11:30 (he can, whether the audience turns out or not), Leno's willingness to revise his program into being a general comedy show -- instead of a transplanted-to-primetime version of "Tonight" -- remains the real question that bears watching.

Leno has always spoken of the job as franchise maintenance -- essentially keeping Johnny Carson's chair warm -- and he referenced that in his sign-off. "The Tonight Show" was No. 1 when he took over, he noted -- albeit without real competition -- and is still on top, 17 years later, as he makes the hand-off to O'Brien.

Ultimately, that commercial triumph over a more critically admired competitor is Leno's legacy. He was the likable guy that more Americans chose. For a fellow that's spent his tenure poking fun at politicians, perhaps that democratic victory isn't such a bad legacy at that.

The focus on NBC over the next few weeks will be centered on latenight, with Jay Leno's baton pass to Conan O'Brien at the helm of "The Tonight Show."

Yet with that shift, it's easy to overlook the network's status in primetime and how its performance in those hours is interconnected with what transpires in latenight.

On Leno's final show tonight (May 29), for example, the primetime lineup is an hour of "Howie Do It" followed by a "Dateline NBC" about what has seemingly become the favorite topic for newsmags -- namely, whether some guy killed his wife.

Next week, the big tease to O'Brien is a two-hour revival of the former ABC show "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!," followed by "Medium," a series that jumps to CBS in the fall.

Unless NBC can prevail upon President Obama to become a permanent "Tonight Show" co-host, it's difficult to overcome those kind of primetime lead-ins to late local news. Moreover, with Leno moving to 10 p.m. in the fall, the fate of O'Brien and his predecessor remain inexorably linked, making Leno's departure less the end of a chapter (even one 17 years in the making) than simply the turning of a page.

Finally, there's the David Letterman portion of the equation. Losing to Leno has always irked Letterman, and with the host having little left to prove in his career, it's pretty clear he'd like nothing better than going out on top. With O'Brien expected to possess less widespread appeal than Leno and CBS seemingly destined to trounce NBC at 10 p.m., he has a golden opportunity to make that happen come September.

Latenight has always been a marathon, as opposed to a sprint. So while it'll be interesting to see how O'Brien does getting out of the starting blocks -- when his numbers will be fueled by curiosity -- we won't really know what to expect from the latenight race until all the pieces are in place later this year.

That won't stop us media folk from pouncing on it, of course. But to quote Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, drawing any grand conclusions before "The Jay Leno Show" arrives will be for you to poop on.

Read even slightly between the lines, and there was nothing at all subtle about CBS' upfront presentation on Wednesday. Sure, the network touted its growth and (sometimes awkwardly) trotted out its stars, but the main point was this: NBC's bailing out of the game as a major player with the Jay Leno move; give us their money.

CBS CEO Leslie Moonves set the tone, saying the real problem wasn't with the network model but "not being able to find any hit shows for years" -- a big F-U to NBC Universal's Jeff Zucker if there ever was one. Sales chief JoAnn Ross followed by belittling NBC's comments about "managing for profit margins" instead of ratings. "Not keeping score might work in T-ball," she said, but not the big leagues.

Finally, CBS Entertainment Prez Nina Tassler called the NBC shift at 10 p.m. "a sea-change," and the Eye network has responded by making an aggressive push to dominate that hour on TV's biggest night, moving first-year hit "The Mentalist" to Thursdays coming out of "CSI." Even with "CSI" looking considerably weaker this season, that should create a formidable tandem.

In another smart strategic move, CBS will relocate "The Big Bang Theory" to follow "Two and a Half Men" on Monday nights, which should fortify the network's comedy block and allow "BBT" -- coming off a stellar sophomore year -- to grow further, bolstering "CSI: Miami" as well as planning for the day when "Men" has hummed its last chorus.

For all that, CBS' lineup remained conservative, including a few moves that take compatibility to almost comic extremes. "NCIS" leading into spinoff "NCIS: Los Angeles?" "The Ghost Whisperer" leading into the NBC transplant "Medium," for a psychic overdose on Fridays? It might work, but it still fosters the impression that the older CBS audience is simply falling asleep in front of the TV.

Oh, and with apologies to LL Cool J, asking a guy to get up and rap in front of an audience of uptight media buyers in suits -- urging them to stand up and wave their hands in the air -- is never, ever a good idea.

In terms of the new shows, CBS has also stayed close to home, but with purpose. Julianna Margulies plays a lawyer (as she did in Fox's "Canterbury's Law") but should be more at home in "The Good Wife," and the hospital drama "Three Rivers" seems more conventionally "ER"-ish than most of the other medical franchises being introduced to vie for that title. Also, the reality show "Undercover Boss" seems especially well-timed and appears to have breakout potential.

All told, a pretty savvy lineup with a lot of meat-and-potatoes type programming, if nothing at first glance that warrants rushing out to buy a back-up TiVo. Moonves opened by joking about the fact that CBS wasn't sexy, but that for him, winning is enough.

Of course, if that were completely true, the presentation would have skipped the rap number.

Overall grade, subject to revision: B

Much as I hate to completely agree with Deadlinehollywooddaily's Nikki Finke, she's absolutely right about Dave Itzkoff's New York Times piece, which sounded utterly shocked by the "withering, blistering monologue" that Jimmy Kimmel delivered at ABC's upfront presentation on Tuesday.

Itzkoff must be a complete neophyte to upfront blather, since comics have been getting up and poking fun at their own networks for years at these events. And while Kimmel joked about ABC's shows, I'd contend (as I did in an earlier post) that Kimmel's most pointed barb was aimed at NBC, who the latenight host accused of destroying its own network by virtue of its determination to prevent Jay Leno from leaping over to ABC.

Funny and very smart stuff, perfectly suited to an insider-savvy audience. As for Itzkoff pondering whether Kimmel is lucky to have a job, my guess is that he not only has one but will be doing it a half-hour earlier sooner or later, if ABC pulls the trigger on moving him to go directly opposite Conan O'Brien.

This is, in other words, a completely bogus non-story, receiving attention only because people like to assume that the New York Times knows what it's talking about. In this case, the paper didn't.

Let's hope they're doing a better job on how they cover Washington.

Without spoiling anything, having seen the April 27 "Heroes" season finale, the show has come up short in its efforts to reboot and reload for the coming season.

To its credit, the NBC sci-fi hour did get back to basics somewhat this year, focusing more on its core characters after messily introducing new ones at a dizzying rate. At one point, you began to wonder if people with "abilities" were more the norm than the exception.

Still, this season's "X-Men"-style plot -- with a government cabal labeling people with powers threats, seeking to round them up and in some instances eliminate them -- never fully congealed. At times the show became far too Sylar-centric (villains and gooey personal back stories are an awkward mix), and I have a suspicion that some of the contrivances in the season finale will leave the core fan base more irritated than elated at the prospect of what comes next.

From a more pragmatic perspective, the declining ratings over the course of the year suggest the show's best days are behind it. Given the series' expense, it might even be time to start contemplating a graceful exit after one and at most two more seasons. (In terms of the lessons that "Heroes" can derive from "Lost," see my recent column on the parallels, though the "Lost" creative team has always exhibited more narrative discipline.)

Advertising Age has reported NBC's plans to tinker with the program's broadcast pattern, shifting from dividing the season into two chapters to one, while producing fewer episodes -- something like 18 hours, which would then run seamlessly without audience-deflating reruns. Again, that's taking a page from the "Lost" playbook, but that seems unlikely to win back more casual viewers that have drifted away.

Last summer, I sat through a "Heroes" screening with nearly 7,000 screaming fans at Comic-Con in San Diego, where they showered the cast and crew with a standing ovation. When I reviewed the premiere a few months later, I cautioned that such enthusiasm could represent something of a false positive, in the same way that "Watchmen" couldn't get beyond its graphic-novel base.

"In terms of balancing storylines for its sprawling cast (and keeping them within the same century), this season feels as if its back on track, but the path ahead remains perilous," I wrote. "The most ardent fans probably wouldn't have it any other way, but given that success hinges in part on retaining those who didn't camp out at Comic-Con, staying in contact with the rails seems highly advisable.

"Such an approach might not save the cheerleader, but it could just save the show."

At this point, the task at hand is less a matter of saving the show than how long NBC and the producers can prolong it. "Heroes" still boasts a fine cast that makes the program watchable, despite its flaws. Yet if the goal is to restore "Heroes" back to its cultural-sensation status, well, that looks like a job for Superman.

Considering that the Los Angeles Times subjected itself to another public-relations snafu over the NBC drama "Southland" -- a new series about the LAPD -- I wondered how the show performed locally, and whether the payoff was worth all the mess.

Just to recap, the Times aired an L-shaped front-page ad for the program with a mock "news" story in it, causing another mini-revolt in the newsroom, where a petition of complaint was circulated. Other news outlets -- including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, along with Variety and TV Week -- weighed in with stories about the ad's propriety, and rest assured, there's nothing Times staffers love more than being called on the carpet by media ethicists in the New York Times.

So how did this L.A.-centric show -- about a police force whose image has gone through some very non-"Dragnet"-like ups and downs through the years -- fare in the L.A. market? Quite well. The premiere delivered a 5.3 rating -- meaning that percentage of homes in the viewing area tuned in -- and a 10 share (or the percentage of TV sets in use), beating CBS' launch of the horror serial "Harper's Island" (a 4.4 rating). By way of comparison, that surpasses the three episodes of "ER" leading up to its highly rated finale, with those hours (which included a ratings-boosting guest shot by George Clooney) averaging a 4.3 rating.

"Southland" also performed well nationally, attracting 9.9 million viewers and winning its hour among the key demo of adults age 18-49, based on Nielsen estimates [ note: these figures are updated to reflect final national data ]. "Harper's Island" (10.2 million) ranked first in overall viewing, but it had the benefit of a "CSI" lead-in, and unlike "Southland" -- which gained viewers as it went on -- dropped from its first to its second half-hour.

Those results put "Southland" comfortably in the high range of "ER's" ratings chart toward the end of its run. Of course, ABC's "Private Practice" was a rerun, as was "Grey's Anatomy," so the competitive landscape will become more challenging going forward. Even so, the opening-night returns are pretty good for NBC, which can certainly use a ray of sunshine. As for the Times' contribution to the show's marketing, probably not so much.

Front-page ads are an increasingly common fact of life as the embattled newspaper industry grasps for lifelines, but the main problem with the Los Angeles Times' ad for the new NBC drama "Southland" (as documented by my colleague Michael Schneider) is that the faux news story execution looks so absurdly cheesy and amateurish.

Why splash an ad on the front page for a classy, high-quality drama that half looks like one of those cut-rate products offering a cure for erectile dysfunction?

It's also interesting that the Times appears more willing to push the ad-editorial envelope than my old alma mater, UCLA, where students at the Daily Bruin publicly lamented their need to slap advertising on the front page. And that's a place where (assuming things haven't changed much since I was there) they barely pay most of the staff. If this keeps up, don't be surprised if USC breaks down and strikes the inevitable product-placement deal with a certain brand of condom.

Set in Los Angeles and focusing on the LAPD, "Southland" has an inordinately strong connection to L.A., so it might qualify as a kind of exception for the Times. Still, the Daily Bruin editorial summed up the discomfort that journalists tend to feel as such barriers keep falling amid our employers' increasingly desperate attempts to generate revenue, saying, "Our hope is that our readers will not dismiss us as the sell-outs we feel like."

Out of the mouths of (relative) babes.

During his days as strictly a talkradio host, Ed Schultz has often boasted about being able to out-drink and out-shoot conservatives -- a big, boisterous lug of a guy who likes hunting and fishing and, oh, happens to be a liberal. Yet in the premiere of his new nightly (or on the West Coast, afternoon) program "The Ed Show," Schultz also seemed determine to prove that he could out-populist, out-loud and out-stupid them.

Schultz opened his show with an eight-minute "op-ed," during which the camera swooped and swirled promiscuously. It was difficult to tell if this was supposed to approximate the feel of a fun-house ride and create a false sense of excitement or if I was simply stroking out.

Actually, the answer is more basic than that: MSNBC clearly wants Schultz to be its Glenn Beck, countering the tearful Fox News Channel host, who's getting so much attention (and impressive ratings) for his lunatic antics. Schultz fits the bill in some respects, being a plainspoken type representing the heartland who talks relentlessly about jobs and the middle class. What he hasn't mastered yet -- and presumably might with time -- are the conventions of hosting a TV talk program, as opposed to a radio one.

Some of the opening-night glitches weren't Schultz's fault, like cutting to guest Larry Elder -- the former L.A. radio host -- getting his mic set up while Schultz conducted another interview. But everything else about the show screamed stupid (or perhaps more accurately, stoopid), including the relentlessly upbeat, hyper-caffeinated tone; the unchallenged pronouncements by the guests (radio host Lars Larson, for example, objected to President Obama suggesting that the United States isn't a Christian nation); and the blunt, ham-fisted nature of the regular segments. One of them, dubbed "Psycho Talk," allows Schultz to deride some comment by a well-known conservative (on Monday's hour, Newt Gingrich), but Schultz never really articulated an argument, so it came across as little more than juvenile name-calling. Like there's not enough of that in cable news.

Rachel Maddow has made the jump from radio to TV with a certain snarkiness, but her common attribute with lead-in Keith Olbermann is that both attempt to engage in policy discussions with a slightly elevated air. Whether or not one agrees with them (or appreciates Olbermann's jabs at his time-period rival Bill O'Reilly), these are serious conversations with real journalists and decision-makers about genuine issues. (For the purposes of this discussion let's ignore MSNBC's Chris Matthews, who is more than anything in love with the sound of his own voice.)

By contrast, Schultz seems content to mention issues -- the economy, health care, North Korea's missile test -- while barely scratching the skin, talking to people coached to speak with the kind of speed and urgency normally reserved for the gameshow "$100,000 Pyramid." "The Ed Show" might gradually right itself, but based on a first glance it looks like MSNBC has conspicuously stooped in its efforts to conquer.

MSNBC Postscript: Olbermann's show closed on a poignant note, with a lovely tribute regarding the death of his mother. It's always difficult for talent to address such deeply personal matters without sounding self-indulgent, but he managed to do so in an especially admirable and touching manner, and I send my condolences.

"ER" signed off on Thursday night with a preliminary audience estimate of 16.2 million viewers, giving NBC the best shot it's going to have for quite awhile to promote a salvo of spring series -- specifically, "Southland," a cop drama from "ER" producer John Wells; and "Parks and Recreation," the Amy Poehler comedy from the producers of "The Office."

Not surprisingly, NBC featured multiple promos for both shows within the "ER" send-off, which brought to mind the baton pass from "L.A. Law" to "ER" 15 years ago, when the Peacock network was again sucking wind and being written off for dead in some quarters. (For his part, Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert alluded to the "ER" finale by saying, "That's what you get with Obama's socialized medicine.")

So what are the chances that this will yield similar benefits? To quote Yoda, difficult to say. The DVD for "Parks" finally showed up on Friday, which isn't automatically a bad sign, but the ads thus far haven't done much to provide a clear sense of what the show will be. As for "Southland," the series boasts a crackerjack pilot, though its premiere will be tested by CBS' launch of the serialized murder mystery "Harper's Island," which isn't particularly good but could skew younger than the average CBS drama. (NBC also promoted Thursday that viewers could go watch "Southland" online, which is one of those stunts that I'm not sure really buys you anything -- joining a long list of "We can do it, but should we?" web tie-ins.)

What's clear is that NBC could certainly use some good news, especially with the threat that affiliates might start pushing back against the proposed Jay Leno to primetime move. On the down side, nobody seems to be gaining much traction with their mid-season launches yet, which has been especially rough on ABC, which went light with new programs in the fall before a flurry in March, with two more ("The Unusuals," "Surviving Suburbia") due next week.

For NBC, though, the situation appears more immediate and dire. And if next week's premieres don't generate some tune-in, I suspect network execs are going to need more than a couple of aspirin.

As one of the non-bold-face names at Warner Bros.' classy farewell party for "ER" on Saturday night (and for a more detailed list of the who's who that attended, see Cynthia Littleton's recap on her blog), I couldn't help but think that the affair marked more than just a goodbye to a program, but an era.

NBC will replace "ER" starting April 9 with "Southland," a new series from "ER" producer John Wells created by Ann Biderman. A full review will come later, but it's an extremely promising cop drama set in Los Angeles -- one that arrives already living on borrowed time in terms of its timeslot, given NBC's commitment to strip Jay Leno at 10 p.m. in the fall.

Granted, there's not much of a distinction anymore content-wise between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. dramas, but NBC's financially-driven decision to carve back primetime will decrease the amount of network real estate for dramatic fare.

The irony is that "ER" itself was birthed when NBC was in the dumps and people were speculating that the network might have to make some kind of big structural shift. Instead, NBC -- then under Warren Littlefield, who was at Saturday's event, and Don Ohlmeyer -- used the final episode of "L.A. Law" to air an extended promotional spot touting its new medical drama, which premiered in the fall of 1994 and, along with "Friends," set the stages for what would become a pretty remarkable turnaround.

Fifteen years later, it's hard to see how NBC can pull off another Lazarus-like resurrection. Indeed, after the tepid debut for the new drama "Kings," there's reason to be concerned as to whether the network has the critical mass anymore to adequately launch a new hour -- and the Leno move makes the prospects of a dramatic breakthrough that much less likely.

That's the real consequence of giving Leno five hours in primetime. Sure, stripping an inexpensive talk program mitigates the cost of failure, but that also blunts NBC's opportunities for success. It's a way of saying that as long as we can make some money on Leno, we're willing to throw in the towel on introducing the kind of game-changing hit -- always a long shot, but at least a possibility -- that "ER" became. In a way, then, the diminished status of dramas becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

During the speeches at Saturday's event, NBC Entertainment Co-Chairman Ben Silverman introduced Warner Bros. Chairman Barry Meyer as "my future boss," a harmless quip about the rumors that seem to crop up every few years about Warner Bros. being in the market to acquire NBC Universal. Still, Warner Bros. has a very different attitude about rolling the dice by investing in dramatic programming than NBC, which increasingly prefers to focus on its cable assets and pretend as if the flagship network is something of an afterthought.

For his part, Meyer said of "ER" that there is "no show in the history of the studio that has made us so proud for so long." He left out "made us so rich," but this is a studio boss, after all, so that was clearly implied.

Other dramas -- including "Southland" -- will make the studio proud again. But the days of a new dramatic hit being instrumental in helping get NBC off life support -- as "ER" once did -- appear to be a thing of the past.

News item: NBC has tapped "To Catch a Predator" correspondent Chris Hansen to get to the bottom of the financial crisis.

So beware: If you show up to talk someone into a subprime loan -- or try to have sex with their under-age daughter -- Hansen is on the case.

Actually, there's a lot of good, simple information in the two-part "Dateline" report that airs March 22 and continues on the March 27 edition of the NBC very-seldom-news magazine. Hansen does a reasonably solid job of putting a human face on debt problems, particularly when he and his producers delve into the credit-card burdens bearing down on ordinary folks during the second hour.

The problem is that Hansen's old tricks persist, and he almost can't help himself from grandstanding and turning the "bad guys" in the piece into weird, creepy predators, in much the same way he exploited the pathetic losers that NBC helped lure to the "Predator" stings.

So in the first hour, Hansen drives to former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo's gated community -- and includes the footage for no particular reason, since he's turned away at the gate. And he spends a lot of time pressing people -- including consumers -- regarding who they think deserves blame for the financial crisis, including themselves.

The piece de resistance, though, is hidden-camera footage of collection-agency employees in the second hour, as they stand around drinking beer and talking about their questionable tactics. And sure enough, there's a "Predator"-like sequence, as Hansen and camera crew tail the proprietor of a Buffalo debt-collection agency, confronting the employees until they repeatedly slam doors in his face. It all makes for great, conflict-laden video, but it's big, dumb journalism.

Then again, Hansen's world has to be boiled down into heroes and villains, into black and white without shades of gray. So he winds up obscuring the underlying point of his reporting by overreaching for the big "Gotcha!" moment -- a trend that's become increasingly common in local news, which does precious little real reporting, but every sweeps month takes advantage of lipstick-camera technology to try doing splashy exposes on shady local auto mechanics, retailers, whatever.

NBC is belatedly coming around to the financial meltdown, especially in light of CNBC's contribution by serving as a Wall Street cheerleader -- not that you'd know it from NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker's indignation about such suggestions or Jim Cramer's latest defensive appearance on the "Today" show. Belatedly finding his voice, Cramer said it was "a naive and misleading thing to attack the media" for its role as Jon Stewart had on "The Daily Show," where he reduced the "Mad Money" host to quivering mush.

As for Hansen, his act ultimately remains the same. It's only the perps -- and who they're out to screw -- that has changed.

Quote of the day: NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, speaking at the McGraw-Hill Media Summit, explaining the changes at NBC in the context of moving Jay Leno into the 10 p.m. hour: "Sometimes, you see the world more clearly when you're flat on your back."

Actually, when you're flat on your back, what you usually see is just blue sky, which is clearly what's in Zucker's line of view in putting that kind of positive spin on the move. Although I suspect Leno will do OK, the decision to strip him in primetime will undoubtedly further weaken NBC vis-a-vis its competitors and, more significantly, leaves the network with no fall-back position in failure. If Leno inexplicably tanks, in other words, how do you fill a gaping five-hour hole? What's next, Dr. Phil?

Then again, Zucker's tenure since moving to NBC Entertainment and then up the corporate ladder has been characterized by short-term thinking -- the kind of we'll-fix-it-on-the-fly approach he used in his successful stint running the "Today" show. The problem is that network TV, anyway, requires a better grasp of longterm planning than that, which partially explains why NBC's primetime lineup does indeed find itself flat on its back, despite the news division's continued strength.

Then again, Zucker stressed in his comments, as he has before, that NBC Universal is mostly a cable company now, and turned part of his attention to defending CNBC's Jim Cramer from Jon Stewart's dissection of the business-news channel on "The Daily Show."

Zucker said Stewart had been "incredibly unfair" by focusing on Cramer's bad stock calls, which completely misses the point of what Stewart and his crack research staff exposed -- not just a few "bad calls," but a general tone of blustery worship toward Wall Street that prompted even conservative columnist George Will to wryly muse, "Don't take financial advice from people who are shouting."

To be fair, NBC has enjoyed considerable success in cable, but after the last few weeks -- including the public-relations demolition of CNBC, MSNBC's conspicuous silence on the matter, the risible name change of Sci Fi Channel to Syfy, and NBC's disappointing (if predictable) ratings for the dramatic gamble "Kings" -- the company certainly hasn't had much to shout about. Unless, perhaps, you're seeing the world through Zucker-vision.

NBC Universal is doubtless hoping Jon Stewart's takedown of CNBC quickly fades into the ether, but the company's collective response -- or lack thereof -- to Jim Cramer's dismal "The Daily Show" appearance risked turning a small fire into a raging one.

After building up Cramer with appearances on "Today" and MSNBC's "Morning Joe" in advance of his date with Stewart, there was virtually no follow-up on NBC-owned outlets in the wake of the interview. Indeed, the website mediabistro.com/tvnewser reported that MSNBC producers had been instructed not to feature the segment on their programs, which elicited -- as my colleague Dan Frankel wrote -- a not particularly resounding denial, since minimal coverage on Rachel Maddow's show doesn't fully deflect the charges of a blackout -- especially beyond its two primetime programs.

Granted, this wasn't a huge "hold the presses" story. Still, given the amount of attention it generated elsewhere and the kind of lightweight pop-culture material that MSNBC normally pounces on, bypassing it at best smells fishy, and at worst feeds the sense that some kind of orchestrated corporate ass-covering was involved.

For its part, CNBC issued a statement expressing how the network is "proud" of its journalism. It's hard to believe that anyone there is equally proud of its PR efforts, where someone should have either dissuaded Cramer from doing the "Daily Show" guest shot or, barring that, prepped him better for the buzzsaw he cheerfully walked into, offering only "I'll try harder" as a feeble defense.

Frankly, it's not surprising that Cramer wanted to do it, and I think Dennis Miller nailed the reason in a guest shot on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" Monday. "Cramer hates the idea that someone as quintessentially cool as Jon Stewart thinks he's a putz," Miller said. Bingo -- but that doesn't mean that somebody at CNBC shouldn't have saved him from himself.

Ultimately, the way it was handled in the incident's aftermath risked tarring not just CNBC but MSNBC and NBC News as collateral damage -- not a bad night's work for Stewart, a figure Cramer had blithely dismissed as "a comedian" before his drubbing. Already, a fixcnbc.comsite has launched, urging the channel to serve the public instead of its narrow focus on blather aimed at day traders. Hell, even columnist George Will piled on, quipping on ABC's "This Week" that among the rules one should follow -- beyond not playing poker with a guy named "Slim" -- is "Don't take financial advice from people who are shouting." (The funniest comment, by the way, came from Tucker Carlson on CNN, who labeled Stewart a "partisan hack." Clearly, Carlson is still smarting from the tongue-lashing "The Daily Show" host administered back in his "Crossfire" days.)

Finally, see my earlier post -- "Jim Cramer-Martha Stewart Caption Contest!" -- to see who won.

At a certain point, isn't NBC News complicit in peddling the defensive BS that's coming from its business-news channel, CNBC?

On Tuesday, Jim Cramer and Erin Burnett appeared on the "Today" show, where Cramer feebly responded to the question of "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart's" searing criticism of CNBC by allowing, "Anytime you recommend a stock and it goes down you've made a mistake." Considering that Cramer's show had been one prolonged orgasm about the merits of the market before its collapse, that would seem to be enough "mistakes" to disqualify him from the advice circuit -- or at least put him in the equivalent of TV's penalty box. It's also utterly ridiculous for Cramer and CNBC's Rick Santelli to paint themselves as victims ("little guys," as Cramer put it) when they enjoy a nationally televised forum. If you can't stand the heat, stay off the trading floor.

Still, Burnett also stepped forward on Cramer's behalf, saying, "Jim has to go out every day and make these calls." Really? Whatever happened to that old adage, "If you don't have anything intelligent to say, don't say anything at all" -- or maybe I'm screwing that up, because that's certainly not the maxim in cable news.

Indeed, what's really on display here is a more fundamental question: When our so-called "experts" reveal themselves to be every bit as clueless as laymen, then why should we give any credence to their advice/analysis/pontification? The problem is that between NBC and MSNBC and CNBC -- with all that time to fill, requiring all those talking heads -- that's a point that NBC can't possibly make.
(See related post.)

Update:MSNBC's Joe Scarborough also hosted Cramer this morning, and -- apropos of what I wrote above -- seemed intent on bucking up his fellow GE employee. The "Morning Joe" host also criticized "The Daily Show" for mocking those "in the arena" while suggesting that Stewart had turned his fire toward the media because he was a fan of the Obama administration.

As Jason Linkins writes on the Huffington Post, with that comment Scarborough merely exhibits his ignorance about the nature of "The Daily Show's" satire. Indeed, Linkins recommends "that Scarborough develop an understanding of what The Daily Show is. First and foremost, the show is a critique of the media. It is not 'fake news.' It is not 'funny riffs on the headlines,' a la 'Weekend Update.' It is a lampoon of media excess. As any veteran watcher can tell you, it has ALWAYS 'attacking people like [Cramer].' George W. Bush was just value-added content."

Bingo. Stewart's most valuable contribution hasn't been to politics, but in providing a near-real-time review of the media on television, which even in an exaggerated form is extremely rare. Pundits can't hold forth quite so freely if they're going to be held accountable for their commentary. Small wonder that Scarborough -- whose daily discourse has expanded from TV to radio -- would resent the idea of being subjected to such scrutiny.

Those in charge of CNBC, as well as signature talent like Jim Cramer, appear to remain utterly clueless about the damage that Jon Stewart inflicted on the network in one bold stroke on "The Daily Show." (For a helpful compilation of Stewart's eight-minute segment and some of the CNBC and Fox News howlers that preceded it, see this handy link from Esquire.)

What Stewart accomplished, with the help of his research staff, was such a damning blow to CNBC's credibility because it exposed an obvious fact the channel would surely like to overlook -- namely, If you didn't know what the hell you were talking about then, why on Earth should anybody believe you now? And while nobody expects TV pundits to be 100 percent accurate, when they go that howlingly wrong, it's time to retreat to that old strategy of having a monkey throw darts to make stock picks.

Credibility is a fragile commodity, and for all its bluster, CNBC's is in tatters.

Stewart's piece, in fact, was only half of a one-two punch that Comedy Central landed on CNBC. The other came from Stephen Colbert, who featured CNBC's mad prophet Cramer as a guest, letting him hold forth about the market while Colbert ran pictures of puppies and kittens behind him. Cramer tried to play along with the joke, but as the audience roared, it only made him look like more of a buffoon. And when the CNBC host talks now about "wealth destruction," well, could anything have contributed more to destroying somebody's current wealth than heeding Cramer's advice back when he was yelling "buy, buy, buy" with the Dow at 13,000?

CNBC officials still haven't adequately addressed their role in all this, including today's New York Times piece, which was puffy -- failing to include any reaction from the network to "The Daily Show" broadside, even a no comment -- but nevertheless illuminating. CNBC President Mark Hoffman blandly told the Times that this is "a unique time for the organization," and so far, the network seems content to continue covering the financial crisis as if they were ESPN and this was their Super Bowl. The main problem with that strategy is that when football analysts get their predictions wrong, there's only one big loser.

Update: Stewart bitch-slapped CNBC again on Monday, running a pretty devastating assortment of clips that undermined Cramer's whining claims that he hadn't been a cheerleader for Bear Stearns before the company collapsed. Here's the video (also, see related post on Cramer's "Today" show appearance):

Rorschach's Journal: This will be last entry on first week of "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon." Bottom line: Show evolving, but not improving.

Monologue on Thursday down to three minutes. Jokes big, broad, too Leno-like. Interviews still weak -- "conversational" doesn't have to be same as "incomprehensible." Hrrm.

Recurring bit with electing "president of the audience" had potential, goes nowhere. Donald Trump interview painful. Tennis star Serena Williams brightens up show. Plays beer pong with Fallon. Good idea. But writing remains disappointing overall.

Fallon must be given time. People still sampling the show. Fans defending him -- weak-minded, undemanding fools. Kids these days. Different sensibilities.

Will try watching later, give host chance to settle in. But longterm outlook not good. Hurry up, Conan. World will miss you these next few months.

Meanwhile, latenight TV viewing has made critic cranky. Life not always easy being a "watch man," as in man who watches stuff. Ha ha. Funny joke. Also amused by reading "Watchmen" reviews. Reaction all over the place. "Too faithful" main criticism, probably true, but given unwieldy nature of source material seemed like best strategy.

But that's for another day. Must rest now, 10-hour PBS adaptation of "Little Dorrit" to watch. From Fallon to Dickens. Hrrm.

Jimmy Fallon joked about sweating profusely during his opening-night interview with Robert De Niro, but damned if he didn't look nervous and sweaty again in his second outing as host of "Late Night."

Foremost, Fallon seems extremely uncomfortable behind the desk. His interview with Tina Fey was less    an interview than like watching two high school buddies reminisce. I'm sure the stories were great, but as we weren't a part of them, they really don't mean much to the viewing audience. Moreover, why have Fey stick around for the entire show if she's going to sit there like a lox, instead of bringing her into the conversation? At this point, Fallon needs all the help he can get.

Fallon's monologue was a brisk four minutes and, again, mostly fell flat -- including a misguided joke about the U.S.' plans to withdraw from Iraq. Certain topics require a bit more finesse, but so far the writing is blunt and obvious.

Expect viewers to continue sampling the show for awhile (the premiere ratings were strong, not surprisingly, on Monday night), but if Fallon doesn't start to settle in relatively soon, I suspect the folks at NBC will begin doing some sweating of their own.

NBC News' Ann Curry spent much of her interview with Nadya Suleman -- the new mother of octuplets, and 14 kids in all -- hectoring her about how she was going to afford all this. But who's kidding whom?

NBC noted with the usual indignation that it didn't pay Suleman for the interview. But the network that practically turned "To Catch a Predator" into an ongoing series undoubtedly pussyfooted around that distinction by shelling out money to license all those photos that it used, justifying the outlay with a special "Dateline" on Tuesday night after multiple installments of Suleman's blather on the "Today" show. Why broadcasters insist that they don't pay for interviews -- when everyone knows what a sordid business this has become -- is at this point a mystery.

The "Dateline" segment wasn't content with just Suleman, though, but expanded its lens to include "interviewing" her young children, including a five-year-old son. Any news outlet would have seized the interview with Suleman, but there's a big difference between exposing the mother and dragging her minor children into the circus' center ring, even if she doesn't possess the good sense to shield them. (Here's a clip from the interview.)

"People are not trying to judge you," Curry reassured Suleman at one point, which is patent nonsense. Some of us, however, are also judging NBC News, and first impressions of the way it handled this latest big "get" are almost equally unflattering.

UPDATE: NBC continues to unequivocally deny that any money changed hands with Suleman. Here's the quote NBC News spokeswoman Allison Gollust gave mediabistro.com/tvnewser: "NBC News does not pay for interviews. We did not pay Nadya Suleman, or anyone who represents her, for our interview. We didn't license a single photo or video from her, or anyone who represents her. Not a dime. I cannot be more clear about this. There is no deal with anyone at NBC Universal — not at NBC News, not at Bravo. No one."

That would be extremely refreshing if true in this case, though given all the networks' track record in tap-dancing around the payment issue, let's just say I remain skeptical.

The scary thing about having a public forum is that once in awhile people actually listen to you. So it was with my review of NBC's two-part movie "The Last Templar," in which I cavalierly proposed that about the only way to make viewing this epic mess interestingwould be to fashion a drinking game around it -- starting with taking a swig every time someone says "Tess," the name of Mira Sorvino's plucky heroine.

Well, damned if somebody didn't take that idea and run with it. A reader named Peter Flanigan emailed me to say that he had expanded on the "Tess" suggestion with a few more of his own, among them, take a drink whenever:

- Someone delivers a "Dirty Dancing"-type line like "I'm nobody's baby."- Omar Sharif appears on screen. (Warning: This could get a bit messy in the last act of night two.)

- Tess uses karate to defend herself.

- A dead body appears on screen.

-  A character mentions an off-color remark about Tess such as "She can dig for my priceless artifacts any day."

Far be it from me to encourage excessive imbibing, but in this economic climate, why not? And it is gratifying to know that a throwaway line can lead to somebody else's raging hangover.

Despite the negative reviews, by the way (see Metacritic for a handy compilation), "Templar" wasn't a ratings disaster, averaging a respectable 9.8 million viewers based on preliminary Nielsen data. Notably, the audience appeared to skew older -- perhaps reflecting a demo more accustomed to seeing these kind of frothy two-part events on the major networks.

All they have to do now is order some projects that don't require getting hammered to sit through them.

Apparently, clear eyes and full hearts can lose -- at least, if you're scheduled Fridays following "Howie Do It."

 After completing an Emmy-worthy third season on DirecTV, "Friday Night Lights" premiered to predictably mediocre ratings on NBC, drawing about 4.5 million viewers. NBC quickly touted those results as its best in the time period in three months, which might qualify as the dictionary definition of damnation with faint praise.

Although the financial benefits of sharing the program's broadcast window with the satellite operator doubtless have softened the blow, at first glance it's hard to imagine the series returning for another year at that ratings level. And given how nicely the season ended, perhaps that's the way the show should go out, without attempting any additional fourth-quarter heroics.

NBC deserves applausefor giving the show another chance. That said, while lead-ins and compatibility no longer mean what they once did in a TiVo-ed lineup (though CBS would argue otherwise), it's difficult to envision a more unlikely pairing on TV than this brilliantly understated drama -- which brought me to tears, I'm not ashamed to admit, several times during its DirecTV airings -- with "Howie Do It," a brash reality-prank show most notable for playing its grating theme ("This is 'Howie Do It'") until you're bleeding from the ears.

Perhaps a smart cable network might step up to keep "Lights" lit (maybeeven one of NBC's basic channels, like USA), especially if the benefits of the DirecTV deal can justify it.  At this point, though, I'd be just as happy to see the show run triumphantly off the field -- with its talented cast almost certain to be in high demand for other projects -- and leave it at that.

Since the networks began their TV Critics Assn. tour dog-and-pony shows, it's been pretty clear that the piece de resistance was going to be NBC, the struggling network that recently announced plans to dump five hours of traditional primetime programming in favor of stripping a Jay Leno-hosted talk show at 10 p.m.

The fact that NBC's executive session Thursday afternoon featured two just-arrived execs -- Angela Bromstad, the newly installed president of primetime entertainment; and Paul Telegdy, exec VP of alternative programming, a transplant from BBC Worldwide America -- only added to the sense that this was going to be an epic train wreck. After all, how could they explain or defend decisions that they weren't on hand to make, and would NBC Entertainment co-chairmen Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff really stand in the back of the room while they tried?

Silverman and Graboff were in the hotel, but they appeared conspicuously absent during the session with reporters, which was every bit as awkward as anticipated. Bromstad fielded most of the questions, which generally amounted to variations on "Who are you, and why are you here?" The responses for the most part were about as bland and noncommittal as they had to be, with all the energy of a local morning show on National Public Radio.

Asked where their bosses were, Telegdy offered the most feeble answer, saying, "We're here to talk about TV shows rather than corporate changes." Translation: Write about what we want you to write about, or bugger off.

Granted, the two found themselves in an impossible position, forced to comment on programs they had nothing to do with, like "Knight Rider" and "Kath & Kim," which most of the critics loathe. When Bromstad said that as a network, "You have to have a long-term strategy and you have to stick to that," it inadvertently sounded like an indictment of NBC's seat-of-the-pants approach.

Style note: Even the microphone minions wore those ugly new gray NBC page uniforms. So grading based on what wasn't there as much as what was: D-