More samplings of "Downton Abbey" fever, from "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross" ...

Between Facebook filing for IPO and the hacker activities of Anonymous, it's a good time to be Charles Koppelman. The filmmaker has had a documentary crew stationed at Facebook headquarters on and off since May 2011 filming the company's security team as it protects the social network from cyber-attacks and other invasions for his upcoming docu "Zero Day."

"The people in the trenches there are very dynamic, there's some very interesting personal stories," said Koppelman.

Timely as the documentary could be--no distribution deal yet--it's kept Koppelman plenty busy. His crew has to race to the company's Palo Alto digs every time Facebook security team has to contend with a major threat, as it did last month when the notorious Koobface malware wreaked havoc on the social network. And if there's a hero in the doc, it may be Facebook chief security officer Joe Sullivan, who was previously the first federal prosecutor in a U.S. Attorneys' office working on high-tech crime cases.

Sorry, you won't see much of founder Mark Zuckerberg in the doc though; he literally ducked into a mini-kitchen when the camera came his way during filming one day.

A Facebook spokesman confirmed Koppelman's crew has been granted inside access to the company's operations. But a documentary on cyber-crime has also taken his cameras all over the globe, and the action they've seen has even inspired them to adapt the material into a primetime TV series that they've already begun pitching.

"When these stories go outside of Facebook,  and you see what's basically old-fashioned detective work, you see the possibilities," said Koppelman. "That’s why it translates to a series as well."

Over a career that has spanned six decades, Al Michaels has been on the air thousands of times and has always come across to millions of viewers with the coolest of demeanors intact.

Yet, he recalls a moment being on national television where he was a bundle of frayed nerves — an absolute wreck that left him a completely frazzled state.

The irony, however, is that there was no microphone in sight.

Michaels was playing golf with buddy and CBS chieftan Leslie Moonves at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, telecast by the Eye. The camera’s red light was directly on Michaels, who was simultaneously thinking about his shot while hoping not be utterly embarrassed if he happened to whiff at it. Michaels was so nervous, he could barely grip the club, having to eventually step away from ball and asking the crowd, “Anyone have a Valium”?

Nobody did, but the remark calmed Michaels’ nerves enough that he hit a beautiful shot.

Michaels, a member of Bel Air Country Club, is a passionate golfer and can be often be found on the course when he’s not in the NBC booth with Cris Collinsworth. There’s little doubt either of them will have time for a round this weekend as they will be calling the action for Sunday’s super-hyped Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and New York Giants.

The Brooklyn-born sports legend is associated with the NFL as much as Tom Brady, Buddy Ryan or the Lambeau Leap. He’s someone who has not only made a nice living from the game, but clearly loves the sport and gladly calls himself a rabid fan.

On the coaching front, he’s a big supporter of Bill Belichick, calls Tom Coughlin one of the best fourth quarter game strategists around and isn’t quite sure why Norv Turner is still with the Chargers.

As for this Sunday, by all accounts the Patriots-Giants revenge matchup looks to have the makings for a close affair. However, history tells us that might not necessarily be the case. Let the game begin.

“Just don’t let it be 21-0 in the second quarter,” Michaels said at a recent lunch.

He recalled announcing Super Bowl XXII, where the Doug Williams-led Washington Redskins went on an offensive blitzkrieg in the second quarter to ultimately defeat the Denver Broncos, 42-10. A compelling game, in a matter of minutes, became a bloodbath where viewers began tuning out in droves.

“What just happened?” a dazed Michaels remembers saying when the Redskins couldn’t be stopped by a porous Broncos defense.

Once this Super Bowl game ends — and clearly Michaels is hoping it goes down to the last second — he’ll flly back home to his home in Southern California, head to Staples Center to see his beloved L.A. Kings (he’s a longtime season ticket holder), get back on the golf course, find some good restaurants to enjoy with his wife, Linda, and cherish his four grandchildren.

It’s a nice life. He’s earned it.

How hot is "Downton Abbey" right now for PBS? It has made the cover of mainstream magazine TV Guide.

How rare is a PBS program on the cover of TV Guide? Very.

According to former Variety reporter Michael Schneider, whom I believe left to become the magazine's Los Angeles bureau chief just so he could help me with this blog post, the "Downton Abbey" cover (headed to newstands and dated Feb. 6) is the first of a PBS primetime show since this "Cosmos" cover in 1980. 

Though programs such as "Sesame Street" and "Barney" have gotten cover attention, Schneider believes that "Downton" is only the third primetime PBS cover on the magazine ever.

Still in the process of finding its post-Steve Carell sea legs, "The Office" has sailed into two new questions about its longterm future — namely the possible migration of two longtime Sabre/Dunder-Miffliners, Mindy Kaling and Rainn Wilson, to projects in development.

Kaling (Kelly Kapoor) is starring and exec producing in a Universal TV pilot for Fox, while a potential "Office" spinoff featuring Wilson's Dwight Schrute (seen in the clip above) is reportedly in the works for 2013. These would seem to be deathblows to a show that some would say can't afford them — if it isn't well past that point already. Was "The Office" really meant to be shuffling its cast into a second decade and launching spinoffs like some latter-day comedy "Law & Order"?

Such grim thoughts, however, ignore the reality of what "The Office" is and has always been.

1) "The Office" has always thrived on generating discomfort.

From the very beginning, unapologetically awkward characters and situations have been the bread and butter of "The Office." I still remember blogging after Jan (Melora Hardin) had her "Dinner Party" meltdown — this during the show's heyday in 2008 — in the wake of some saying that the show had taken her too far off the deep end. For years, how many times did Michael Scott push the envelope to the point where many viewers were saying it was too much?  And in retrospect, how lovingly are those episodes remembered?

Without a doubt, "The Office" is only as good as it is funny and/or meaningful. Gratuitous, unrewarding craziness does not go down well, and to be sure in 2011-12, there have been more than a few moments of that. Some scenes, even entire episodes occasionally, have been plain clunkers. At the same time, I think some of the negative feelings toward the post-Carell "Office" resemble the very same negativity that sometimes sprung up for Carell himself. But without Carell there to shoulder the burden, and with the show's creative zenith in the past, it becomes easier to dismiss the enterprise entirely.

The most recent new episode, "Pool Party," was a 600,000-gallon tub o' weirdness, with inappropriate behavior spilling out almost from the start, and three male cast members spilling out of their swimsuits at the finish. And yet, it took risks, gave us a number of laughs and not only came together as a story, but as a story unlike anything you've ever really seen on TV (see clip below). In other words, it was anything but an episode of a show that should be tossed in the dustbin — certainly not by NBC, which has much bigger major ratings and creative issues to deal with.

2) As important as Carell was to "The Office," turnover in the cast has been prevalent.

Roy. Jan. Karen. These are just a few of the many characters who, even if they weren't all series regulars, played an integral role in "Office" stories on a weekly basis but are now years into the show's past. No, "The Office" isn't the same without Carell (who, by the way, deserved way more awards recognition than he received over the years, including at Sunday's SAG Awards). But the show was always bigger than Carell, always an ensemble more than a one-man tour de force, and always a series that benefited as much as it suffered from cast members coming and going. (It's worth noting at this point that Kaling's onscreen role is already pretty minor at this point, while Jenna Fischer's Pam has been largely absent from the entire 2011-12 season because of pregnancy.)

If anything, there's a strong argument to be made that turnover in the acting ranks would help "The Office" more than it would hurt. Jim (played by John Krasinski, who has a burgeoning film career) has struggled for inspiration at this stage of his "Office" career; a farewell arc for him and Fischer could be every bit as rewarding as Carell's was a year ago. Conversely, the addition of quirkmeister Robert California (James Spader) has added zest, even if his unpredictability sometimes smacks of the writers needing him to act a given way in a given moment. Without Spader, you don't have the great conclusion to "Pool Party."

Change for the sake of change is no answer to any problem — success depends on execution, and there are a lot of ways things can go wrong. Season-six addition Gabe (Zach Woods) has been mostly insufferable from the get-go. But clinging to the status quo isn't an answer either. The relocation of Dwight, Kelly or any others could create new and potentially fruitful paths.

Those of us who became fans of "The Office" fell in love with the characters, the humor and the decidely roundabout take on life and society the show offered. If the show ended this season, some former fans would barely take note, and few would say it was a departure that came too soon. But in my mind, it remains a franchise that has more to offer.

I remain curious to see what comes next. If "The Office" tries and fails, we still have the earlier episodes to cherish. And if it essentially becomes NBC's halfhour "Law & Order," believe me, there are worse sins in this TV world.

ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and the CW are ordering pilots in a blur, to the point that you might be wondering why you haven't sold one. Variety has ongoing, extensive coverage of pilot season, but for those who need a quick checklist of some prominent names to date, here's but a sampling.

The Internet-TV crossover flows both ways.
Bobby Lee, former cast member of the defunct late-night Fox series “Mad TV,” has signed with Maker Studios, one of the most popular Internet-only programmers. His own comedy channel, branded BobbyTV, will launch late Friday as one of YouTube’s new channels.
It’s a reversal of the occasional manner in which YouTube serves as a discovery platform for the entertainment establishment to find talent. And Maker would know considering one of the company’s principals, Lisa Donovan--better known online as LisaNova--was plucked from the Internet where she built a cult following to briefly join the cast of “Mad TV” back in 2007.
But Maker has become a comedy destination in its own right, bringing together top Internet talent to its YouTube network The Station for billions of views each month. Lee, who has also been seen in “Pineapple Express” and the “Harold and Kumar” films, could be betting that in time Maker will be as financially lucrative for him as a TV series.
Lee will get a proper Internet introduction as guest host tonight of YouTube’s reigning star--and Maker member--Ray William Johnson.

Among writers for television, David Milch is acknowledged as one of the masters. "NYPD Blue" and "Deadwood" are just a few of his creations, and his latest series, "Luck," comes to HBO on Jan. 29 with a big marketing push, as Variety's Stuart Levine writes. But it's time the pay cabler question whether what sets Milch apart may be what's keeping him from a wider audience.

What's distinctive about a Milch series is the way it thrusts you into the unique subculture he's depicting, whether its a New York City police precinct or, in the case of "Luck," the seedy underbelly of a race track. If you're the kind of person who plays the ponies, the characters and setting are rendered so faithfully to what they sound and look like in real life that it's almost as if Milch has made a documentary.

But what about the 99.5% of the population with only a passing familiarity to the intricacies of galloping and gambling? To them--and of course, I count myself among "them"--"Luck" will be something of a disorienting experience. From the second this series gets out of the gate, every line of dialogue seems filled with jargon understood by few outside the horseracing world, and there's little exposition to help you decipher the story.

Don't be surprised if you understand the horses more than the humans.

That's no accident on Milch's part. He's calculating there's more value in bringing life to a scene as vividly as possible--even if it comes at the expense of the viewers understanding what's transpiring. Milch is making a conscious creative choice to bypass what is probably a bigger problem in TV: bogging down scripts with explanations from characters who would never talk that way in real life.

But Milch is overcorrecting the problem in a way that practically dares all but the most patient viewer to tune out. What's worse, many critics have noticed that it takes multiple episodes to really understand "Luck," and that's asking a lot in a world where viewers have so many choices as to what shows they want to devote hours to watching.

That MIlch is allowed to employ this style of narrative at HBO is no coincidence. The network is famous for letting producers realize their visions with minimal interference from the suits that TV showrunners love to blame for spoiling the broth with one too many chefs in the kitchen.

But "Luck" seems to be a case where HBO is giving a producer enough rope to hang himself. Maybe with a few of those pesky creative notes the network doesn't like to give, Milch could have struck a better balance between maintaining his creative integrity while making some slight modifications that could have repelled less viewers.

Back when "NYPD Blue" was on, the series sprinkled just the right amounts of cop vernacular through memorable characters like detective Andy Sipowicz. But the further Milch has drifted from the heavy oversight of broadcast TV, the more inscrutable he's become.

On "Deadwood," Milch's love of florid language seemed OK. Given the Western takes place in a long-ago age, it almost seem right to not totally understand what was being said. But their last collaboration, "John From Cincinnati," indulged much more so in the same esoteric approach and suffered the consequences: a rare one-season failure that squandered a lead-in from the finale of "The Sopranos."

It wouldn't be surprising if "Luck" follows in "John's" footsteps (though to be fair, "Luck" isn't as impenetrable as its predecessor). While the series is hardly the first on HBO to test viewers' patience, maybe the network needs to re-examine whether it can afford to be as demanding on its audience at a time when the competition seems to be catching up with every passing day.

HBO already has another deal in place with Milch to adapt the works of William Faulkner, who wasn't exactly the John Grisham of his day. The performance of "Luck" may give the network some pause in how to approach such difficult material.

There's a huge middle ground between authenticity and accessibility. Maybe it's time Milch and HBO find it.

From Sam Thielman, our man at NATPE:

"Breaking Bad" creator Vince Gilligan made a brief cameo during the the tribute video to Matt Weiner at the Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Awards on Tuesday evening. "He was obsessing over the size of the apples (on 'Mad Men')," Gilligan said admiringly. "It was that level of attention to detail.

"So now," Gilligan said, brandishing a small baggie of white powder, "I always weigh the meth on the show to the 100th of a gram. This is the fake s--t." Then he held up a full gallon Ziploc to the camera. "This is the real stuff."

Lionsgate's TV distribution honcho Jim Packer sat down with Variety to talk features, digital and "Anger Management" (see related), and he took a victory lap for the banner's "Margin Call," which earned a best screenplay nom from the Academy today. "We did day-and-date with theatrical for 'Margin Call,'" he said. "It worked with theaters, it worked with VOD, and now it has a best screenplay nomination. You had pundits saying, 'it's not a real theatrical movie!' Well, yes it is." The VOD promotion, he said, was just good sense for a brainy indie film. "Could you have spent $25 million advertising for P&A (promotion and advertising)? Well, maybe if money was silly and you didn't care, but there are a lot of great movies that just won't justify a $25 million P&A spend."

***

At a Tuesday NATPE session in Miami, Viacom Entertainment group prexy Doug Herzog admitted to an aud of TV industryites that the company had gone in the wrong direction with guy-centric cabler Spike. "We were so focused on young guys that we chased everybody else away," he said. "We were too young, and too guy." The net, he said, is in unscripted-only mode until its financials start to look up, and it's looking into content that will appeal to a broader base. On a lighter note, Herzog said the hardest thing about running Comedy Central was trying to be funny. "I found that being cool at MTV was a lot easier," he laughed. "I could fake that."

***

This year's Tartikoff honorees all held court on Wednesday after the gala awards cermony. Matt Weiner's Wednesday session was among the best-attended of the confab. The "Mad Men" creator talked about how the indirect inspiration for his hit series - Reganomics. "I was going to college during the Reagan eighties and all these people who had grown up in the sixties had gotten very conservative and were still talking about how they had invented sex." College, he said, was a weird experience in that environment, especially after the AIDS crisis hit. "It's not still the sexual revolution when they give you a dental dam in your freshman orientation kit," he said ruefully. "I'm not kidding."

He also gave with the show's direct progenitor - "The Great Gatsby." "It's like the Bible now," he said. "It's not a bad thing to say that you've been influenced by or stolen from, but if Fitzgerald was here now he'd be like, 'Hey, you stole my story!'"

Weiner also said that incorporating season-long arcs had helped ground the show, and that the sometimes absurd power plays between characters that drive a lot of TV drama weren't for him.

"There are people who do it amazingly, but I can't do it," he said. "Don would have been an astronaut by the end of the season. Really, he would have been. 'The space program is calling, Don!"

Last night's Brandon Tartikoff Legacy awards took place at the Fontainebleau's Glimmer Ballroom, one of the hotel's larger venues, with a bar placed strategically outside the ceremony so attendees could sneak out and fortify themselves mid-speech.

The Tartikoff Awards at NATPE are the biggest event on the official conference schedule; folks may or may not get to go to the various network parties, but the Tartikoffs are open to all attendees, and they are actually not boring. Let's be honest: there are a lot of awards ceremonies out there trying embarrassingly to be the Oscars, but the Tartikoffs are not among them. They tend to go to the people behind the scenes, and those people tend to have had interesting lives and interesting friends who introduce them.

Dick Ebersol's econium for his friend and former colleague Dennis Swanson was particularly heartfelt; Swanson's professional career has included the discovery of Oprah Winfrey, revolutionary changes at ABC Sports that affected the way the Olympics, baseball, and football are played, and exec jobs leading to his current post as prexy of station operations at Fox TV Stations.

For Ebersol personally, though, Swanson's most important contribution was emotional: When Ebersol and his son Teddy were involved in a plane crash that killed the son and badly injured the father, it was Swanson who sat by his side. "The person who came to the receiving line (for Teddy) when I was doped up to the gills and made sure nobody hurt me or grabbed me the wrong way was Dennis," Ebersol said hoarsely.

"Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner was also among the honorees, and was also the recipient of easily the best video tribute, created by friends and colleagues from "Mad Men" and featuring some great deadpan from Jon Hamm. "You know what, Matt? You can take all of your Emmys and awards put them on top of your head," he said, then pointed to his own face. "It's never gonna be this."

Weiner was also moved. "I can't believe people took all that trouble. On my set. Without my knowledge," he said. Weiner told the aud that he'd been forbidden to watch weeknight television because of his grades as a kid, but "Thank God that my grades were eventually good enough that I was able to go to college and spend four years watching TV."

"If you get good grades, and you do all your homework - and I want to see it," he told the aud, "you can come downstairs at ten o'clock and watch the show."

Other highlights included Simon Cowell's video intro for FreeMantle Media North America topper Cecile Frot-Coutaz, in which he described the soft-spoken, diminutive executive as "what would happen if you merge a kitten and a shark, and they have a baby. She's kind of cute, but she bites you;" and the introduction of RCN exec and "Ugly Betty" creator Fernando Gaitán as "a tiger, not because he's fierce, but because he makes love every 20 minutes."

A mermaid in a clamshell top perched at the edge of the swimming pool some ten stories below the hotel room, resting her shoulders on its tiled rim and allowing her long tail to trail away in front of her, the pool's underwater lights shining onto it and casting an odd shadow on the blue concrete at its bottom.

Another girl in a tiara stood poolside in a dress with a long train. She climbed into a table with with a hole in the center. The long train became a tablecloth and the girl stood patiently as other young women in form-fitting white dresses arranged champagne flutes and wine glasses around her hips. My friend Alex opened the little map of the resort we'd been given consulted the key to find the name of the outdoor club we could see below us.

"Yup, that's ArKadia," he said. "That's Charlie Sheen."

There is an agency/event planning concern in Miami called Zhantra Entertainment that throws enormous parties like this one, for Sheen's new show "Anger Management," with twentysomething women milling around solely to beautify the place in interesting ways. Its founder, a modestly dressed woman with flaming red hair named Bengy Cid, said that most of her talent have a dance background - it takes a certain amount of stamina to stand in one place without moving for two solid hours while people select drinks from around your waist - and that "It's very hard to find the whole package - tall beautiful, polite, friendly..."

She paused as a tall man in a sport coat and slacks begged our pardon and shouldered through the crowd between Cid and the pool carrying a second smiling mermaid, her arms wrapped around his neck, and tossed her gently into the water where her partner had climbed partway out to pose with a long line of smiling (male) station buyers.

Cid, it turns out, is shopping a show of her own at NATPE - a reality series about her offbeat company. It's called - what else? - "It's Not Easy Being Sexy." "It's just an eight-minute sizzle reel, but it looks great!" she said.

About an hour and a half into the party, Sheen finally arrived at the Debmar-Mercury cabanas located across the water from thoe hotel (one of the odd quirks of the Fontainebleau resort, where NATPE is held, is that while the rooms are advertised with "ocean view" and the shops and restaurants seaside themed ad nauseam, it is actually almost impossible to get to the beach). Instantly, a swarm of gawkers, well-wishers, ill-wishers, and press converged on his tent, hemming him in, and for a while it looked like press were going to have to make do with the mermaids. Then, after a few minutes of frantic calls and texts, he agreed to talk.

Sheen doesn't answer questions, exactly, but he is extremely candid, which makes for a better interview. Here's a transcript of my favorite part:

Variety: All this publicity seems a little rough.

Sheen: Yeah, but I don't really care. I don't take it personally. It's just words, you know? Coming from people who don't know anything about me, so how much stock can you put in it, you know? I mean, a stranger's random opinion? It's like getting mad at a three-year-old. Plus, I never read anything anymore, because all that happens is you get upset. And then you hear from a buddy, 'Ooh, great story' so you know what's out there, and I know what I said. I'll do a lot more press once we shoot some shows and really get this thing moving. I'm not gonna talk about it as a real project, now it's kind of amorphous.

Variety: Mostly I just meant that this seems like kind of a punishing circuit of handshaking and interviews. I didn't mean that people are badmouthing the show.

Sheen: Oh, fuck! I'm like a fucking beaten dog over here!

Variety: Bless your heart.

Sheen: No, this is fine. It looks like chaos but everybody is happy to see me, has nothing but kind words to offer. You know, they're pretty great problems. Everybody's very cool about it. People that had the other show and want the new one now have their college educations and mortgages paid off. You never know what you're doing in this little microcosmic fantasy oasis. You never know who it reaches and how it gets to them. It's really a trip. I was in a store the other day - this is a true story, I couldn't believe this one - and this woman says to me, 'Oh, Mr. Sheen, I gotta tell you, my mother died in April,' I said, 'I'm sorry,' she said, 'Nono, it's not about that, she was 97.' She looked at me and she said, 'She was such a fan of the show that she said, "Oh, I hope that Sheen boy gets another job..." and died.' And I said, 'You spent your whole lives together! She should have spoken you as her last words!' And she said, 'Ah, that's just Mom.'" [chuckles] Just when you thought you'd heard everything.

Variety: Do you have "Winning" tattooed on your wrist?

Sheen: I do, yeah.

Variety: That's amazing.

Sheen: Well, I'm getting my watch fixed. My watch usually covers it. But just to have survived that whole odyssey and to have lived in the middle of that whole... that... whatever that thing was... I had to emblazon something.

Sheen says he "wouldn't have been as vocal" if he had the whole Chuck Lorre imbroglio to do over again, but the memory of it clearly still stings. "I was a little out of line," he says. "But I was so mad. They were so wrong. They were so fucking wrong. And I knew I couldn't lose. When you're in a position like that, sitting on four aces and a joker, you gotta keep pushing the pot, you know? I couldn't even get a phone call, you know? You put $400 million in a guy's pocket and he can't even call you to say, 'Hey, dude, you got to go.' I'm not bitter."

And now? "If I saw Chuck now, I'd give him a hug. And I'd say, 'That's for the first seven years. Not the eighth.'"

Ashton Kutcher? A guy with a difficult job, similar to the job Sheen did when he replaced Michael J. Fox on "Spin City." Kutcher's breakup? "Everybody's talking about the curse of "Two and a Half Men" with San Diego and the divorce," Sheen sighs. "No, man - that show was eating marriages from season two. Chuck, John, me twice."

About "Anger Management," Sheen has nothing but praise, although he's reticent to say too much beyond Sheenian hyperbole about how it's the best thing since gravity, except that he likes Bruce Helford and he's enjoying the casting process. "It's a smarter show," he says. "It's a more adult show."

Yahoo! exec Ross Levinsohn and News Corp's digital CEO Jonathan Miller are old buddies, and they were comfortable enough during today's NATPE conversation to handicap the current state of digital video. It was a fun panel - the pair started off with a bet (egged on by the moderator) on who would win the Super Bowl. Miller (a Pats fan) and Levinsohn (who backs the correct team) each agreed to fly the other to Miami for stone crab if his team lost. "Premium content" was the buzzphrase of the day - the pair agreed that the industry has more or less stopped kidding itself about monetizing user-generated content in the same way it monetizes professionally created material. Some quick hits from the back-and-forth:

[DISCLAIMER: I took notes on this session, rather than recording it. Quotes are as close to verbatim as I can get 'em.]

Miller on the bottom line: "Consumers want video and you have to give it to 'em. It's a simple statement but it opens up all kinds of conversations about rights, about screens, about different kinds of product." (and piracy and SOPA, but the pair mostly avoided that discussion)

Levinsohn backhanding YouTube without actually saying its name: "I like watching the cat on the skateboard chasing the laser pointer like everyone else, abut it's impossible to monetize and if I was a big premium advertiser I'm not sure I'd want my name next to that."

Miller on why advertising and the internet are made for each other: "You now have these global platforms that never existed before. They're going to be in the billions (of users) soon. You could go to Ross and make a deal that could literally reach 700 million people, and that's never been possible before."

Levinsohn on why they're not, really, unless you're controlling every way someone watches your content: "You can tell your boss that you've bought an ad on the internet, but good luck trying to find it."

Miller on the bottom line, again. Also, STRATEGY GIVEAWAY!: "Be in the video business. We're pushing brands like the WSJ to be more in the video business."

Levinsohn on why Facebook's going to have a Myspace problem at some point: "After the second or third cycle where the ads aren't returning, ad buyers start to question you, and that'll start to happen at Facebook. The difference is that Facebook has controlled the data so well that it's all very, very predicatable. The problem with that is my Facebook page is mine. I do it on their platform, but its mine and I don't want to be associated with some big-ticket advertiser unless I want to. But they're going to have to do that if they're going to go on to the next level."

Miller on Netflix: "They had a tough 2011 but they still got 20 million subs. They used to be a film library company and now they're competing for near-first-run television. The battleground in the industry has shifted from film library product to television product, which is Hulu's value. Companies are going as close to current as they can and trying to cherry-pick the series they need - because you can't buy it all - for their business model."

Miller on why television has supplanted film as the medium of choice for distributors: "I'm catching up on 'The Wire,' which is five seasons long. If you get me hooked, you've got me for a LOT of time."

Protesters black-bar the offices of Chuck Schumer and Kristin Gillibrand, two NY senators among the co-sponsors of PIPA

Here are my notes from Wednesday's nerd-centric rally, some of which were used for this piece by my excellent colleague Ted Johnson and myself. Ted's folo, chronicling the bill's delay, can be found here.

*****

Hundreds of protesters turned out Wednesday to cheer on speakers from Silicon Alley outside the Midtown offices of New York Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, where techies and well-wishers chanted anti-SOPA/PIPA slogans. The controversial antipiracy bills (sponsored by the pair, among others) are now wending through Congress, but petitions and protest strikes by sites like Wikipedia have created so much antipathy to the proposed laws that compromise legislation is being drafted as of press time.

The Gotham event was a far cry from the raucous crowds that gathered a few months ago for the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. A sense of calm prevailed, with protesters mostly refraining from chanting too loudly, and a few police herding compliant onlookers into well-maintained protest zones. Third Avenue was blocked off between 48th and 49th streets to allow for the protest.

The speeches, however, were rousing: “The Stop Online Piracy Act will not actually do much to stop online piracy!” said NYU teacher and “Cognitive Surplus” author Clay Shirky, who proposed that the name of the legislation be changed to the First Amendment Sunset Act. “You can’t just shut people up if you don’t like what they’re saying!” he told the cheering aud.

Hollywood took its lumps at the rally, organized by the networking org New York Tech Meetup. One placard read “Pander to the people, not Hollywood;” another had a picture of a cat holding the Bill of Rights and the slogan “I can has freedom?”

“When Hollywood lobbyists show up with $94 million as they did last year, both Democrats and Republicans line up,” said Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. MoveOn.org’s Eli Pariser was even more adamant: “You have groups like MoveOn all the way over to groups like (conservative coalition) Red State who think this is a bad idea,” he said. “The only people who think this is a good idea are the crumbling old legacy media who want to go back to VHS tapes and CDs and congresspeople.”

Despite a generally laid-back vibe, some speakers couldn’t resist a little OWS-style rabble-rousing. Meetup CEO Scott Heiferman introduced each speaker by asking the aud “What does democracy look like?” and getting back a chorus of “This is what democracy looks like!” — more or less the same chant from the Occupy rallies late last year. Wednesday’s protesters cast themselves as innovators trying to move forward, while a conservative government protected antiquated technology in order to keep its pockets lined. Particular scorn was reserved for media companies that spent decades or centuries profiting the same old material. “Copyright-holding organizations have been gaming the system for decades,” said Meetup chairman Andrew Rasiej.

Many protesters saw a connection between the Occupy movement and SOPA/PIPA. “I’ve watched everything that’s led up to this,” sighed Joan Boyle, a freelance researcher who relies heavily on the web and came to the rally to show her support. “Income inequality, Citizens United, that whole raft of things that have happened over the last few years.”

Still, there weren’t many venture capitalists at OWS. Brad Burnham of Union Square Ventures criticized the both the legislation and the entertainment industry, which he saw as its proxy creator. “They’re very, very broad, they’re very poorly worded, and they’re designed to suck as many companies into them as possible,” he said of the two bills. And Hollywood? “The entertainment industry thinks of users as either customers or crooks,” he said.

Of all the speeches, it was Shirky’s final line that earned the most applause: “What they’re saying to us is this,” he said of Schumer and Gillibrand, “‘Everyone’s got a choice: the Internet, the First Amendment, corporate control of public speech. Pick two.’”

Everyone is reading Jason Zinoman's excellent profile of just-fired Letterman comedy booker Eddie Brill and calling this graf the smoking gun:

"Among some comics 'Late Show' has a reputation for favoring a certain profile. 'The types they seem to like are middle-aged white men from the Midwest,' the comic Amy Schumer said. Only one woman (Karen Rontowski) was booked in 2011. 'There are a lot less female comics who are authentic,' Mr. Brill said. 'I see a lot of female comics who to please an audience will act like men.'"

But this is probably what got him canned:

"But there are also questions about conflicts of interest, particularly since only 22 comics, including Bill Cosby, Jerry Seinfeld and less famous performers, were lucky enough to get segments last year, and comedians presumably take his classes hoping for an edge in getting on the show. 'He trades on the name of the show,' the young comic Anthony Jeselnik said. 'He has workshops, a festival. He has the market cornered. I can’t believe Letterman lets him do it.'"