Here’s a news flash: “Lost” is a hit online. But so is CW’s “Privileged.”

For the first time, Nielsen Online has released rankings for online streaming of episodes and clips.
“Lost” tops the chart for the month of December with 1.4 million unique viewers, followed by NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” with 1.1 million.

By the yardstick of the total time viewers spent with a show online, the surprise leader in December was CW’s “Privileged.” The rating-challenged dramedy drew only 29,000 unique viewers, but those that did tune in stuck around for an average of 214.6 minutes.

There’s a big caveat to these rankings, however, in that they don’t include shows streamed via Hulu because Hulu won’t breakout its numbers to Nielsen (at least if I'm reading Nielsen-ese right. A Nielsen Online rep would only say that Hulu is "not available in our syndication service.")

Nielsen’s survey includes the websites of Hulu partners NBC and Fox, as well as ABC, CBS and CW. But by all accounts, Hulu's vid streaming traffic has outpaced that of the Peacock and Fox nets' individual websites. The survey captures clips that are embedded on other websites and blogs, as long as the streams come from the network's proprietary player (but not Hulu's player).

Interesting to see the networks getting more aggressive about reporting their DVR numbers.

ABC today is touting "Grey's Anatomy" (pictured above) retaining its crown as the most-DVR'd show of the season so far. The medical drama's Sept. 25 season preem numbers (18.5 million viewers, 7.4 in 18-49) don't look so soft when you add in 2.7 million viewers and 1.3 demo rating points from DVR playback viewing in the week after the premiere telecast. (The premiere ratings are based on the new industry standard of Live-Plus-Same Day, which means the aud for the initial telecast plus those that watched it on the same day of the preem.)

ABC also reports that "Desperate Housewives," "Boston Legal" and "Brothers and Sisters" added 1 million viewers or more to their preem numbers through DVR viewing. "Grey's," "Boston Legal," "Ugly Betty" and "Brothers and Sisters" registered gains of 10% or more in the demo derby too, according to ABC.

CBS also sent out a bunch of info on its premiere week DVR ratings. "CSI: Miami," "NCIS," "The Mentalist" (pictured right), "Without a Trace," "Criminal Minds" and "Two and a Half Men" all padded their opening-night numbers by 1 million or more viewers.

The lag time in getting the DVR numbers out seems so incongruous in this era of non-stop, insta-information. But it's also true that success breeds success. A show that performs poorly in the old-fashioned overnights is not likely to turn the corner when the DVR numbers are factored in. But strong shows look even stronger when the ratings yardstick is stretched out to include the DVR aud.

Hot off the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences nomination vote-tallying machine, here are the top 10 finalists for Emmy noms in the comedy and drama series heats. The final noms will be announced on Thursday, July 17.

(My 2 cents on the list follows after the jump)

COMEDY

Curb Your Enthusiasm
Entourage
Family Guy
Flight of the Conchords
The Office
Pushing Daisies
30 Rock
Two and a Half Men
Ugly Betty
Weeds

DRAMA

Boston Legal
Damages
Dexter
Friday Night Lights
Grey’s Anatomy
House
Lost
Mad Men
The Tudors
The Wire

The strike may be over, but the Writers Guild of America fundraisers to fill the coffers of its industry strike fund continues.

The next event, hosted by Writers Theatre LA, is set for Saturday at the Lyric Theater (520 N. La Brea Ave.) and will feature perfs of five one-act plays. The last one in the rotation is  WGA board member Howard Rodman's take on "How the Writers Strike Ended," which is billed as "a savage (and savagely funny) look inside the moguls' executive dining room, where food is made, decisions are eaten." (Rodman pictured left)

There are more perfs and readings set for Sunday March 9, and on March 31 there'll be a perf of Jennifer Maisel's "The Last Seder," about how a Passover dinner allows a family's to heal its past and move on. Play recently earned a grant from the Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays and was commissioned by the Foundation for Jewish Culture...

Meanwhile, the Writers Guild Foundation is reviving its "Anatomy of a Script" seminar series examining film and TV scripts, starting March 11 for six consecutive Tuesdays at the WGA's HQ on Third Street.
Seminars, moderated by scribes Winnie Holzman and Robin Schiff, begin with a dissection of "Traffic" with Stephen Gaghan; followed by "Lars and the Real Girl" with Nancy Oliver; "Friday Night Lights" with Jason Katims (pictured right); "Ghost" with Bruce Joel Rubin; "The Bernie Mac Show" with Larry Wilmore; and "Grey's Anatomy" with Shonda Rhimes....

And finally, what does ABC's "America's Funniest Home Videos" have in common with "Gunsmoke," "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet," "Law & Order," "Bonanza," "Lassie," "Death Valley Days" and "The Simpsons"? Four-hundred episodes, that's what (at least half of them included the clip of the cat flushing a toilet). "AFHV" was YouTube when YouTube wasn't cool (or invented yet), and "AFHV" czar Vin Di Bona (pictured far left with "AFHV" host Tom Bergeron) has been there for all of them. Di Bona banked seg No. 400 last week; it's set to air April 20.

Meet Benji Lessman. He's an agent's agent. No, he's not the toast of the percentery business. He's an agent for agents, proprietor of the Less is More Agency. And he's got his own publicist -- twin publicists, in fact.

If it all sounds absurb, well, it should, because it's the conceit of of "Layers," an inside-showbiz satire series of vid shorts set to debut Sept. 21 on Turner Broadcasting's Superdeluxe comedy broadband net. (Click here for a streaming video sneak of the debut installment.)

"Layers" is the brainchild of twin comics Jason and Randy Sklar (they guested as the battling twin assistants on a recent "Entourage" seg, and they played battling conjoined twins last year on "Grey's Anatomy") and thesp Nick Kroll (pictured above), who is soon to make his primetime series debut on ABC's "Cavemen." Superdeluxe has ordered eight five-minute segs of the trio's sendup of showbiz and its ever-growing entourages.

"I'm passionate about people who are passionate about people," Lessman explains of his vocation. To give the shorts an authentic backdrop of a Wilshire Boulevard talent agency, the shorts were shot at the Sklars' and Kroll's respective management firms, Principato-Young and Thruline Entertainment.

(The debut seg opens with a title card featuring a quote from a recent column by Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart, but to be crystal clear, Variety has no formal tie to "Layers.")

Lessman was a character that Kroll was doing in his alterna-comedy standup act for a few years. The Sklars (pictured right) met him while they were producing and hosting the ESPN Classic series "Cheap Seats," and they all vowed to work together at some point on something cool. "Layers" kinda fell together earlier this year, and after they shot the first three, Superdeluxe was quick to order five more. They'll roll out once a week on Superdeluxe on Friday nights starting next week.

From Variety.com's new blog Season Pass, tracking the highs and lows of the new season. If you haven't checked it out yet, click here.

The screener for the first proper seg of "Grey's Anatomy" spinoff "Private Practice" arrived in the mail on Thursday. I'll leave the reviewing to the professionals (Brian Lowry, coming soon). But for my broad-strokes reaction (remember that the Season Pass ratings for this show were based on the two-hour backdoor pilot "Grey's Anatomy" seg that ran in May), I'll say that I can definitely see why creator/exec producer Shonda Rhimes made the call to recast Audra McDonald in the key role of Naomi Bennett (originally played by Merrin Dungey), best friend to Kate Walsh's Addison Montgomery (and her excuse for heading down the Pacific coastline from Seattle to Santa Monica) and recently divorced wife of Taye Diggs' brilliant-internist character, Sam Bennett.

This seg overall is watchable, and beautifully shot, but there's still something that feels a bit amiss here. I can't quite put my finger on it but I keep coming back to the thought: Do we really need this spinoff? But I digress....

Opening moments deal of the seg deal effectively with Addison's resignation from Seattle Grace hospital  and set up the new ensemble of doctor characters that she'll work with at the Oceanside Wellness Group, a touchy-feely non-hospital facility with touchy-feely Westide L.A./BevHills/Santa Monica clients. There's a nice inside-TV reference early on in the seg to Addison feeling the need to sally forth and "throw my hat all the way up in the air." (Think classic TV opening sequence for a show with a femme lead and killer theme song.)

Of the supporting ensemble, the most intriguing to me (as an actor and as a character continues to be Amy Brenneman, who plays the mixed-up shrink Violet Turner. (Is there any other kind on TV?) So all in all, I don't love it as much as I did the first batch of "Grey's Anatomy" segs, but it stays on my Season Pass list.

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE

The dark gloom of Seattle skies turn bright this season for Shonda Rhimes (pictured left), as she brings her "Grey's Anatomy" spinoff to Los Angeles in the form of "Private Practice."

The overcast weather analogy seems appropriate for the past season of "Grey's" in many ways. The tone of the series was ominous in a bunch of episodes, including arcs on the tenuous relationship between Meredith and McDreamy, George's by-the-threads marriage to Callie, Richard's divorce and Burke's ultimate dismissal of Dr. Yang as a life partner.

And that's just the on-screen tumult.

Of course, nothing got bigger headlines than Isaiah Washington's meltdown and anti-gay remarks, which ultimately led to his dismissal off the show.

(When asked about Ben Silverman's comments, that NBC had talked to Washington about a possible role on "Bionic Woman" while he was still under contract to ABC Studios, Rhimes answered, "I wasn't aware of any conversations." And when prodded for a response on his arrival at the Peacock primetime lineup, she rose above the fray, answering, "He's very talented and I hope he and the show do well, but not as well as 'Private Practice.'")

"It was a dark journey," said Rhimes of the past year, who added later on that it was a "dark season, but I want to get back to having fun."

On Wednesday, ABC topper Steve McPherson agreed, having said "Grey's" would arrive this fall with a slightly lighter tone.

"There was a lot of difficult stuff and emotional stuff going on for a multitude of characters. And I think we're going to get away from some of that  just because of the nature of the storytelling that she (Rhimes) is going to do," he said.

That's not to say Rhimes wasn't happy with the how the stories turned out. She remained on the creative course she set out from Day 1.

"We started with Meredith helping Izzy out of her wedding dress and ended with Meredith helping Christine out of her wedding dress," Rhimes said in bookending the season.

And, yes, she was aware of the unhappiness of some of the hard-core fans — though she didn't necessarily agree with them — those who followed the show to Thursdays from Sundays in a risky programming move by ABC that paid huge dividends.

"I read the blogs," she explained. "I take very seriously what the fans say. They care about the show."