Stewie Griffin is Mr. MacFarlane's biggest breakout character. Stewie's ovoid head emblazons T-shirts, posters and merchandise that often match the subversive tone of "Family Guy," such as figurines outfitted in bondage gear. Total merchandise sales have climbed into the "hundreds of millions" of dollars, Fox says. Though it doesn't touch the fortune that "The Simpsons" generates with hundreds of licensees, "Family Guy" currently has 80 licensees. Discussions are underway with a brewery that would make real cans of Pawtucket Patriot Ale, Peter Griffin's brew of choice.

Do the Bartman! And did you know that MacFarlane is, like, an actual stressed-out boss of an entire army?

Mr. MacFarlane leads a team of about 320 producers, writers, animators and support staffers, but he oversees all aspects of production. Running late for a massage therapy appointment recently, he demonstrated how tension in his neck kept it from swiveling more than a few inches.

Still to come from MacFarlane: "a live-action sitcom for Fox," a Family Guy movie, and "a feature-length buddy comedy that he's planning with [Seth] Green." By then the backlash should be something to behold.

[I still think he's funny.]

[WSJ]

Yes! The show gets abysmally low ratings—it was 150th in the listings for last year. The article trots out all the old horses: it's internetting, it's DVRing, it's being secretly downloaded into vaginae nationwide! Which, fine, might be true. But the real answer to this ratings mystery is that the show can't possibly live up to the mind-numbingly loud buzzzz. It's kind of a self-perpetuating animal, this Gossip Girl frenzy. People click and then you write more and then people click more and then you write more and so on and so on until you are nothing but Frankenstein chasing his monster to the ends of the Earth, hoping—mad and frothing—to one day destroy it. I talk about the show like it's my damn job or something (wait a tick!) and I don't even like it! You heard that? I don't like Gossip Girl. I like what it could be, but what it is currently is something like a soggy piece of celery. All bland flavor and diminished crisp.

And that's why it gets low ratings! Because it's not good. And no one really, sincerely, in the deepest recesses of their hearts, gives a shit. It's like the election. Errrrbody's all talkin' about Sarah Palin and doing side-splitting parody and all that, but come November 4th ain't but a half of those people who are gonna vote. That's just history! What the CW (the "network" that airs the dreck) needs to do is actually rein in the buzz a bit. It's gotten to the point where you seriously don't need to watch the show in order to have some sort of informed "30 is the new zygote!" with-it conversation. "Oh yeah I totes saw that photo of Blake and Chesterly kissing while Credenza and Toucan Sam looked on. Yeah. What a moment." It's not hard. Let's create a little more mystery, with just the occasional tease here and there. It will make my job a mite bit harder, but the show could maybe attain that level of "oohhh what isss it??" curiosity that other oddities like the original 90210 developed, to great success. (That was before the internet. Sigh. Simpler times.)

Her speech at the Republican convention drew as many viewers as Barack Obama's masterpiece last week in Denver; the newsweekly shelf at my local newsstand half-covered by the moose-hunter's smiling mug (see picture); and take a look at the most popular stories on Gawker this week.

Sarah Palin may not persuade the pantsuit-wearing supporters of Hillary Clinton to abandon their political beliefs in the interest of gender solidarity. But, as an attractive woman, she does bring something unique to the ticket. Much more so than a decrepit white man or even a handsome black man, she's a viable cover star appealing to both male and female audiences. And all the talk shows will fall over themselves to book her.

Video games in the football broadcasts. This marks the failure of American P.E. teachers:

The network, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, has spent the last year working on a new technology with Electronic Arts, the leading game publisher, that would allow ESPN commentators to interact live with realistic-looking, three-dimensional virtual players as they pontificate about coming matches during broadcasts...

Boiled down, the complex technology, which will make its debut this Sunday on ESPN’s popular “NFL Countdown” program, involves using an Electronic Arts’ title — say Madden NFL 09 — with specialized digital camera equipment in the studio. Presto: Both real and virtual people move around the ESPN set to demonstrate plays and possible situations.

The NFL never should have allowed this. Kids already prefer video games to real sports. You're just encouraging them. Hope you like announcing Madden XBox tournaments, ESPN. That's your future.

[NYT]

You see those kids aren't just rich like they might have been on such a show thirty years ago, with a sports car and a nice haircut. In this "new," cash-obsessed post-Reagan era, your typical rich kids are Aaron Spelling rich. With like private planes and hugely expensive birthday parties and $800 just-because! friend presents. Even the new kids in town—fresh from storied rube-mill Kansas!—don't live in a humble shack. No, they live in a big stucco mansion with their prodigal rich kid dad, their fashionista mother, and their boozy former actress of a grandmother. That's the new poor! Same goes for the humble Humphreys on the east coast money fest Gossip Girl who, as the penniless kids in town, live in a modestly sprawling DUMBO loft with their former rockstar, gallery owner dad.

Our fascination with bank accounts not our own represents some kind of political pandemic, Stanley argues:

It could be that adolescents, like their parents, simply do not want to identify with ordinary folk. The economy is bad, but it’s still an aspirational age. Some economists argue that many lower-income Americans, young and old, vote against their own financial interests — opposing tax increases on the wealthy or a national health-insurance plan — because they identify with people who have more money and hope and even assume that someday they too will reach those lofty tax brackets.

Which sounds sort of ominous and wicked, no? A huge chunk of the population wooed by glowing lights and flashy fake rich people, hypnotized and sedated enough to not realize we're being pick-pocketed where we stand. Pretty grim for "teen entertainment." And you thought the sex was bad! (Well, maybe you didn't.)

The crew crested a hill. There, they came upon a hipster marching band. Mr. Jenkins flipped on his microphone. “Who are you guys?” said Mr. Jenkins. “What are you protesting?” A tuba player looked at the Fox News microphone and shook her head. A snare drummer for the Rude Mechanical Orchestra sidled up to Mr. Jenkins and drowned out his questions. The band’s standard-bearer draped a flag in front of the camera. Mr. Jenkins walked away. “Those antics show that they’re not serious,” he said.

Actually Griff spent most of his time at the convention getting cussed out by protesters. And occasionally connecting with them on a personal level!

A couple of post-collegiate kids approached and apologized on behalf of the knuckle-draggers in the crowd. One of the guys was wearing a surf shirt. Mr. Jenkins pulled out his BlackBerry and showed the kid a photograph of a man surfing mid-wave. “That’s me in Costa Rica,” said Mr. Jenkins. Everyone looked baffled.

At least he seemed to put up well with being followed around by the Observer and CJR on the same day while was trying to report. You'll have a Facebook fan club before you know it Griff, you cornball.

[NYO]

We have Becky from Full House and that Rob Estes dude from Sleazy Guys: The TV Series moving with their Canadian redheaded twig of a thing (Shenae Grimes, dangerously slimmed down from her Degrassi: The Next Generation days) and their adopted son Dixon, a young black fellow played head scratchingly by Tristan Wilds, who was all deep-buried pain and hooded sadness as Michael on HBO's so-in-another-galaxy-from-this-it's-laughable The Wire. Jessica Walter is the aging, drunken actress mother of Estes, and is basically just doing a watered-down version of her terrific bitchy mess of a mom on Arrested Development. So that's the set-up, Kansas family moves back to dad's mom's Beverly Hills manse to take care of her (though that was so weakly explained). He will be the principal of West Beverly Hills High School, and Aunt Becky will... I dunno, stand around looking at photo shoots. The kids will gawp at their new toned, tawny, forty-three-year-old classmates.

I'm sure in some way it was a winking nod to the aged Gabrielle Carteris and Luke Perry of the original, who were well out of high school when they were cast in teenager roles, that the actress who plays queen bee bitch (with a hint of sadness and smarts!) Naomi probably graduated from the University of Oregon at Eugene in 1993. She's got a wild mane of hair, stern glowing eyes, and a knowledge of how to slink and work her curves that no fifteen-year-old girl (God help us) should ever possess. There is also Ethan, the woodchuck-esque lacrosse star, former make-out buddy of Canada St. Kansas, and current blow-job-from-another-girl-receiving boyfriend of Naomi. (That blowjob was graphic enough to elicit an "eep!" from me.) There's some sloppy romantic triangle being set up there but... yawwwn.

There is also Silver, a nasty little bloggette (at one point she says something like "blogs are supposed to cause problems") who is the half sister of Kelly Taylor and David Silver from the original. Whee! Connections! She befriends Canada St. Kansas sort of, while Dixon takes some ridiculous news class with a guy named Navid Shirazi (mmm... Shiraz) who quickly fast-talks him into a friendship, though cluckingly disapproves when Dix expresses an interest in the lacrosse team. And... would it be too sweeping just to say that various highjinxs ensue, none of which are interesting? Canada gets involved in a ludicrous high school production of Spring Awakening (upstaging the show's troubled, druggy lead), and gets jetted off by its faggy male star to San Francisco (hahhh!) for a romantic dinner. Dix gets in trouble with a school prank. Naomi cheats back and tears are shed. Srsly overloaded for the first two hours. And those are just the kids!

The adults are silly too, the parents chief among them as bland cool dad/cool mom robots who have awkward, implied sex. There is of course the hip teacher, with scruff and jeans and a tie in the style of Ryan Gosling's mesmerizing crack addicted dialectics fan in Half Nelson, who is also (conveniently!) the lacrosse coach. The old adults... oh God bless 'em, they're the only rock we have to cling to here. Kelly (who has a kid! Brandon's??) and Brenda are back, looking good and having nice conversations about nice things. I'm sure the show's depressingly young audience members were scratching their heads at these befuddling wrinkled people and their shorthand relationship with the camera, but it sure as hell beat the too-short, jump-cutty scenes of the youngs.

All told the show made me feel both giddy and sad. Giddy for jokes like Hannah Zuckerman-Vasquez (the little Latina Jewess does the news at West Bev!) and sad for blowjob and jerk-off jokes, espresso and trendy bands. My mom, sister, and I watched the original every Wednesday night for years and years. When I was younger it was the only television I was allowed to watch after 8pm. That may seem silly, but I have many fond memories of that slightly older time, and this new thing... this dreadful sunburn of a thing, just felt like a vague dismissal. "Here are those old things, batting around the periphery. See if you notice them. We're going to focus on the dull hardbodies in the meantime." I suppose nothing was owed to the show's old fans, it was free entertainment for so long, after all. But this new Beverly Hills just felt cheap and unfriendly; it had none of the glittery and warm and oddly wholesome allure of the old storied town. The whole place was a giant clothing store, stretching for miles and miles.

At one point in the episode a bunch of the characters were at The Pit, the trendy nightclub, drinking cocktails with cool teacher McGee in the background and oozing around the dance floor. I thought of the spring dance episode from the original—with its similar swirling lights and blue hues—where Brenda painstakingly weighs her options and finally decides to lose it to Dylan. How many months and years went into that one moment! And now I suspected these new kids had made that same decision somewhere between the bar and the bathroom. And, however naively, I wanted to click my heels and go all the way back—despite the current idiots milling about the place—to the safe and ancient Walsh-infested corners of dear old Minnesota.

The time: three months ago. The place: some hotel room. The players: Obama, his advisers, Ailes, and Rupert Murdoch.

Obama's angle: You people at Fox News aren't being fair:

"I just wanted to know if I'm going to get a fair shake from Fox News Channel," Ailes recalled him saying...

In a recent interview with Glamour magazine, Obama said Fox News and others went after his wife, Michelle, "in a pretty systematic way. . . . If you start being subjected to rants by Sean Hannity and the like, day in and day out, that'll drive up your negatives."

Fox's angle: We're not unfair, we're just not a part of the biased liberal media bootlickers. Also, who can control Hannity?

"Senator, you're the one who boycotted us," Ailes says he replied. "We're not the ones who boycotted you. Nor did we retaliate for your boycott."...

As Ailes recalls it, he responded to Obama's concern about fairness by saying that "there are opinion shows and there are news shows." Some of the criticism, Ailes told him, has come from conservative commentator and co-host Sean Hannity — whom he likened to MSNBC's more liberal pundits Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews.

The resolution: Obama will be on Bill O'Reilly's show tomorrow night. And let's hope it turns into a huge fight, because, why not? Apparently Rupert is trying to take the friendly route with Obama, much as the New York Post suddenly became soft towards Hillary Clinton when it looked like she might win. But Fox News should take note: times are a-changing. After Obama gets elected, Fox News' ratings will slide and they'll see a backlash for their Bush era broadcasting. Bet. Rupert Murdoch is smart enough to know that a good relationship with Obama might be worth more to Fox than just about anything in the next year.

[WP]

Yes, Whitney finally began her bi-coastal Kelly Cutrone adventure, and boy did it start with a bang! Or, at least the potential for a bang. Yes, Whitney's first assignment was to help a casting for male models, impossibly-abbed lads with tousled hair and lazy, ambling gaits. And it made her wonderful dinner plate eyes bug out even more than usual. She was freaking out, albeit in the saturnine, slow lake ripple way that she freaks out. Kelly, schooling her on "multitasking in the power-bitch world," slyly arranged a date for Whitney with one of the models, a scruffy Columbia grad called Alex. Of course Kelly and company were mysteriously absent for the planned evening drinks, so it was just Whitney and the Morningside beau, left to wander the flat and blocky streets of Soho, making canned cute. That said, I would totally watch Whitney's show if it became a, heh, reality.

Oh, and yes, Lauren did end it with Doug the Frozen Burrito Heir, leaving him to contemplate the nature of loss in his well-designed bachelor pad perched high atop the Hollywood hills. At the end of the episode, Lauren pensively navigated those mounds of earth to which her success is owed, perhaps doing some moral arithmetic. "And this relationship ending equals this. And that equals this. And he equals this. And her times him equals me divided by... something." It looks as though things with Spencerina and the boys will teeter into the deep end next week, perhaps providing the final "It's a second pair of legs! A whole second lady!" magician's fumble that will once and for all put this show to bed.

Now it's time to get in bed and cuddle, my dear. [Shudder]

If I sound a little underwhelmed it's only because I think the show's PR machine consistently sets up impossibly high standards for this usually well-written, only minimally well-directed teen soap. How can the show itself ever hope to live up to the genius poster ads, or the scintillatingly brief TV spots? The show itself is fine, good enough even, but the ad campaigns are just so, so much better. Anyway, that media critique aside, things actually did happen!

Jenny spent the summer toiling away—like a blonde, statuesque, well-fed Asian child in a factory—for Eleanor Waldorf's clothing line, while that lady who used to be on Law & Order: SVU towered over her, making her sort buttons. But Jenny had a dress and it was pretty in a Lemoncake Stupid Society way and she wanted to go the Hamptons White Party (no not the "cool" Diddy one, the lame and sparsely-attended one thrown by Vitamin Water) so so so bad. Enter the genially useless gay token Erik van der Woodsen, who was still mad at her about something or other but decided to put her "on probation" and escort her to the gala. They got to meet Tinsley Mortimer! But, more on that later.

Meanwhile in Humphrey wanna hump hump land, Dan's summer writing internship involved more making out in liberry stacks while Jay McInerney read aloud from a 25-year-old novel than it did actually, you know, writing. See the problem is, these empty girls he was snogging just weren't his muses. That would be Serena (who later on in the episode was dressed in an awfully Grecian, muse-like outfit), his months-long-lost love who disappeared into the summer green abstract of the Hamptons after their relationship crumbled due to murder and lies and drunkenness. Though fired from his internship for not producing any writing, Dan decided to head to the Hamptons to pursue his love and his story.

Speaking of that green abstract, give the cinematographer(s) a raise for the beautiful sunlight-through-Hamptons-trees motif used throughout the episode's establishing shots. Just lovely. Not as lovely were Serena's mopey, increasingly who-the-fuck-cares face and Nate's embarrassing attempt at a meaningful character arc: eldersex. OK, hah hah I kid the lady wasn't old, she was like thirty-five. But the story was so wan and weak. It just felt like such a toss-off by the writers, making it even sadder than usual to watch Chace Crawford try to mold his porcelain face into believable facial expressions and say lines like the way real people say them. He tried, though. Even through that ridiculous are-they-trying-extra-hard-to-make-him-gay creamish cardigan of his, he tried. Serena and Dan were reunited at the White Party, of course, and, through a series of unfortunate events, ended up meeting cute on the beach, Serena in goddess/muse mode, Dan looking like a chorus boy from South Pacific. Thus begins another year of living completely not dangerously.

As for the most interesting characters, Blair and Chuck, they had another little pas de deux of double crosses and deceptions. Well, OK, that makes it sound a little more exciting than it actually was. Mainly Blair trotted a fake boyfriend in front of Chuck, successfully trying to make him feel jealous and sad. Ed Westwick seemingly forgot how to act over the summer (or maybe he never knew) and said each line with the same kitty cat purr that charmed a bit last season and is now kind of tired and grating. Blair's boy turned out to not be the apple pie-fed all American Princeton/Georgetown boy he'd advertised himself as, rather he is a British lord who, apparently having seen the Julia Stiles epic The Prince & Me (come on Joshua Safran, come on), decided to keep his identity a secret so he could be treated as just a regular filthy rich person. In the end Chuck couldn't say "elephant chew" and Blair left with British McSeersucker.

I am, of course, saving the best thing for last. That would be Tinsley Mortimer, a socialite whose mind got up and wandered off years ago, who made a cameo as herself, helping young Jenny's burgeoning Tello's career. She said her few lines not so much woodenly, but as if she were spirited away behind some three inch piece of steel. There was her body and her mouth moving and then there were words, coming sort of sideways out of her. I almost wanted to break it up into its tips and taps, hoping to decipher some submerged battleship morse code message. But I didn't have the time. There's a metaphor for the show in there somewhere, but we'll have to wait to unpack that on some other day.

Ultimately the episode didn't quite get the balance between levity and gravity quite right. Moments shifted awkwardly between campy and maudlin (a fine, fine line that this young cast isn't quite capable of treading) and, as always, everything was too easy. Just like the croquet game they played—inaccurately, I may add! you hold the mallet between your legs and swing back and forth! those boys ought to know a thing or two about that!—in which every single ball went through the wicket. Languid ease on a sprawling summer lawn is all well and good, but it doesn't make for arresting drama. Here's hoping the trip back to grimy, sticky Manhattan reignites that wicked flame that was blown out last night, hopefully temporarily, like a Tiki torch snuffed in balmy beach winds.

Typically, the major networks decide which series will get the biggest fall campaigns after the "upfronts" in May, when they preview new shows for advertisers.

However, the writers strike disrupted the pilot-development season. As a consequence, the networks have only 17 new shows slated for fall - far fewer than unusual.

Some new shows haven't had pilots shot, meaning there are no clips to sample for the ad campaign. Other shows coming into their second season have been off the air for a full year now, meaning everyone has forgotten about them. To overcome these problems—and the lack of new shows, period—networks are getting creative. That means annoying the citizens of New York City:

For "Crusoe," a new adventure based on the Daniel Defoe novel, the network will go so far as to strand a real-life Crusoe somewhere in New York and broadcast his travails online.

[NYP]

DOHERTY I had already done “Heathers,” “Little House” and “Our House.” I didn’t read it and think, “Oh my gosh, ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ is going to be the hugest thing in the world.” I moved here when I was 8 years old, so I’ve always been raised to have a fair amount of confidence. There wasn’t very much that I could relate to Brenda, except that maybe we were both going through teen angst at the same time.

JASON PRIESTLEY I remember meeting Aaron for the first time. He was walking across the four-inch-deep shag carpeting in his office with a cocktail in his hand. And the second that happened, there were no more nerves for me. I thought: “Well, you know, Aaron’s already drinking. I’m cool. I got this.”

DARREN STAR The affiliates were scandalized — not because they had sex, but because Brenda was happy about it, and it didn’t have any dire consequences. I was strongly advised to write a show that would address the consequences of that sexual experience. So the first episode of the second season Brenda broke up with Dylan because their relationship had gotten too mature.

PRIESTLEY There was no excitement about it. Fox was this rag-tag group of affiliates back in 1990. “21 Jump Street” was barely hanging on. Johnny Depp had one foot out the door, and they were trying to replace him with Richard Grieco.

JENNIE GARTH There were times when it was worse than high school. The environment there was like: Are you kidding me? There was a lot of tension and unnecessary drama on the set, a certain amount of competition, and a certain — probably — anger about different salaries as the years progressed. People would find out how much someone was making, and then they’d be angry and want that, or if you got days off in your contract, they’d want that. Nobody was brave enough to step in and set us straight, and have a serious talk with us about it. There was a lot of tension directed from one specific person, and that one specific person had to reap the consequences from that.

DOHERTY I really could care less about it anymore. I have nothing to apologize for. Whatever I did was my growing-up process that I needed to go through, that anybody my age goes through. And however other people may have reacted to that is their issue.

[NYT]

It's an interesting development for the networks, who continue to cede control of our eyeballs. Imagine if you weren't a loyal NBC viewer, but a Gawker TV viewer instead. You'd just have to fire up the TiVo box and there waiting for you would be all of the shows we are relentlessly obsessed with (so, like, 146 episodes of Gossip Girl and then a Frontline about sad people.) If a show starts to suck, like this season of Project Runway, we remove it for you. You don't have to press any buttons or anything! (What was that point Wall-E was trying to make again?) All the networks will be able to do is desperately act as publicists for their shows, hoping the astute editors at Ranger Rick TV or whatever will decide to pick up their new Tim Daly series and feed it right into our brains. A new middleman emerges? [WSJ]

If you go back to the great big whopping granddaddy of recessions, the Great Depression, you can clearly see that the misery of the people was offset or in some way mitigated by an influx of popular musicals and screwball comedies and swoony romances. Movies like Anything Goes and Love Affair were giddy, romantic delights, while The Wizard of Oz and You Can't Take It With You presented the penury of the times through something of an aw-shucks, zanily hardscrabble lens. Escapism at its finest. You turn then to the films of the supposedly-idyllic 1950's and there you have Rebel Without a Cause and A Streetcar Named Desire and the myriad alarmist science fiction movies plaguing the cinema. The American mind was free to look under the rock and see what bugs were underneath.

Fast forward a few decades to the early 1980's, that time when the country was still reeling from its urban centers being evacuated in the 1970's, leaving little but a grim, impoverished anger lurking their streets. And on television? Shows like Dallas and Dynasty. Even 1970's shows that depicted a blue collar lifestyle, like All in the Family or Sanford and Sons did so with a strangely warm slant. Of course artier fare was always there to reflect things as they were, but it does seem that in unpleasant times, people turn to mainstream entertainment that is silly and frivolous.

And so it is with these television shows now. The American taste seems to be increasingly obsessed with wealth and privilege, as such a lifestyle becomes more and more foreign to more and more people. But a couple of these new shows could be seen as correctives, in my mind. Gossip Girl, for example, shows the blind excess and awesomeness of wealth, yes, but there are also "poor" characters like Dan and Jenny who do look on that world with a healthy (for a teen soap opera) amount of skepticism. 90210 has always quietly mocked its characters' silly wealth, and hopefully this new iteration will do the same. And, look at a show like Exiled, in which the hideous brats from MTV's hit My Super Sweet 16 are sent to far flung, not-so-wealthy places and taught "valuable lessons." Yes the show isn't perfect, but it is giving the rich a rap on the knuckles. And also consider FX's The Riches, in which a family of Gypsy Travelers pretends to be rich and subverts the culture from the inside out.

So yeah, maybe we're turning our recession-era obsession with the wealthy into a social corrective! Look at how dim and vapid these people are! We don't want to be like them. Wouldn't that be pleasant wishful thinking! Really, people have always been obsessed with wealth and status, back to the days of the Greeks. Everyone's always been miserable! And when all of the practical stakes—shelter, food, etc.—are low, then the frothy dramatic ones can be raised.

Right, The Wire? Right?

The Democratic convention is such a news-bereft wasteland that Stewart was apparently giving a press conference, consisting of him riffing to a roomful of eager reporters. During the course of this, he said that Fox News' "Fair and Balanced" slogan is "the biggest 'fuck you' to people with brains that I've ever seen in my life" and that Chris Wallace is the network's only legit anchor, and that Fox is biased against Obama.

Stop the fucking presses, right? But Howie Kurtz, trooper that he is, put in a call to Fox, and came back with this paragraph for his story:

A Fox News spokesman replied that "Jon's clearly out of touch," citing a Pew study showing the network has the most balanced audience in cable news, 39 percent Repubicans and 33 percent Democrats. "But being out of touch with mainstream America is nothing new to Jon as evidenced by the crash and burn ratings of this year's Oscars telecast."

And we must say, this is completely fair play by Fox! Stewart attacked them professionally; they responded by attacking him professionally; both parties get their say, and the affair doesn't get too dirty. Stewart is perfectly willing and able to respond to Fox's slams, unlike the beat reporters they've gone after in the past. And for connoisseurs of Fox PR's historic public attacks on various media characters, the statement is a beauty—it follows the trademark Fox formula, sliding in an attack on the messenger with a smile.

The asshole here is Kurtz himself, who, as Romenesko pointed out, ran an anonymous attack quote from Fox, in direct violation of the Post's own rules on anonymous quotes.

Funny, though: Stewart actually complimented Fox. Perhaps when they responded, they didn't get this full quote?

"I think Fox does the best job because probably because they have an idea what they're doing. Because they have an editorial perspective, they're able to focus it more. So it's more cohesive and it makes more sense you understand what they're doing. They're putting it through a filter."

Everyone is fighting with each other! The idea that the media is able to stand apart from a larger group called the "audience" and do its job is collapsing. Fox is a media outlet, Stewart is a media guy, and both are sniping at each other—becoming the story themselves—rather than speaking to their own audiences directly (not that we mind, in this case). Even worse, the audience of regular people who are supposed to be the media's consumers have now decided that they are the media itself. As David Carr writes from the convention:

Each time there was a reporting stop — at a small McCain counterdemonstration, a Hillary counterdemonstration, or in the bloggers’ tent — the people formerly known as the audience refused to behave like one. They brandished video cams, iPhones and recorders, doing their own documentation of what was under way.

Somebody has to be the audience. Soon, like slam poetry night at a cafe full of nothing but slam poets, we'll all stop listening because we're too busy waiting our turn to talk.

my friends and i went to the NY Mag sponsored highbrown backyard bbq today.
and it was a total failure. first of all it was in some gross parking lot on the east river, so there goes the "highbrow" part of it. second, i dont think they actually bbq'd anything. it was supposed to be a bbq with some sort of tacos, fruit salad, mexican corn, peach cobbler, and beer—tickets were $25 and sold out a few days ago, so you think they would know how many people were there. it was from 1-5pm, we got there just before 3 they were out of: beer, corn, peach cobbler, utensils. so essentially we paid 25 bucks for a stupid cold taco and a couple cubes of watermelon. CJ (from top chef) was there—drinking bourbon and apologizing, "they didn't tell us there were going to be 600 people here" and attempted to give my friend an impromptu soup out of some taco sauce (gross, but they didn't have spoons anyway). i dont even know if that band played either, they were blasting some sort of awful dance music through blown speakers. now i'm stuck with a year subscription of ny mag that i dont want, ugh.

[Videogum]

CCTV is part of an Asian consortium, the Asian Broadcasting Union, that cut a group deal in the 1990s to pay $17.5 million for the 2008 Games. China's share of that fee is not publicly disclosed, but a source said it was "small."

Yes: the only network in China paid a "small" share of $17.5 million to show the Beijing Olympics, which will net them hundreds of millions of dollars.

If this isn't a strong argument in favor of Communism I don't know what is.

[NYS]

SUNDAY

Mad Men: Hurts So Good
The Lowdown: A drama produced by Sopranos alum Matthew Wiener, Mad Men, now in its second season, is a detailed look at the Madison Avenue ad world of the early 1960's and the lives in its orbit.
What People Will Say: "Not as good as the first season." "Too slow." "Too sad." "I don't get it." "Who cares about their families, let's show more fucking." Similar stuff to the Sopranos detractors who foolishly didn't like the show as much when it went on a more philosophical bent toward the end of its run.
What You Should Say: "It's still great! I'm sick of people crying shark-jumping too soon." Yes it is unbearably sad some (most) of the time, but it's a show that is more profoundly About Something than most movies today, let alone television. The over-analysis on blogs and whatnot is getting to be a bit much (heh), but the show itself is a beguiling and slightly off-center work of art.
[Returning. 10pm, AMC, Airing now]

True Blood: Six Feet Over
The Lowdown: Doing some direct Dexter competition with his former Six Feet Under star Michael C. Hall, creator Alan Ball brings us a dark and bloody Southern Gothic vampire tale.
What People Will Say: "It's so dark and hip and cool and totally warped man."
What You Should Say: Well, we're not exactly sure yet. Its relentless advertising has gotten a bit tiresome, but the pedigree is certainly there. Though, even if you never read a review, you can definitely say "Anna Paquin is annoying" with assurance.
[New. 9pm, HBO, Sept. 7]

MONDAY

Gossip Girl: It's Hip! And Annoying!
The Lowdown: We don't talk about it much on the site, I mean not as much as we like breathe or blink or whatever, but it is on our minds from time to time. Basically it's a series about rich New York City kids—some of them girls, some of them gay—who do fake-bad things like do drugs and have sex.
What People Will Say: "It's crap!" "It's garbage!" "It's silly and/or offensive!" Or: "It's silly/offensive crap garbage that's a wicked guilty pleasure." The former assessments come from Philistines with no sense of joy. The latter, from people who think they get the joke but don't.
What You Should Say: "Fuck off, there's nothing guilty about it. I'm just keeping up with the times." Yes the show is not "well made" all the time, and yes it features the acting stylings of a glorified sex robot, but it's also trendy and au courant and it's what the kids (well, a few million of them) are watching. And there's no shame in that. Why curl up into a Havishamish ball and let the bright world forget you? Stay with it! "Plus, Blair's fashions are totes fun to gawp at."
[Returning. 8pm, The CW, Sept. 1]

The Hills: Zombies Are Scary
The Lowdown: Dim, cork-filled Angelenos wander around sun-dappled real estate, letting their blithe spirits mash up against each other in this MTV reality Gymnopédie.
What People Will Say: "Vapid, gutless trash. Won't someone please think of the children???" Or, again, "GUILTEE PLEAZURR!!1!"
What You Should Say: Similar to the Gossip Girl angle, except you could add a little dash of social studies revolutionary spice to it. "I have to know my enemy in order to destroy it." That kind of thing. You should be careful to note Lo's bitchiness and either think it's kicky good fun or despise it. Also, any time you are asked who your favorite character is, there are only two acceptable answers: Whitney (bovine, out to lunch, sad, enigmatic) or Doug (his grandfather invented frozen burritos or something.)
[Returning, unfortunately. 10pm, MTV, airing now]

TUESDAY

90210: Out With the Old, In With the Ew
The Lowdown: Another CW teen bitch fest, this one is a "reimagining" of the seminal 90's series about the rich and troubled kids of West Beverly (Hills) High.
What People Will Say: "My cherished memories are tarnished!" Or, "How could this be done to us, wasn't the first one bad enough??" Other Nancy Naysayer stuff like that.
What You Should Say: "It could be interesting to see if this is what bursts the teen bubble." It could go either way. 90210 might hook its star to Gossip Girl's (admittedly wobbly-wheeled) wagon and find some buzzy success, or it could be a terrific flop. Also say things like "Shenae Grimes was only so-so on Degrassi," if you want to horrify and yet strangely intrigue potential mates. Also throw in a "I can't believe Jessica Walter agreed to be on it, though! How's that Arrested Development movie coming along anyway?"
[New. 9pm, The CW, Sept. 2]

Fringe: What?
The Lowdown: It's the X-Files as done by Alias and Lost wunderkind J.J. Abrams.
What People Will Say: "Look, Joshua Jackson isn't dead."
What You Should Say: "My face hurts."
[New. 9pm, Fox, Sept. 9]

WEDNESDAY

Top Design: Now Oldham Free!
The Lowdown: This is the second season of the Jonathan Adler-related interior design competition show. The first season was bizarre and off-tone, but now those, um, magical Magical Elves are taking the reins so there may be hope.
What People Will Say: "There is too much of this reality stuff, I am so tired of this." "'See you later, decorator' is a terrible catchphrase."
What You Should Say: "I agree, care for a refresher on that Tom Collins?"
[Returning, sort of. 10pm, Bravo, Sept. 3]

America's Next Top Model: Why We Can't Have Nice TV
The Lowdown: This is the worst television show ever made. Tyra Banks is a monster.
What People Will Say: "It's so bitchy and trashy and fun! Tyra's fierce in a hilarious way."
What You Should Say: "This is the worst television show ever made. Tyra Banks is a monster. My face hurts. Oh, but, how's that tranny doing?"
[Returning, endlessly. 8pm, The CW, Sept. 3]

THURSDAY

Kath & Kim: The Dingo Ate My Good Show
The Lowdown: An import of a classic Australian sitcom, Kath & Kim stars two likable actresses (Molly Shannon and Selma Blair) behaving badly and mugging for the camera. Part of NBC's continued efforts to reinstate a Thursday night "Must See TV" comedy block.
What People Will Say: "Oh, rubbish. This is nowhere near as good my precious, precious foreign version." Or, "I don't get it. Where are the men?"
What You Should Say: "I will watch for Molly Shannon, because she is wonderful and deserves a huge career and lots of awards. Plus it will be interesting to see how NBC fares, given all the trouble surrounding this show." Or, "Hush up about your damn foreign shows, this is AMERICA. Don't tread on it or leave it, buster."
[New. 9:30pm, NBC, Oct. 9th]

30 Rock & The Office: Yes, Please
The Lowdown: Two exquisitely funny shows, both ended with bang-up finales. Michael is a daddy, sort of! Dwight and Angela! Jim and Pam! Liz Lemon wants a baby!
What People Will Say: Inevitably, I'm sure: "They've jumped the shark, no one cares about ____'s plotline." (Specifically for The Office.) Everything was so much better before."
What You Should Say: "Cram it with walnuts, ugly. The Office was good as it's ever been last season, and 30 Rock is so stupendously brilliant it makes, well, my face hurt. Tracy Morgan for president."
[Returning. 8:30 & 9pm, NBC, '30' Oct. 30th (ugh!) 'Office' Sept. 25]

FRIDAY & SATURDAY
Get the hell out of the house.

[BBC]

ESPN is considering a bid with ABC for the 2014 and 2016 games, and promises to "carry more of them live, regardless of the time zone, than NBC traditionally has done." They liken it to their World Cup coverage, where morning broadcasts of games results in bleary-eyed drunk fans stumbling out of Irish bars at 7:30 a.m. Um, yay.

So why didn't ESPN and ABC get the games this time around?

In 2003, the Disney-owned ESPN and ABC bid jointly for the 2010 and 2012 Games against Fox and NBC. NBC won the bidding at $2.2 billion, which included a worldwide I.O.C. sponsorship for General Electric, NBC’s parent company. Fox bid an estimated $1.3 billion and ESPN/ABC offered a revenue share, without any upfront money.

There's your problem: not bidding any money for them. NBC is crafty!

[NYT; pic via Savatoons]

NBC anchor Brian Williams gave Phelps some special McD's dining advice before their recent interview:

I told him there was no mustard on them, and that the minced onion was kept to a minimum. I could see in his eyes that he realized he was in the company of a fellow aficionado. He changed his order – so excited at the thought of McDonalds for the first time since arriving here in Beijing — and the interview began.

Will Phelps prove to be yet more proof that fast food is the key to a healthy life? McDonalds very much hopes so. But get honest; you're not an Olympic swimmer. There's really only one circumstance under which an average person should eat so many calories:

[via Soup Cans]

Proving her brand can be as successful on TV as it is on radio, Wendy Williams' daily TV Talk program, The Wendy Williams Show is headed for broader TV distribution. Following a successful multi-week preview on Fox Television owned-and-operated stations in four markets, Fox announced plans Monday (Aug. 18) to clear the Debmar-Mercury-distributed program in mid-2009 on stations in all 18 of its markets.

But is Milwaukee ready for Wendy? Sure, why not?

[MediaWeek]

Well, first off, Audrina will die. While hang gliding with Justin Bobby, her erstwhile mumble-mouth boyfriend, she'll suddenly look directly at the sun. She'll blink furiously and lose control and spiral down toward the gleaming blue Pacific. Justin Bobby will mourn her by grunting a bit, then hitting on a girl. So yeah, Audrina is dead. Or is she? Lauren will start finding strange bits of detritus on her doorstep. Seashells, bits of glass, the severed head of Frankie Delgado. Is Audrina secretly alive, or is she exacting undead revenge, like the watery Ted Danson zombie in Creepshow? Tune in to find out!

While dealing with the bloated undead, Lauren will also be struggling with her next computer class. Expect lots of footage of LC swatting at the computer and sort of chirp/meowing. Spencer's sister, Spencerina, will be there too. Once Lauren leaves, Spencerina will make out with Lauren's computer. Traitor! Also, Heidi will become a prize at a carnival. She'll be hung up at the back of the booth until she is won by an acne-faced boy from Ohio who fills a balloon with water the fastest. She'll be passed off to the lad's girlfriend, who will absentmindedly leave Heidi in her cousin Dorine's Ford Probe when she gets dropped off at home that night. Spencer will cope with the loss by painting another vroom vroom! mural on the walls and then doing a slow, mournful jig. Then Whitney will come out reading a large, ancient book. She'll close it slowly and say, beatifically, "all has ended." Then she'll disappear into thin air. The credits will roll as Jenn Bunny croons Just the Way You Are.

Or, you know, this stuff happens.

But sales of the audio book versions of the first and second book (also read by Ms. Ricci) in the series have been consistently moribund, even in the wake of the hit TV series: for the five years since being released, they have sold fewer than 1,000 copies yearly, according to BookScan. “The teen and the late-teen market has been a really tough market for us,” said Anthony Goff, publisher of Hachette Audio and Digital Media.

Right. Probably because they don't spend too much time driving around and around the parking lot at Cherry & Webb looking for a spot.

This is from a Times story from yesterday about the DVD packaging of the show's first season. Included in the disc's special features is an abridged reading of the first book by the actress Christina Ricci. So that way, the kids can listen to an actress reading a book on their television. I'm not sure what point any of this proves except that Gossip Girl comes back two weeks from today. BANGO!

BBTV's announced show lineup so far includes hip hop video and interview shows with only "appropriate" music included; a comedy show; a kids' show called Gee Gee the Giraffe; a bilingual soap opera; a cooking show; a financial literacy show; a "behind-the-scenes" celebrity show; family-friendly black movies; and profiles of historical black figures.

If you've spent much time watching BET, the lineup sounds awfully familiar. BBTV is essentially saying that it will be what everyone hoped BET would be before it degenerated into lots of infomercials, Juice reruns, and endless repetitions of, um, Master P videos. (Although BET has made a bit of a comeback with original programming recently, it hasn't been enough to resurrect its reputation for embracing stereotypical lowest-common-denominator black programming).

So yes, the irony of Master P running a positive network is not lost on anyone. But give the man some credit. He went from selling tapes of his terrible music out of car trunks to running a business conglomerate that probably makes him worth more the Puff Daddy, his more glamorous NYC counterpart.

BET has long had the "black cable network" idea to itself, which allowed it to get away with selling such crappy programming for so long. So P, we salute your business sense and your commitment to positivity, if not any of your 15 albums or your son's equally grating music. Master P could easily be the next black billionaire; he just needs to remember not to go so heavy on the music censorship that he blocks exposure for the next coming of himself.

Uhhhhhhhh.