Flipping through the cable channels this morning, I caught the tail end of a Hilton Hotels commercial that uses a snippet from Ben Folds’ Landed, his beautiful single from the Songs for Silverman album. When I hear a old song like the Violent Femmes’ Blister in the Sun used in a Wendy’s commercial, I may [...]

Geraldo Rivera, on Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto: “You know, Neil, it is interesting. This kid is troubled in a way that’s even deeper than the chip on his shoulder. In his creative-writing courses he wrote in ways that were filled with sadistic imagery and savage, violent images that the teacher, the professor, [...]

The one act of the Virginia Tech shooter that we can be thankful for is that, when he took his own life after the massacre, he blew his face off. This meant that he could not immediately be identified, which in turn meant delaying the inevitable round of moronic analysis of why he did what [...]

OK, I realize that covering a breaking story like the Virginia Tech shooting is not easy, and that inevitably there is going to be a certain amount of video wallpaper, repetitiousness and regrettable choices made in cable news, because that’s what happens. (Case in point: I typed “overkill” in the previous sentence before my inner [...]

Keith Olbermann’s career has turned so many times that it’s easy to forget that he was a sports anchor before he became the disaffected progressive’s basic-cable Edward R. Murrow of choice. But NBC hasn’t forgotten, today naming him–after a six-year absence from sports–co-host of Football Night in America, joining Bob Costas, Cris Collinsworth, Jerome Bettis [...]

HBO “My estimate, historically,” said Tony Soprano in last week’s episode, “80 percent of the time [a boss] ends up in the can, like Johnny Sack. Or the embalming table.” Having experienced one of the outcomes, last night Johnny Sack experienced outcome number two. It was an excellent performance and sendoff for Vincent Curatola, and [...]

FOX The Amazing Race has been in a bit of a ratings slump the last couple seasons, but the show is not beyond rescuing. Say, for instance, you made Phil Keoghan a murderous, criminal S.O.B., the front for a shadowy organization that ran the race for the entertainment of powerful interests. Say some of the [...]

One of the points I tried to get at in my Imus story was that it was an example of a new kind of media explosion that technology has helped to make possible: We may be more inured to shock than ever, but when someone manages to find and cross a line, we’re better able [...]

Danger–other shoe falling! Some thoughts: * So he doesn’t get to finish the telethon? Will someone be reimbursed? * Which satellite-radio exec won the speed-dialing contest to Imus’ agent? * My Time story, of course, went to press before the announcement. I’ll see about having the magazine mail pens to the print subscribers, so they [...]

…because you knew there had to be a TV-decency angle, right? In the midst of closing my epic about Imusgate yesterday, I received an email press release from our friends at the Parents Television Council: The Parents Television Council renewed its call for the cable industry to provide true cable choice to consumers so that [...]

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t watched last night’s Lost yet, drink this glass of orange juice… ABC/ MARIO PEREZ Oh, Juliet! You naughty girl! I had been worried that last night’s Lost was going to try to win us over to Juliet’s side, making her a sympathetic new member of the gang immediately. Fortunately, the [...]

Posted on time.com this morning, my big fat story on the I-man’s I-plosion and its I-mplications, which will be the cover of the next print TIME magazine. I try to spin the story forward, as we say in the biz, by looking at the big picture of public and pop-culture discourse today. (“Discourse”! Yes, I [...]

Upside for MSNBC: People are forced to write headlines with MSNBC in them. CBS Radio, meanwhile–which has a larger financial stake in the show–released a statement that they’re sticking to a two-week suspension for now. Meanwhile, they “will continue to speak with all concerned parties.” (Mmmmyeah: the concerned parties who keep their financial statements.) There [...]

My Idol review is up; you know what you must do. My predix for the bottom three: Phil, Haley, not Sanjaya, which leaves room for one of the front-runners to get the traditional “shocking” bottom three scare… I’m going to roll the dice and say LaKisha but Melinda is not outside the realm of possibility. [...]

NBC/Bill Records Friday Night Lights on NBC has had the dubious pleasure of being a show whose story parallels its existence as a TV show: a highly regarded, big-hearted, setback-plagued underdog fighting every week against the prospect of elimination and hoping some Hail Mary will save it. (Despite some encouraging hints, there’s been no word [...]

Larry Birkhead, you are the winner! Let the cable-news frenzy commence! An apology, by the way, to longtime Tuned In readers, for our suddenly having become Swampland over the course of the last two days. I promise to return to my regular program of esoteric TV musings and extremely low traffic as soon as possible.

Which is sadder: (A) The Jam’s “Start” being used in a Cadillac commercial (B) The Violent Femmes’ “Blister in the Sun” being used in a Wendy’s Four-Cheese Spicy Chicken Sandwich commercial (c) A grown man being concerned about all this? Extra credit: This is not the first time a Violent Femmes tune has been used [...]

Did 24′s producers consider just renaming the series 17 and calling it a day? Last night, 24 took a big fat U-turn, suddenly having Jack Bauer end the nuke threat with seven hours to spare. It was about time; somewhere between the immolation of Valencia and now, 24 became a comedy, rehashing old plots and [...]

It’s not rehab, but it’ll do: MSNBC and CBS Radio have decided to suspend Don Imus’ radio/really-cheap-cable-news show for two weeks, starting next Monday. Sounds like a win-win all around for the warring parties. Al Sharpton and Imus’ other detractors get to declare victory, if a limited one; the media giants cut their losses; and [...]