Perhaps the folks at Bravo, assembling this Top Chef-themed holiday promo were not aware that it’s a difficult time in the media business. But I’m thinking this is perhaps not the best time to be sending sharp implements to newsrooms across America.

[Update: Bravo confirms that this is, in fact, a set of cheese knives, encased in a …

NBC made its Jay Leno announcement official today, holding a press conference and issuing a press release that spelled out—somewhat—what Leno’s 10 p.m. E.T. scriptkiller will involve. From the release, in which Jeff Zucker actually uses, a la Robert Huggins, the phrase “new paradigm”:

Leno will sign off as host of The Tonight

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NBC’s other old-new host, Jimmy Fallon, posted his first Late Night video blog last night, and I’ll say this for him: he picked a great house band. (In fact, I’m surprised that committing to the nightly show works for them, but it’s a steady gig, and I hope NBC is backing up a money truck.) As for Fallon, well, it’s unfair to judge by a …

Tonight, NBC makes good on its promise to give Jimmy Fallon an online tryout before he takes over next year as host of Late Night from Conan O’Brien. His five-minute webcast will go live at 12:30 E.T. The plan seems to have changed, from a sort of mini-late-show monologue to a “video blog” offering “behind-the-scenes access to Fallon’s …

Here’s one answer to NBC’s business woes: NBC Universal big cheese Jeff Zucker suggests the network could cut back its primetime by an hour (a la Fox, giving the hour to affiliates who may actually want it) or stop programming on Saturday (a la The CW)—or even Friday.

It won’t quell the NBC-is-dying talk out there, but it may not be …

From the Wish-I-Had-Thought-of-It department, Newsday’s Verne Gay has a great post paralleling the troubles of NBC with those of its advertiser and former My Own Worst Enemy product-placer, General Motors.

There are so many ways you can go with this. I probably would have been much more glib: overinvested in a product line that was …

While chronicling my week in TiVo-service hell last week, there’s one thing I didn’t point out: I actually probably got better service than the average customer would have in the same situation. The average customer—as opposed to a TV critic—wouldn’t have had contact numbers at TiVo to call to get technical support after a morning …

I don’t think I’m one of those bitter critics who hates everything on TV. But in 2008, I sometimes felt like one, especially as it came time to compile my top-10 lists for the end of the year. This was the toughest year I can remember to fill out a list, and I can only partly blame this situation on the strike. Yes, there was less new …

In addition to a suspect can of energy drink, TNT sent several episodes of its new heist show, Leverage, starring Timothy Hutton. I will confess that I did not get through all of them: once it was clear that it was basically Hu$tle with a moral streak (right down to the by-now-standard Get Shorty style soundtrack), I didn’t see the …

Though I suspect a lot of people will be declaring—as we get into year-end roundup and critic’s-list season—that this was 30 Rock’s year, really what it has been is Tina Fey’s year. She’s on the cover of Vanity Fair, she was the showbiz star of the election with her Palin impersonation and she’s a pop-cultural obsession of the …

On the first night of HBO’s House of Saddam miniseries, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is being shown a prototype of a monument being built to him, a pair of arms bearing crossed swords. It’s very small, Saddam says. The flustered demonstrator explains, nervously and cautiously, that it’s just a model. Saddam laughs. “I was …