ABC 13,135,000
CNN 12,304,000
NBC 12,018,000
FxNews 9,044,000
CBS 7,829,000
MSNBC 5,889,000
FOX 5,137,000
Univis 4,074,654
Telemn 790,000
BET 438,000
CNBC 391,000
BBCA 224,000
WGN 115,000
TVOne 88,000

Fox did better than I’d have thought, but considering it’s still the number one news network, it might have done better. Check out CNN! Almost beating the networks! Me, I watched the BBC online. If you were looking Ted Koppel last night, that’s where he was. I think they like his accent.

-daniel k

As the season has gone on though there’s been an interesting evolution on the show - the political satire has been increasingly aimed at the left. First they’d tuck a little sketch into that last half hour about Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank’s role in the bailout crisis, and then it was Barack Obama’s informercial recast as variety show. Recently the opening sketch, the one everybody watches, made fun of Joe Biden’s huge election-threatening gaffe. 

In a way, this is a kind of compliment.

I’m directing the rest of this commentary at liberals - your favorite comedy shows are going to turn on you, and you better learn to enjoy it. I’m talking SNL, I’m talking the Daily Show, I’m talking Real Time With Bill Mahr. Yes, even Hannity and Colmes.

You see, comedy gets a lot of its juice from inversion. The powerful are brought down, the underdog is elevated. ANIMAL HOUSE is a classically constructed example. The villains are the Big Men On Campus that everyone admires; the heroes are losers who drink and cheat their way through the movie. Don’t get me started on CADDYSHACK. 

But I hope you see where I’m going here, because Lorne Michaels obviously does. With Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and a Democratic president, the Democrats are as of today officially the snobs, and the Republicans are the snobs. (Note to alert readers - I’m writing this on Sunday night, but it seems pretty obvious that by Tuesday when I read this on the podcast, the only unknown here is how big the margin of victory will be. Call it arrogance; I prefer to think of it as an unwillingness to write the whole show on Tuesday.) Lorne Michaels is starting in early because he knows that he needs to crank up the liberal ridicule devices. They haven’t gotten a lot of use for the last fifteen years.

SNL will do fine. I”m A little worried about THE COLBERT REPORT. Colbert’s meta-target is Bill O’Reilly, an authority symbol who is about to be turned into a tragic figure, a little guy shaking his fist at a world which has rejected him. In short, Colbert and O’Reilly are going to switch places. Colbert’s show is such a delicate balancing act I can’t help but think that this is the event that plucks at the wires. 

The Daily Show, on the other hand, is a lot more flexible. John Stewart is clearly savvy enough, and indeed almost anxious, to have a new bunch of targets. He’s used up all the jokes about Republicans and he’s repeating himself, and I bet he can’t wait to sink his teeth into the excesses of liberalism.

You have have noticed there isn’t a lot of A-List material about Barack Obama himself. There probably won’t be for a while. For one thing there is that honeymoon period whenever a new president gets elected; but more importantly for all his exposure he is still a bit of a cypher. He hasn’t shown any foibles on the campaign trail, only that he’s smart and capable. This is not helpful to comedians. Don’t worry. After a few months in office with the pressure to get elected off, the weak spots will show. 

Now, this is directed at Republicans - cheer up. You are going to lose power for a while, but you get comedy back. Maybe now that you won’t have to depend entirely on Dennis Miller, David Zucker and the Half-Hour News Hour for your supply of yoks, you won’t be so irritable. Isn’t that change you can believe in?

-daniel k.

On average, Obama’s 30-minute primetime infomercial managed to outperform usual broadcast network programming in the time period.

The Obama special was seen by 26.3 million viewers across broadcasters CBS, NBC and Fox, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings.

I don’t know what to make of that. As the article points out, it’s such an extrordinarily wierd half-hour of programming that there’s little to compare it to. Ross Perot did a similar stunt in the nineties but I guess he just wasn’t Change We Could Believe In then.

Can one realistically compare “Knight Rider” to a political ad? That would normally seem unfair — to the politician. Obama improved NBC’s rating by 43% and CBS by 10% compared with last week. And keep in mind Obama was competing against himself.

The lowest-rated of the three presidential debates received a 52.4 million viewers — but that was carried by more networks and was, after all, a debate.

The Ross Perot specials in 1992 averaged 11.6 million viewers, but those were 15 separate specials that ran on different nights.

NBC was the most-viewed and highest-rated network for its presentation of Obama’s ad, pulling 9.8 million viewers and a 3.0 rating. CBS had 8.6 million (2.3) and Fox had 7.9 million (2.8).

As for ABC’s underdog “Pushing Daisies,” airing on the only major broadcaster not to carry the ad, the counterprogramming still came in fourth place in the adults 18-49 demo. “Daisies” (6.8 million, 2.2) was up by 16% from last week, which isn’t as big of a boost as the network had likely hoped for.

I might as well admit it here - I’m an Obama supporter. But a half-hour infomercial getting big ratings - it’s probably a sign of the apocolypse. I’m busting out the Nostradamus on this one. I’ll get back to you.

Except.

Except in the movies. Oliver Stone’s take on the 43rd President, “W”, opened a couple of weekends ago to mediocre box office and it dropped almost 50 percent this weekend. A few weeks earlier saw the arrival of both David Zucker’s AN AMERICAN CAROL and Bill Mahr’s RELIGULOUS. One is a comedy ridiculing left wing politics and the other is a comic documentary ridiculing religion, but in this country religion and politics are often the same thing. Anyway, they both opened at the bottom of the top ten - AMERICAN CAROL made more money overall but RELIGULOUS had a higher per-screen average, and the takeaway is that nobody was awfully excited to see either one. In fact, the lions share of the ticket sales went to BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA that weekend.

You may also recall SWING VOTE, a Kevin Costner movie from the summer, though it’s just as likely that you won’t recall it at all. 

Well, something’s going on here and my guess is it has to do with the phrase “current events.” There are things that TV just does better than movies, and one of those is immediacy. If Joe Biden says something stupid at 3:00pm on Thursday, you don’t want to wait a year to see the comment about it. You want it NOW mister! I kinda liked W but I have to admit that as a political junkie, it all seemed pretty worked over to me. There was nothing in there that I hadn’t heard years ago, except the suggestion that Bush is a more sympathetic character than he seems. 

Movies just can’t maneuver with the agility that politics requires. TV is like a speedboat; movies is like a battleship. It is huge and majestic, but it takes a whole day to change course. In that time, the speedboat can zig zag circles around it 400 times. 

There are exceptions of course. MR SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, which focused on the struggle of one man against the backdrop of politics, is a mighty good movie. Even then, classic though it is, I don’t believe it made a lot of money. THE CANDIDATE, which starred Robert Redford at the peak of his career, wasn’t huge. ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN is probably better looked at as a crime thriller than a political movie. 

So if you’re investing in movies…. hah hah, just kidding. Never mind. But if you had money to invest, and you were considering putting it into movies, keep away from the ones about politics. They’ll just break your heart.

-daniel k.

First of all, I agree: It’s compelling stuff, the whole “future of American society and civilization” deal. It’s high-ratings event coverage, all right. However, I will part company with Dan’s rather Swiftian suggestion we have sponsored elections, televised contests for office. Yeah, it seems inevitable, but there are two things keeping it from becoming, er, reality: 1) I can’t see how any losing candidate in a reality-show election would NOT sue the winner AND the network AND the advertisers for conflict of interest, corruption, and collusion; 2) This show already exists: It’s called “American Idol.” Good-looking contestants are judged on appearance and nuance and, once in awhile, musical skill. We get to vote for them– Directly, in fact. No “American Idol” electoral college. This is actually better than Dan’s idea, in that the winners have no constituency and can only f*** up their own lives afterward.

Nonetheless, It’s remarkable how strongly the media is playing on the Presidential horse-race this year. Maybe it is a needed distraction from the continuing bad news from Wall Street and everywhere else they trade stocks. Maybe people are hanging onto the nuances of the race because it symbolizes the hope the next four years will be better. Maybe people are scared and are looking for a strong leader in an uncertain time.

But most likely they are mesmerized by Sarah Palin.

The most fascinating thing about her is how she and her handlers have attempted to portray her. She is a “Joe Sixpack, Main Streeter, Hockey Mom.” Just a regular middle American everyone can relate to.

Wrong. This is exactly backwards. Sarah Palin is an extraterrestrial, a space alien, fresh off her flying saucer. I can prove this.

Since her surprise entrance to national politics at the Republican National Convention, The public and the press cannot get enough of her. The first week or so after her RNC speech there were endless articles about Palin. She was everywhere: Slate even reported people had recurring Sarah Palin dreams. But most of them were trying to find out something about her, to gain a definition: What Wasilla is like, about her family, her kids, her personal habits, her hobbies. What female politician– Hell, what politician, period– has ever been under such scrutiny?

She is from a faraway, exotic place. She has a large, quirky family. She speaks with an accent nobody has heard much of in the lower 48. She processes and delivers information in ways that defy easy explanation. And she is beguilingly attractive. All interesting qualifications for, say, an MTV reality show or participating in “Extreme Makeover Home Edition.”

Sarah Palin is so UNLIKE any sort of politician seen before we’re struggling to find a collective definition for her. It made the work of the Republican Party easy: All they had to do put out those “Hockey Mom” talking points and they were grabbed onto by media and public alike. They had to grab onto something, for God’s sake.

(If you are of an inclination to disagree with my Palin/alien theory, I ask you to consider this logical construction. Aliens are fascinating. Joe Sixpacks are, by definition, not interesting– After all, Joe Sixpack is your neighbor, and if your neighbors are like mine, thank God they’re boring. Sarah Palin is fascinating. therefore…)

She’s a complete novelty. A lot of this has to do with her Alaskan heritage.

Americans are enamored by The Last Frontier. It’s full of colorful characters, strange wildlife, and forbidding wilderness. It’s the last place where people can still escape to and reinvent themselves. Which leads to my proof that Palin is an alien: Thom Beers.

Mr. Beers is a producer of reality television shows. His first breakthrough was “Monster Garage.” He went on with a few wide-ranging reality shows about unusual professions, but hit on one breakout: “Deadliest Catch,” which chronicles the harrowing process of catching crab in the Bering Sea off Alaska. It was a hit, and it continues to be the number one reality show on cable.

Beers also branched off with several other shows with similar premises: “Ice Road Truckers,” about the guys who drive semis on frozen lakes in Canada; “Axe Men,” tough lumberjacks in the Pacific Northwest, and even “Lobster Wars,” crustacean-catching in New England.

None of these really took off. Part of this is the fact “Deadliest Catch” makes good on the title: Crab fishing is extremely dangerous, and not a season goes by without a fatality. In comparison, “Ice Road” features a bunch of truckers, and you can see them anywhere. “Axe Men” makes the viewer feel too guilty about clear-cutting as entertainment. And “Lobster Wars” is just lame.

But most of the appeal of “Deadliest Catch” is the Alaskan setting: forbidding, cold, dangerous. The locals on the show are equally strange to average Americans: hardscrabble, tough, willing to risk their lives going out to sea. And out at sea, it’s as weird as a science fiction movie: ice packs, thirty-foot rogue waves, seas so cold it’ll kill in three minutes exposure. The crews risk it all to catch gigantic, hideous, otherworldly-looking crustaceans.

People can’t get enough of this show. And they can’t get enough of Sarah Palin, another native product of Alaska. We’re fascinated by both, not because they’re familiar as Main Street, but because they come from the outer edge of the world.

–Skot C.