Maybe Van Veen has been spending too much time with his purported bestie Ben Silverman, the former NBC executive who takes credit for the likes of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and Weakest Link. Because we can't imagine Van Veen's media sugar daddy Barry Diller envisioned this sort of thing when he funded Van Veen's studio, Notional, four months ago. It's such a retro format for a "multi platform" studio that's supposed to be inventing the future. Here's some of what's slated:

• "READY, SET, DANCE!: In partnership with a major production entity, "Ready, Set, Dance!" is a first-of-its-kind dance competition series that seamlessly combines the web and television."
• "YOU VS. AMERICA: Currently in development, 'You vs. America' is a ground-breaking game show that innovatively combines the immediacy of the internet with the excitement of a network primetime television game show."
• "CHASE THE MONEY: "Chase the Money" is an epic scale reality game show that combines the pratfalls of a classic prank show with the simplicity of a child's game of 'Tag'."
• "LOVE TAXI: The dating show that takes place entirely in a taxicab. "

Actually, now that we think about it, the dancing one was probably Barry "Twinkle Toes" Diller's idea in the first place.

(Pic: Van Veen, by Zach Klein)

This Monday's show averaged a 3 rating and a 1.15 in the critical 18- 49 demographic group, which determines the show's desirability to advertisers. The 1.15 number was against powerhouse Monday Night Football, but for the first time it sent Leno below the 1.5 mark that NBC had said, pre-launch, would define success.

The free-falling ratings have also dragged down the rest of the network's after hours line-up. The NY Times reports:

Conan O'Brien on the Tonight Show fell to just a 1.8 rating in the overnight household ratings and the preliminary 18-49 ratings put him well below his main competitor, David Letterman on CBS. (Mr. Letterman's household ratings at 11:35 p.m. even beat Mr. Leno's at 10 p.m. a 3.3 to a 3.0.) ABC's late-night entry Jimmy Kimmel scored a 1.5, putting him closer to Mr. O'Brien — who starts a half-hour earlier than Mr. Kimmel - than Mr. O'Brien is to Mr. Letterman.

Across America, NBC's affiliate stations are sounding increasingly ready for war in the face of sinking viewership for their evening news show, pulled down by Leno's flailing lead-in.

To which the response from the show has been some minor tweaks to the format: moving the "signature" Jay Walking and headline-reading bits to their old slot after the monologe; moving them up from the back of the show — where they had been placed on the insane belief that people would stay around for them and thus provide a strong closer/lead-in to the local news. In other words, making the show even more like Leno's Tonight Show.

And now finally, the press, always eager to take a few whacks, has officially started the countdown clock on Jay's final days.

"To Save NBC, Rethink Leno Strategy" demands Newser.

"Is It Time to Pull the Plug on Leno?" asks an ABC news headline.

"Is Leno's 10 p.m. experiment nearing an end?" asks MSNBC!...of NBC network fame.

However, with the flood of bad press raining down on Jay's head, that can only mean one thing: rebound is just minutes away. While one would have to be certifiable to bet on Leno and NBC at this dark hour, the law of nature that no one ever lost a buck betting against the wisdom of the press has not been repealed.

With the contract on Oprah's show running out, and with her fledgling Oprah Winfrey Network struggling to get off the ground, the entertainment world has been speculating wildly about her next move. To most, however, it seemed unthinkable that Oprah could walk away from her ATM machine of a TV show — contemplating the fate of daytime TV minus Oprah is like Cold War strategists trying to imagine a world without the Soviet Union.

The Big O has been developing the Oprah Winfrey Network for some time in partnership with Discovery Communications, but the network has had trouble getting off the ground without the presence of its namesake's own show. Finke reports that Discovery's chief finally demanded that Oprah go all in and bring her show over or give up on the network entirely. If after much vacillation, which reportedly included several canceled phone appointments with Les Moonves to break the news to him, it would be a big change of heart for Oprah to base her empire on her own cable channel rather than a mere syndicated show.

Back in 1998, when Oprah was poised to take over cable as one of the three "founding mothers" of the Oxygen network, she dangled the possibility of her talk show airing on the new cable station:

She also said she intended to provide ''input and ideas'' in the short-term before she is free from other commitments to produce more programming for the channel. Specifically, she said she had never sold rerun rights to the huge library of editions of her daily talk show and, ''This seems like the perfect place to release them.''

A decade later, when Winfrey announced her OWN network in January 2008, she tried to distance herself as much as possible from the disappointing Oxygen: "I was not a participant in the development of the channel... That's why after a couple of board meetings I took myself off the board."

In the killing fields of NBC chatland, what little peace and stability had been achieved was just been blown to smithereens by a little hint dropped by Jay Leno, that, oh yes, now that you mention it, he'd be willing to take his old slot back.

Pity poor Conan O'Brien; his ratings are off 47 percent from Jay's, competing not just against Leno's legacy but Letterman's ongoing scandal. And then his lead-off batter, in a Q&A with Broadcasting and Cable, drops this:

If someone [from new ownership] comes in tomorrow and puts you back at 11:35, are you thrilled?

Oh, I don't know. Are you married? Whatever you want, honey.

You know I don't believe a word you are saying, right?

I'm not having a bad time at 10 o'clock now. I look at this as a job, and now I'm faced with a challenge, and it's a challenge I find difficult but interesting. I find that when I go to Vegas, whereas before I might not sell out, all of a sudden it's sold out. I seem to be doing better in terms of public appearances. I am reaching a wider audience. Whether that translates to television just yet, I don't know. But I see a difference.

Now why is that, because I'm in the paper every day? I don't know. Because I'm on earlier? I'm actually doing well; this is almost the best year for personal appearances since I started. So there is no negativity there.

Do you want to go back to 11:35?

If it were offered to me, would I take it? If that's what they wanted to do, sure. That would be fine if they wanted to.

If you are Conan O'Brien reading the above, it might occur to you that that 11:30 slot to which Jay is graciously willing to return is the one that you currently occupy.

Elsewhere in the interview, Jay shows himself to be startingly self-aware of the differences between himself and Letterman, and delivering a sort of triple backhanded compliment, saying of Dave's current scandal:

He's not being a hypocrite; Dave has never set himself up as [a model citizen]. If it were me, it would kill me. I'm the guy who's been married 29 years. But Dave has never pretended to be Mr. Moral America, he's never set himself up that way. He's not a hypocrite. I don't know how it will be viewed. He doesn't do corporate days like me, he's not as advertiser-friendly as I am. I'm the guy when Coke or Pepsi is here, I come down and shake hands and take pictures, but he doesn't do that. I don't think it will have a big effect at all.

All this occurs as the backdrop to the ratings horror show of the Leno experiment. The moment we would see the genius of the whole plan, NBC had promised, was when the other networks dramatic shows went into reruns, and there would be low-cost Jay with fresh shows to come in and clean up. Well, last week Jay had his first head-to-head against reruns and the results were not pretty. Leno actually hit his lowest number yet against a CSI: Miami repeat.

And elsewhere, the Leno lead-in seems to be pulling down local news shows across the nation.

So just to sum up the Ben Silverman legacy: NBC has decimated one of its three prime-time hours, its affiliates news shows are sinking, its late night line-up is staggering along at half the viewership of a year ago, and now its 11:30 host must once again watch his back against his network teammate.

The one thing that can be said in this whole arrangement's favor is that NBC getting out of the drama business is probably a great thing for NBC and, certainly a great thing for America. It may not be a law of nature that the big networks are incapable of launching decent dramas, but it certainly looks that way at the moment, and extra-certainly does so for NBC which just surrendered the acclaimed Southland to basic cable. Until the network figures out a way to produce shows that seem to have been created in the same space-time continuum as the HBO shows, Mad Men, Damages and even Lost or 24, it is probably better for everyone that they just sit out a few games.

• South Park: In its famous "Cartoon Wars" episode, Cartman decides he hates Family Guy, hilarity ensues.

• Deborah Solomon: The NYT's stern question lady had a decidedly pissy interview with Seth Macfarlane last month. Sample Solomon questions: "Personally, I find the show's rape jokes especially unfunny...Why is that funny?...I would say Groening is a better colorist...Are you contemptuous of families?...Are you straight?" God, shut up, Deborah Solomon.
• Richard Lawson: Famous cultural critic who did not care for the show. He called it "crude, sloppy, shamelessly Simpsons-derivative non sequitur humor," which is relatively non-debatable, as insults go.
• Microsoft: Microsoft and their supercool ad agency Crispin Porter Bogusky were all signed up as sponsors for an upcoming prime time Family Guy special, but then somebody at Microsoft accidentally watched Family Guy, and, whoa! Microsoft can tolerate jokes about nerds, Apple, the blind, barely legal hoes, and Rwanda, but this show's "riffs on deaf people, the Holocaust, feminine hygiene and incest" were too much, according to Variety.

Remaining Family Guy Fans:

• Seth MacFarlane: That guy is so rich now. Filthy, unclean rich.
• News Corp. Executives: Family Guy makes money.
• Millions of 18-34 year old males: Their taste is America's taste!

Taking over Ben Silverman's suicidal command structure, Gaspin has years of interviews ahead of him in which he pleads with the public to believe that, no, we really don't want to die, even as he attempts to pilot his way through a debris field of leftover decisions which continue to suggest that's exactly what NBC wants to do.

In an interview with The Wrap, Gaspin was forced to plead that, yes, NBC really does want good ratings; no, bad ratings are not our goal. As amazing as it may sound that a network chief would need to clarify such things, his predecessor actually made a point of publicly declaring that he was "managing for margin, not for ratings", i.e. keeping costs low was more important than keeping ratings high.

Citing development deals with JJ Abrams and Jerry Bruckheimer he said in the interview, while denying that the recent cancellation of Southland meant that NBC was getting out of the drama business:

"I have been going around town and talking to agencies and talking to producers and trying to make myself visible to say that, while we think we need to produce economically, the goal is not to manage for margins," Gaspin told TheWrap. "It is to put the best possible programs we can on the air."

And while NBC's overall programming budget may have shrunk, "Our development dollars have not changed one bit from five years ago, even though we have many less hours to develop for," Gaspin said. "Our goal is to produce good shows that get whatever's considered good ratings today."

But while the new corporate strategy may be to actually attract viewers, the network is still saddled with an hour of programming every night which threatens to turn their ratings profile into something that Lifetime and Current would flee like a vampire from a crucifix.

In the latest round of stats, NBC's avant-garde experiment, The Jay Leno Show has fallen behind cable programming in viewership among the all important 18 - 49 year old demographic. As Movieline points out, on this Tuesday night Leno was murdered in the demo by FX's Son's of Anarchy, which drew a 2.0 rating to Leno's brutal 1.8.

As long as you are sitting on that little toxic waste dump, maybe saying that you're trying for low ratings isn't such a bad idea after all?

Letterman's tabloid-ready confessions comes after he spent the afternoon testifying before a grand jury, a first for the long-time Late Show host:

This morning, I did something I've never done in my life. I had to go downtown and testify before a grand jury.

So, what went down? Well, it all started when an unidentified man sent Letterman a package 3 weeks ago that reportedly proved the talk show host has been carrying on with female staffers, though the number's also unknown. The man said he would keep his trap shut if Letterman sent him a check for $2 million. Not one to take extortion lying down, Letterman went to the authorities, who had him mail a fake check and then they caught the bad guy. Score one for celebrity justice.

All of this will definitely put a strain on Letterman's relationship with his wife, Regina Lasko, whom he dated for 23 years before marrying last March.

We'll get you lovelies some video as soon as it's available.

Update: Here's video and some extraneous commentary!

In a word: no. When Updike wrote the book, he wanted to break free of his generally misogynistic mold and created women who weren't whorish, stupid or baby killers.

Some argue, yes, that the portrayal of women as witches only reinforces negative stereotypes, but Updike disagreed. "Let us respectfully construe the word 'witch' as 'free woman," he explained, while also assuring critics that the book was "one attempt to make things right with my, what shall we call them, feminist detractors." Political or no, the book was pure Updike: a dirty, satirical examination of American ways.

While most of the original's sumptuous descriptions couldn't be directly translated to film, at least the 1987 adaptation provided an excuse to bring three lovely actresses — Cher, Michelle Pfeifer and Susan Sarandon — onto one screen. Plus, it's pretty damn good and was wildly popular, which explains why Hollywood types continue to salivate over the story of three magical women and the man they love, Darryl von Horne. Separate pilots were shot in 1992 and 2002. Neither made the cut, obviously. So why would ABC have a go?

It's unlikely they wantto make a feminist statement, nor do the show's previews have much hint of satire — or even brains. And certainly a network show can't be as sexy as the book or the movie, although the writers will definitely try.

No, the network appears to be trying to capitalize on pop culture's supernatural obsession while also attempting a revival of its Desperate Housewives brand of quirky soap. None of that should be surprising considering the remake mania that has swept the nation as of late, not to mention the recent spate of spooky soaps.

But will viewers buy it? Who knows. The reviews haven't been great. Washington Post critic Tom Shales already says he wants it to "disappear," while the Boston Herald says the show has "all the markings of being an early casualty of the season." That's not very promising. This writer loves the show's more recognizable stars, Lindsay Price and Rebecca Romijn, and I hope it doesn't get axed right away, but even on paper this sounds like an unnecessary, doomed mission, so I'm not holding my breath.

It's hard to know what Updike would say about this whole mess, because he's dead, although this quote may provide a hint: "Americans have been conditioned to respect newness, whatever it costs them." That's obviously no longer true.

• Everyone loves Neil Patrick Harris. And how could they not? He came out singing cabaret and danced away with our undying love. Not that he didn't have it before. After this evening's turn as the show's host, we're pretty sure Harris should master the ceremonies of every Hollywood event ever. (By the way, Mediaite has the lyrics from the introductory number. Learn them. Live them. Love them.)
  
  
• Kristin Chenoweth will soon be the hardest working woman in Hollywood. The adorable actress — once known mostly to the Broadway crowd — stole the nation's heart by crying after winning best supporting actress for Pushing Daisies. The show's been canceled and Chenoweth, bless her, reminded the world that she needs a job: "I'm unemployed now, so I'd like to be on Mad Men. I also like The Office and 24."
  
  
• Tina Fey fans are upset that Toni Collette won the "best comedy actress" award for United States of Tara, which we actually enjoy. Well, Jeff Jarvis is upset, at least: the journalist and internet aficionado twittered, "best comedy actress was a crime." But, whatever, because Fey won for her SNL Sarah Palin impersonation.
  
  
• In other-SNL news, Justin Timberlake took home a trophy for his "Dick in a Box" routine. But that was announced last week, so hopefully you knew that.
  
  
• Sure, Fey didn't win, but that doesn't mean the Academy doesn't still love 30 Rock: the incredibly popular show won "best comedy series" and Alec Baldwin walked away with a "best actor" statuette. That's his second, for the record.
  
  
• Speaking of seconds: Mad Men again won "best drama series" and best writing for a drama series. Does this mean the show will continue to be a popular culture darling? Not if you ask Matthew Greenberg from True Slant — he thinks the consecutive win will alienate those who don't already watch it, because they'll think it's elitist.
  
  
• If Greenberg's right, there could also be a backlash against Glenn Close: the Damages star once again won for "best actress" in a drama series.
  
  
• Comedy Central's no doubt pleased with Jon Stewart and the Daily Show crew: they won "best writing" for a comedy, variety, etc series. And, yes, Stewart commended Neil's hosting abilities. He also made a joke about going backstage to watch football, which was competing on another network and became the butt of many tiresome jokes.
  
  
• LA Times writer Tom O'Neil has crowned Bill Maher the biggest Emmy loser in history because Maher, whose show was nominated in the aforementioned variety category, has lost 22 times over the course of his career.
  
  
• Remember how we said Harris should host everything? He may have some competition from Hugh Jackman, who won for original music for his Oscar dance routine.
  
  
• Hey, did you know Sarah McLachlan's still around? And she's still singing "I Will Remember You." While, yes, we should take a moment to recognize the departed — Bea Arthur! — certainly there's a less maudlin, predictable soundtrack.
  
  
• And on that note, here's a list of the winners.

For those of you familiar with the Real Housewives of Atlanta series — and you should be — NeNe Leakes and Zolciak are enemies. Not total rivals, but they're definitely not friends. Anyway, their relationship has only been strained by "Tardy," a song quite popular with RuPaul's posse and the gays, as exhibited by this iTunes "also bought" tally:

Now, as the song spreads like an aural herpe, NeNe has spoken out to claim the track for her own.

"Tardy For The Party" was my song. Now she's doing "Tardy For The Party," and I'm not on it. I don't care if I'm not on it.

Um, she clearly does. Or should. Those of you who watch the show, mouths gaped in horror, know that the song started as a collaboration between the women, but then Kim recorded her own dance version. Later, after falling down at a party and taking advantage of the spotlight, Kim the cancer-faker played the hijacked track and took the credit. That's shitty.

So we implore all cross-dressers, kitsch lovers and other Kim "fans:" transfer that love to NeNe. She's not afraid to speak the truth in the face of the truck stop nightmare called Kim. Anderson Cooper, will you lead the way?

The Hollywood Reporter passes on word that Huffington has joined forces with How I Met Your Mother executive producer Greg Malins to concoct a new ABC series about three newbie Congressional members trying to make their way in our nation's capital:

The 20th Century Fox TV-produced project centers on the friendship of three freshman members of Congress — two men and a woman — who live together in D.C.

"One is swept up in the movement of change and goes to D.C. to make a difference; one has been in politics for a long time; and one is a master of the media and sound bites," Malins said.

The project will draw inspiration from real-life Washington figures.

Apparently Malins and company think DC is the hottest ticket in Hollywood. You know, because Barack Obama has made the District cool again. But has it really?

A number of DC-based shows tried — and failed — to make it to the small screen this season, yet television big-wigs axed the ideas. And, honestly, we can't blame them. Our nation has become hyper-politicized and the very thought of a fictionalized account of our collective national struggle seems, at best, a lame attempt at zeitgeist-related desperation.

Broadcasting & Cable brings the joyous news: Our long national nightmare may be drawing to a close. If only we can re-open this investigation.

"The evidence in this case strongly suggests that CBS had access to video delay technology at the time of the 2004 Super Bowl," the commission said Tuesday in a brief to the Third Circuit Appeals Court in the Janet Jackson Super Bowl Reveal case. The FCC asked the court to remand the decision back to the FCC so it could investigate further its assertion that the violation was "willful."

If a TV network can fudge answers to a governmental body about the availability of time delay technology in a Super Bowl halftime show and get away with it after just a five year investigation, are we really a nation, at all?

In their decision to cancel an hour of primetime with another talk show, NBC has taken a wrecking ball to one of the last pillars of old media. From Network Presidents in the iron towers, to alternative comedians at open mikes in coffee houses - everyone, everyone wants Jay Leno to fail. And around the web, the press has welcomed Leno's bow tonight with all the warmth and ceremony of the nightshift at Abu Ghraib. In a media accustomed to writing glowing portraits every time a new temp comes to work with Ugly Betty, Jay is being met with stone faces all around the picnic.

For a man who made his way as the safest, middle-of-the-roadiest of entertainers since Bob Hope's late period, to suddenly find himself a public outlaw, must be a strange fate. Although the NY Times paints a picture of a man who despite a more or less meteoric rise to replacing Johnny Carson the last true king of media, has nonetheless been treated like dirt all his life, including being advised by a high school guidance counselor to consider dropping out.

The fight against Leno, for network TV partisans, has the look of a desperate final attempt at a breakout - a Battle of the Bulge - one last chance to show your might in a war whose fate has already been decided; a fight that even if they win it, still leaves the networks mortally wounded and with fewer and fewer roads to safety, or as the LA Times' Scott Collins gently put it, if Jay fails they are then let, "to flail about in search of a viable new business model."

Among the foes Leno faces when he takes to the airwaves at ten o'clock tonight:

• TV producers, writers, actors, grips, agents - everyone who takes a piece of the bloated production budgets a primetime drama throws off.
• Affiliate stations. NBC claims its okay with lower ratings than they might get from a drama because the cost of producing Leno will be so much cheaper. But that potentially leaves affiliates holding the bag as the ten o'clock hour provides the lead-in for their wholly owned local news shows.
• Every other late night host, who will have to compete for guests against a show in a far more desirable slot.
• Network executives, who make their careers on their show-picking prowess, script notes and the general meddling that the extended dramatic TV production process leaves room for, have much less to fiddle with on a talk show.
• Cool people, for whom Leno has always represented old, stody and predicable versus the edgier Conan, Kimmel or all time cool people's icon David Letterman.

In fact, the only people who stand to gain from Leno's bow are TV audiences.

You could say that if all you did was eliminate an hour of primetime network dramas and replace them with nothing, that would alone be a net gain.

If one looks at the big three's 10 pm schedules for the fall, at the alternatives to Leno, suddenly nightly installments of Jaywalking and Jay reads the wacky headlines doesn't look all that awful.

Here is the complete list of the new shows airing against Leno:
• Castle, about a mystery writer who finds a serial killer is re-enacting murders from his books (wasn't that the plot of Basic Instinct).
• The Forgotten: Another Jerry Bruckheimer cop show, this one starring Christian Slater as a man whose daughter has been abducted who hunts for other people's abducted children.
• The Good Wife: A lawyer must go back to work and returns to the courtroom after her politician husband is imprisoned.
• Eastwick: A perennially super idea: adapt The Witches of Eastwick..
• Private Practice: A Gray's Anatomy Spin-off.

When you think about it, what was the last time the networks launched a decent drama? Or even a hit one that wasn't a CSI or a NCIS? It's been a while since Desperate Housewivess and Lost came around. Fox and CW still manages to churn out some surprises like Glee and 90210. But in general, the big threes process simply exists to screw up shows that might have been gripping intense dramas had they appeared on HBO, AMC or FX.

Without Leno, that list above might have been two or three shows longer. And so for that alone, America owes him thanks. As Leno himself put it, if his show doesn't work, NBC will just have to "go back to Lipstick Jungle."

A reader tipped us off to this recently posted YouTube video of a vintage Oprah episode in which a woman describes how her Jewish parents forced her to sacrifice babies "for power." We're not entirely sure what that means, but, watching this, we're absolutely astounded by Oprah's miraculous media ascent. One day she's salivating over Jewish cults and the next she's television's queen bee.

Somewhere, sad and alone, Gerlado's screaming, "It should have been me!"

(As for the video's title, "Re: The shocking video Muslims don't want you to see!!," your guess is as good as ours....)

In an historic breakthrough bringing us one step closer to the moment when all media folds in on itself and swallows the universe, Fox TV has announced plans to develop the website, "Texts From Last Night" into a TV series.

The website invites people to share "the text messages you shouldn't have sent last night," streaming classics of modern literature such as, "Do you remember peeing on the wall and then yelling at us to stop looking at your dick?" — which will no doubt form the basis of the pilot episode's B-plot.

The Variety story reveals the writer, "will loosely base the show's characters and plot on the whole idea of racy — and sometimes embarrassing — communication, particularly among the twentysomething set."

So, yes, Showtime and Ilene Chaiken, creator of the lesbian soap The L Word, have again teamed up to pipe even more lesbian drama into America's homes. They're being mum on the details, so we're offering some of our own:

• Considering that Chaiken will be a part of the show, there's no doubt in our mind that some lesbian power couple will be included. Ellen and Portia are way above such antics, but we would settle for Jamie Babbit and Andrea Sperling, who brought us But I'm a Cheerleader and, yes, worked on a few episodes of The L Word. Plus, the couple has two children, so we can all get a "two mommies" moment.

  
  

• While we're on the subject of Hollywood's lesbian machine, how about inviting Top Gun actress Kelly McGillis to appear? She just came out and that always brings drama.

  
  

• It would be good for Chaiken to include a young dykette. Sure, she may not fit the "housewives" criteria, but you know how the lesbians love to take a youngin' under their wing and help them fly. Maybe McGillis can be the teacher.

  
  

• Now, we know this isn't likely, but we'll bring it up anyway: The L Word was great both for its over-the-top drama and its unabashed lesbian sex. We're sure there won't be any sexxx scenes on this new show. Titties, however, are definitely encouraged. Maybe a lesbian stripper trying to make it as a singer? We would also settle for a lesbian stand-up comic. Who shows her titties.

  
  

• We also envision a butch dyke worker who has a hot-ass wife who spends her days on Rodeo Drive shopping and getting her nails just right. Also, a woman with a really girly profession, like secretary or teacher.

  
  

• Please, please don't have anything centering around the gay and lesbian community center. Yes, we're glad they exist and all, but they're a total drag. And the lighting's always so hetero.

  
  

• No fat chicks. (Ha! We kid, of course. Don't hurt us!)