Finally, someone's talking sense

And oddly, that someone is Jay Leno.

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/features/article3638037.ece

I'm a little unclear on cross-Atlantic translations, but I'm pretty sure Jay would never say "programmes."

KRDO names new news director

KRDO/Channel 13 hired Michael Sipes to be its new news director. Sipes replaces Dave Rose, who resigned earlier this month.

Sipes comes from the ABC affiliate in Kansas City. He's also been the ND in Louisville, Ky., and Jackson, Miss.

He'll start on Monday.

New Nielsens

The results are in from the February sweeps ratings.

Kinda interesting to see the local impact of the TV writers strike: Fox was up, NBC flat to down a hair, ABC down some and CBS took the biggest hit.

On the news side, KOAA won everywhere but noon (it was just behind KKTV there) and put up what GM Dave Whitaker called its best numbers ever at 5 p.m. Despite that, KRDO continued to improve at 5 p.m., too.

KXRM's morning news continued to gain against the network morning shows. KRDO nearly tied KKTV at 10 and did win in 25-54.

The longer version of this should be in Saturday's paper.

Britney's on Mother

It's so weird that Britney Spears' guest starring turn on "How I Met Your Mother" last night completely overshadowed the rest of the show. There was nothing exactly wrong with her performance, other than they gave her more lines and a bigger role than the character she played really deserved. She was a little manic, trying a little hard, a little mechanical, but not out and out terrible.

The real problem, though, was that this episode also introduced Sarah Chalke of NBC's "Scrubs" (or possibly ABC's "Scrubs" next season, it's TBD). And Chalke is so much more natural at this comedy stuff that she tremendously overshadowed the guest star who was overshadowing her. Originally, Alicia Silverstone was going to join the cast (although it's unclear whether she would have played the same role), but bowed out after the Spears stunt.

Finally, let's be honest. Sarah Chalke is like 100 times hotter than Britney Spears. Especially in this episode, in which they certainly didn't go out of their way to make Britney look good. I mean, she's so much hotter, there's really no question why Ted doesn't notice the receptionist. The real question is, why is Spears still getting so much attention? I mean, aside from paparazzi being too lazy to drum up a new trainwreck to chase.

The good news in all of this is that it dramatically increases the likelihood of "How I Met Your Mother" getting renewed for another season (it's still on the bubble). The bad news is that it dramatically increases the likelihood of "Mother" resorting to stunt casting to draw ratings, a la the latter days of "Will & Grace." Days that we'd all rather forget.

Changes at Salem radio

Salem Broadcasting, which owns Christian contemporary station KBIQ (102.7 FM) and Christian talk station KGFT (100.7 FM) and operates news-talk station KZNT (1460 AM), shook up its staff last week.

General manager Henry Tippie, news director Joe Myers and news reporter Molly Schmitt left the company. Roger Harris is the new general manager for the radio cluster.

Tippie is a former general manager for country station KKCS and adult contemporary station KKLI. Myers and Schmitt both previously reported for news-talk station KVOR (740 AM).

Miss Guided

I never got a screener for the new ABC sitcom, so I watched it last night with the hoi polloi. Watched it, I might add, with high anticipation, given the comparisons it's received to "Arrested Development" and "Wonderfalls" and other terrific shows.

And so I watched and the disappointment grew. It wasn't funny. It wasn't interesting. Judy Greer wasn't particularly likable, or even unlikable in a funny way. The pilot just sat there, somewhat sadly. As did I.

As did I.

CBS comedies return

Yay, scripted primetime TV is back. "The Big Bang Theory," "How I Met Your Mother" and "Two and a Half Men" are all new tonight. And that, by the way, is the new order: "Bang," "Mother," "Men."

"Mother" hasn't been renewed for a new season, so you may want to enjoy it while you can.

Rockies on News First Now

KOAA/Channels 5&30 announced today that its cable outlet, News First Now (Comcast Channel 9) would carry 23 Rockies games this season (KOAA itself will carry one game, Sept. 6 at Houston).

This seems like a pretty smart move for KOAA. They started NFN as "Weather First Now" back in 2004, just using the rotating blocks of weather and traffic information, then added the 4 and 9 newscasts last year with Laura Rojas and Mike Madson.

Having the Rockies as a hook should bring more people to the other stuff on the channel and, I would think, would particularly help the newscasts.

Still, I'm a little bemused: The Rockies just went to the frickin' World Series, shouldn't this season's games be a pretty hot ticket? I'm not saying anyone would pre-empt primetime for a Mets game in the middle of August, but I'd think KOAA would want more of the package up on the mothership instead of basic cable.

KTVD, which is sort of a broadcast version of NFN for KUSA, picks up a bunch of games in Denver.

Idol - final 12

Tell me Chikezie didn't blow the doors off the place tonight. If I had a bought a ticket to the show, then heard that, I'd feel my money was well-spent.

Still don't get all the love for Carly - it was fine, fine, but nothing special.

My wife loved David Cook's "Eleanor Rigby," but I thought that was a mistake. He did his thing, but that's a song that should be radioactive on this show. It's just like a bad Matchbox 20 cover of an absolute, gold-standard classic. I'm not going to like any version of that song, because it's never going to even approach the original. I don't think I'm wrong in thinking this way, either.

I'm a fan of Brooke White, and I think "Let It Be" was a good song for her voice, but I think playing at the piano prevented her from emotionally connecting to the song. It just missed the mark a little.

So somebody tell me, was David Hernandez the worst? Or Amanda Overmyer? 'cause I can't decide. At least Amanda had sort of an interesting idea she was shooting for, however badly she missed it.

Oh wait, I forgot Kristy Lee Cook is still on this show. That sounded pretty darn bad. I'm not sure the country thing was the problem, the song just felt really, really, really rushed.

It's silly that the producers gave Archuleta the pimp slot to close the show - he's a shoo-in wherever they put him. I actually liked the arrangement, but I can't ever remember a contestant screwing up that badly this far into the competition.

A truly bad idea from one of my favorite shows

I mean, seriously, it's "Will and Grace" level desperation.

I taped over the game

Some interesting stuff tonight, and one great line from Ben.

Widmore we pretty much suspected, although it's much ado about nothing. Michael we pretty much knew. Or do we?

The fatal attraction stuff was kind of weak, but the final scene with Ben and his sheets made up for it.

Idol eliminations

Wow. Did not see that coming...

Which is to say, I did not see the complete and utter lack of surpises coming.

I mean, I guess it's a teensy bit interesting that Amanda Ovemyer made it through, although less so after the way the judges propped up a pretty average performance last night.

Aside from that, well, there's nothing else to say.

"24" is ticking again

Just got an e-mail asking for an update on "24." Perfect timing, because I just read that Fox is shooting a two-hour "24" movie to air this fall - the full season seven is still set for early 2009, however.

Finke: Good FNL news!

Nikki Finke is reporting that "Friday Night Lights" will return after all. I'm frankly stunned. Happy, but stunned.

Idol women

OK, tell me Brooke White isn't going to the finals. Seacrest said she'd do "Love is a Battlefield" and I'm like, really? But I thought that was an awesome interpretation that really suited both her voice and her presence/look/style. In a way, she's like Archuleta - being really smart about what she's doing and how she's presenting it.

Elsewhere, I thought Irish chick Carly did her best performance of the competition with "I Drove All Night," but it still lacked charisma. What-evah.

Kady again proved my maxim that Freddy Mercury songs are verboten on this show. Ramiele bored me with a Whitney song that she really couldn't pull off. Syesha did slightly better (what was with the judges' two-second grades on her performance?).

I think Amanda will have to climb back on that Harley this week - despite Simon pimping her - and I'd suspect Kady will get the sidecar. If Harleys had sidecars.

National Geographic goes green and makes me sick

Just in time for Earth Day, in today's mail was a big, frickin' overnight package from the National Geographic Channel. Inside the big frickin' package was a compact flourescent lightbulb, lovingly wrapped in about a yard of bubble wrap, plus a cardboard box, and a massive color brochure for NGC's new series "Human Footprint," which attempts to depict the total lifetime consumption of an average American, all in one shot.

To do this, they gathered together 3,796 diapers, 13,056 pints of milk (pints? Seriously? Why not drams or picoliters or something?), 43,371 cans of soda (my personal count would be double that), 12,888 oranges (that seems like a major overestimate) and 5,442 hot dogs.

They also say the average person reads about 5,054 newspapers, which, by my math, is just under 14 years worth of the good ol' daily Gazette. If that's a lifetime of newspaper reading, I really need to go back to school for that horticulture degree.

The whole endeavor has a "destroy the village in order to save it" feel. I mean, what's next, they're going to ship every TV writer in America an elephant to vividly convey the plight of the African rainforest?

Par for the course, though. The phrase "more money than sense" was invented to describe TV studios.

Idol guys

David Cook really knocked it out of the park with that Lionel Richie cover. I actually liked that better than the original, which was kind of grating. I liked Jason Castro again, too, with a nice, subdued take on "Hallelujah."

I still don't get why the judges are pimping Aussie boy. That just sounded terrible to me - of course, I'm square in "The Breakfast Club" demographic, so I'm pretty wedded to the original.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you need me the rest of the year, I'll be in mourning.