Poor WISC-TV and WKOW-TV. While it's almost assured that upwards of 90 percent of the people watching television in Madison on Sunday evening at 5:30 PM will be tuned to WMSN-TV to watch the Packers beat the New York Giants to earn a Super Bowl berth, both the local CBS and ABC affiliates plan to go ahead with their normally-scheduled 5:30 PM local newscast.

WMTV, the local NBC affiliate, gets off a little easier, as their regularly-scheduled Sunday early-evening newscast is at 5 PM, not 5:30 PM. But their viewership could be hurt by either a close finish in WISC-TV's broadcast of the AFC Championship game (unlikely), or by Packer fans tuning to the FOX pregame at 5 PM so they can hear how many ways Curt, Howie, Terry, and Jimmy can describe how freakin' cold it is at Lambeau (much more likely).

On rare occasions when TV viewership is scheduled to be dominated by a huge event like the final episode of Seinfeld or Johnny Carson's final night on The Tonight Show, some stations (usually smaller niche cable stations like TV Land or Comedy Central) choose to acknowledge the competing event by more or less going black.

Perhaps WISC or WKOW should employ this technique on Sunday night. Instead of reporters, anchors, producers, photographers, and meteorologists working intensely on stories and reports that almost no one will see, the stations should have some fun. Why not just shoot the on-air team watching the first half-hour of the game? NFL guidelines restrict either WISC or WKOW from broadcasting images or audio of the game live, but the NFL couldn't do anything about a static shot of Andy Choi and Haddie McLean watching and cheering along with the rest of the state. And for those who would argue that such a stunt would be show that WISC or WKOW were neglectful of their responsibilities to report the news, I say: Get real. The Packers, whether you personally care or not, clearly are the news in Wisconsin. I think it would send the message that WISC and WKOW are indeed in touch with what's important to their viewers. Hey, we're fans too. We don't want to miss the biggest Packer game in ten years either.

Unfortunately for WISC and their parent network CBS, the NFC Championship game, which promises to be a huge ratings draw nationwide -- thanks to the presence of America's Team II (Packers), a team from the biggest market in the United States (Giants), and perverse viewer interest in wondering if anyone's limbs will actually fall off due to the cold -- will surely crush the season finale of The Amazing Race, which should have been one of CBS's highest rated shows of the month. Maybe CBS should have held the finale of Amazing Race for a week (heck, they even pulled the venerable 60 Minutes off the schedule), and "gone black" for the night. Here's what feeble programming other networks are trotting out to get killed by the Packers/Giants battle:

NBC will run the snoozer decade-old theatrical movie Runaway Bride, a film for which the term "disposable" was coined. ABC will air an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which is basically an infomercial for companies who pay to have their products utilized in the renovations. The CW is running an encore presentation of something called Crowned: The Mother of All Pageants, which you probably didn't see the first time around as it's consistently one of the lowest-rated shows on television. Even the women's cable network Oxygen seems to understand that football is popular among women and has programmed a lazy marathon of its psycho-women series Snapped, which seems to exist solely to further male-held stereotypes about women (basically that they can't control their emotions) that a network like Oxygen should be trying to snuff out.

Hey, even Retirement Living TV, home of such ratings-grabbers as The Florence Henderson Show and Retired and Wired is going black in honor of the NFC Championship game. What's that? Retirement Living TV always goes off the air by 4 PM? Oh. Still, I believe this helps to prove my point. Somehow.

Several things I'm thinking about this weekend:

Best thing to come out of the Writers' Strike? The cancellation of the Golden Globes Sunday night and possibly more award shows to come as stars refuse to attend ceremonies picketed by striking writers. I've never had a problem with entertainers honoring each other with awards (hey, even fast-food employees get "Employee of the Month" recognition), but have never understood people's fascination with these programs. They are all overbloated, overproduced, overlong snooze fests with no actual entertainment value. Sure, I'm interested to see who wins, but I just go on-line after the show. I don't really need to know what Jennifer Lopez was wearing or how happy her peers have made America Ferrera. The worst award show? ESPN's ESPYs. I have no idea what awards they hand out, nor do I care. Any award program that can't get a better MC than Saturday Night Live can on a bad week (LeBron James? Jimmy Kimmel? Lance Armstrong?) should be immediately eliminated.

I just finished reading Steve Martin's memoir Born Standing Up. It was a really fascinating read that in the end sort of made me depressed. I'm almost too young to have enjoyed Steve Martin's years as a stand-up comedian as they happened, but later in life I devoured his albums, early SNL appearances, and especially a Showtime special that combined a live performance, the hilarious short film The Absent-Minded Waiter, and a very funny bit involving Martin giving advice to Paul Simon and a young David Letterman. (I say "almost too young" because I have a very vivid memory of one night on a family vacation where we were all about to go to sleep but then couldn't because we found out that Martin was guest-hosting The Tonight Show.)

Anyway, I got depressed near the end of the book because I found myself arguing with Martin's written reasons for derailing his stand-up career. Crowds were too big, shows got too redundant because he didn't want to try out new material on people paying to hear "the hits," life on the road got too lonely, yada yada yada. All of the reasons given seemed to have obvious solutions. Don't like playing to huge arenas? Book smaller theatres! Afraid to try out new material? Polish it first by playing lower-profile gigs or publicly announce the retirement of old bits (a la Jerry Seinfeld many years later)! Life on the road too lonely? Well, that I can see, but why not balance movies with a few scattered stand-up shows throughout the year? Wouldn't we all be better off with more recordings on par with Let's Get Small and less movies on par with Bringing Down the House?

In the end, it seemed that Martin enjoyed performing stand-up, but not at the level of "rock star comedian" to which he found himself in the late seventies. And instead of adjusting his career to combat that "problem," he simply quit to focus on movies. Which is too bad because he was hysterical as a stand-up. Perhaps short of reviving his career as a comedian (which would never happen), perhaps Martin will use the popularity of the book to release a DVD of filmed performances, particularly that Showtime special. That would a very welcome release, certainly more so than another Pink Panther movie.

The new Survivor starts soon. "Fans Versus Favorites." By "favorites" the show means some of the more interesting castaways from the last few seasons (only "Jonny Fairplay" did the show prior to the "All Star" edition four years ago). While I'm all for the concept, what about Stephenie and Bobby Jon from "Palau" and "Guatemala"? And I still can't figure out who Eliza was or why she would be considered anyone's "favorite"; fact is, no one from the boring "Vanuatu" season should have been invited back and any footage from that entire season should be cut up and made into Pokemon Trading Cards. But hey, CBS, you've got me. I'll be watching. My money is on Amanda from "China" going the farthest among the returning players. Seems like all of the returning male contestants will be too abrasive to keep around very long.

We have a winner in the high-def DVD format war. It's Sony's Blu-Ray, making up for the company losing the Beta/VHS format war almost thirty years ago. Frankly, I don't know that it matters much, as I believe most people are very happy with how their standards DVDs look and aren't going to double-dip simply for a marginally better-looking picture. And for people like me that purchase mainly TV-on-DVD product, it really won't matter, as Benny Hill and What's Happening! on DVD looks about as good as it's going to.

Well, here we are at the beginning of another year and everybody's putting out their year-end "Best of 2007" lists. While I generally enjoy perusing and arguing over these lists, after a while they all start to look the same. Take most critics' "Best of TV" lists, for example. I've got no problem at all with The Sopranos, 30 Rock, Mad Men, or most other shows that populate these lists. But weren't there some other notable programs on TV in 2007? As sure as I'm sure that Celebrity Apprentice will suck. Here's a few of not necessarily the best TV shows of 2007, but a few shows/moments/people that deserve more attention than they're getting (in no particular order):

1. The Office and My Name Is Earl. 30 Rock has deservedly become a critic's darling, but seemingly at the expense of NBC's other great Thursday night comedies. For my money, NBC's experiment with hour-long episodes of The Office to kick-start the 2007-2008 (now strike-shortened) season paid off with some interesting installments that brought a little more pathos to the show, particularly the great episode that had Michael moonlighting as a telemarketer. Also, My Name Is Earl has successfully stretched itself beyond its original "list" concept to provide some hilarious outings as Earl spends time in prison after taking the rap for his ex-wife. Along with 30 Rock, this is the most entertaining 90 minutes on TV (and hopefully will be again after the writers' strike is settled).



2. Big Brother. OK, here's where my list loses all credibility. But damn if this show doesn't deliver the guiltiest of guilty pleasures year after year. I forget Survivor and Amazing Race contestants the minute they're off the show, but a mere mention of almost any of this year's contestants and I can immediately recite a litany of their bizarre character traits or questionable decisions. Amber's constant crying. Hilarious. Daniele's flirting with Nick. Stomach-churning. Dick's berating of everyone? Uncomfortable but addictive. Jen's t-shirts? The whole "America's Player" thing? I could go on and on. And it's coming back early this year -- February -- thanks to the writers' strike. Two notes of advice for CBS: Run Big Brother year-round and put it on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 7 PM. You can't buy ratings in those time periods anyway. And get rid of Julie Chen. This is the sleaziest of reality shows and should be hosted by someone with a sense of irony and fun about the proceedings. Chen treats every live eviction like it's a presidential press conference.



3. How I Met Your Mother. Maybe it's because the rest of CBS's Monday night comedy line-up sucks wind (save for the soon-to-be-returning New Adventures of Old Christine), but this third-year sitcom never fails to entertain. It may not be as sharp or edgy as the best of NBC's sitcoms (see above), but the cast -- especially Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Segel -- is one of the TV's best. This is the sort of funny, relatable, likable show that should play well in syndication for years.



4. TMZ. What can I say? Do I approve of mercilessly hassling celebrities around the clock? No, but it makes for addictive television. The juxtaposition of the seriousness of Harvey Levin's Sgt.-like routine ("OK, what do we got?") and the goofiness of his staff's contributions ("Uh, we've got Zach Braff going to the store.") never fails to amuse. I don't know if this show has a long-term future, but I'm enjoying it now.



5. Kate and Pat on The Amazing Race. The current edition of The Amazing Race has been just so-so, and the married lesbian Episcopal ministers Kate and Pat (not to be confused with the best friends Kate & Allie, who inhabited CBS for years) have been out of it for weeks, being just the second team eliminated. So why are they on this list? Because Kate provided us with the year's best reality TV quote: "We are religious people, but we have no illusions whether God cares if we win The Amazing Race." After having to suffer a quasi-religious buffoon in what seems like every reality show who seems to think that God has nothing else to do but personally guide him or her to victory, this shot of rational intelligence made me drop to my knees and shout "Hallelujah!"



6. 24. I put this on my list only to combat its appearance on so many "worst of 2007" lists. Did season six of 24 pale in comparison to the previous two seasons? Sure. But if you were to go back and watch all of the seasons on DVD, I think season six would compare OK to seasons two or three when the show still had Elisha Cuthbert's robotic performance as Kim Bauer to drag it down. And the deaths of Curtis and President Logan were still pretty shocking. With season 7 in strike limbo, check it out again on DVD. Or better yet, watch the DVDs of seasons four or five instead.



7. The View. While most critics celebrated The View in 2006, it was in 2007 when the proverbial crap hit the fan, as Rosie O'Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck had their infamous split-screen argument that led to O'Donnell leaving the show. Now with Whoopi Goldberg and the bland (and apparently none-too-bright) Sheri Shepherd in tow, the show is far less interesting and promises to be even worse when Hasselbeck returns soon from maternity leave. But for the first half of 2007, The View was exciting, even daring, television, as you never knew when a fight was about to erupt.



8. The Soup. It's easy to take Joel McHale's snark-fest for granted, but it's consistently hilarious. A special thank you to The Soup staff for turning me on to the disaster that is Gina D.'s Kids Club.



9. Rock of Love with Bret Michaels. What can you say about a show that cobbles together twenty scummy whores who apparently have no greater ambition in life than to sleep with the aging lead singer of a heavily ridiculed and completely forgotten 80's hair band? That's right: Thank you VH1, for giving us one of the greatest television experiences ever. I'll be telling my grandchildren about this, particularly the episode in which the "girls" compete to see who can add the best simulated sex sounds to some awful Bret Michaels solo song. Glorious.



10. Air Supply's Time-Life infomercial. God bless Russell Hitchcock and Graham Russell. This 30-minute ode to the most sugary, cloying songs of recent memory hosted by two of the men most responsible for people attacking their AM radios with machetes is a program that only Beelzebub himself could have produced. If only it wasn't all so damn catchy, especially those Ambrosia and Gino Vanelli songs. Where can I order this? Can I get rush delivery on that?