News flash to my generation: A certain former music channel is cutting the cord:

“We’re pushing Generation X out,” [MTV Networks President Van] Toffler said. “We’re slaves to our different audiences, for MTV that’s millennials, who are vastly different than Generation X; they’re definitely less cynical — they’re more civic minded.”

News flash to Toffler: For the most part, Gen-X pushed MTV out the door years ago. Probably around the time that the “M” stopped standing for “music” (apparently, it now stands for “millennials”), and proto-reality show sludge like “The Real World” started dominating the channel’s airtime. As much as the channel was defined in its formative years by Gen-Xers — and vice-versa — times have changed for both. It’s not like anyone expected a televised shrine to youth to gracefully grow old with its founding audience.

In fact, one wonders why the official disconnect comes at this late date:

Regardless of whether the network’s programming matches its ideals, Toffler’s way of thinking is good business. There are roughly 78 million millennials. Generation X only has around 46 million members. If you couple that fact with the generalization that Gen-Xers are both less consumer-minded than their peers and much harder to fool, then it becomes downright surprising that MTV waited this long to shift their focus to greener pastures.

I suppose there are compensations. Middle-aged Xers can shift to VH1, where they can catch… well, the same reality TV crap as on the MTV mothership. Here’s to staying young forever!

From here, any building buzz for tonight’s Oscars ceremony has been pretty well displaced by the Cablevision-Disney blackout of the broadcast in the tri-state area.

But, all told, disgruntled Cablevision subscribers shouldn’t feel that bad. Because in an indirect way, the loss of some 3.1 million viewers dovetails with the overall lessening of impact that an Academy Award nomination has had on the box office this year:

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doubled the number of [Best Picture] nominees this year in hopes of drawing more attention to more movies. But the revenue bump for this year’s crop is less than the one enjoyed by last year’s five best-picture hopefuls.

And of that $135 million, all but about $24 million went to the one film in least need of an Oscar bump: the record-smashing “Avatar.” The figures were generated between the nominations Feb. 2 and the last weekend before Sunday’s awards.

Last year’s best picture nominees pulled in $146 million over a comparable period, and most of that went to a film Oscar helped turn into a sensation: “Slumdog Millionaire.” Three of the five 2009 nominees at least doubled their take in that period, something no film in this year’s batch even came close to doing.

So this year, fewer people are watching the Oscars, or the theatrical releases that are up for Oscars. Nice symmetry.

I’m sure the industry reaction will be to amp up the number of nominations, rationalizing that this year’s Best Picture expansion failed because it just didn’t go far enough. How does twenty potential Best Pictures crowding the box office sound? Not that the box office is the true target:

And a nomination lasts forever, whether a movie is in theaters or being offered on Netflix, so the full story of the benefits of the expanded category hasn’t been told yet. Studios make billions of dollars on DVD and Blu-ray disc sales, not to mention what they collect from pay TV outlets at home and abroad.

At the end of the day, it’s just a marketing label. The pomp, circumstance, and statuette are entirely incidental.

Much ado over “the most-watched hockey game in 30 years”, with an estimated 27.6 million Americans watching the U.S.-Canada gold medal game. The context:

To put the numbers in perspective, Sunday’s game drew a higher overnight rating than every World Series game since 2004 (including every game of Yankees/Phillies last year), every NBA Finals telecast since 1998, and every NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four game since at least ‘98.

Excluding the NFL, the 17.6 overnight for the game is the second-highest of the year for any sporting event, behind only the Texas/Alabama BCS National Championship Game in January (18.2).

That kind of televised turnout sparks discussion on how, or if, it’ll transfer over to the National Hockey League.

The short answer: It won’t.

Certainly, hockey proved itself worthy of the showcase-event placement it garnered as the closing act of the Games (especially impressive considering that standard Olympics presentations tend to emphasize individual athletic personalities). And certainly, the fervor created by Vancouver will net the NHL a few extra followers for the stretch run of the 2009-10 season. But let’s face it: People tuned in because this was a once-every-four-years happening, and the grand finale happened to feature a storybook North American rivalry. The echoes of 1980 (strained as they were) helped build the momentum for the U.S., as well (the Canadians, of course, didn’t need any such priming of the pump).

But, for all the enthusiasm that was generated, I don’t see it carrying past the extinguished Olympic torches. It was indeed a self-contained moment, part of what made it special. There’s no sense of re-living that experience by catching the next NHL game on Versus or NBC, let alone on a regional sports network.

It is amusing to think how the league could attempt to capitalize on the concept, though. Maybe continue to ride Ryan Miller as Team USA’s golden boy, and make the Buffalo Sabres “America’s team” for the NHL playoffs? They could do worse.

Last week, on the eve of the Winter Games commencement, I was asked on two separate occasions whether or not anyone really, actually watched the Olympics.

Being the sports snob that I am, I scoffed back that no, no one watches the Olympics — other than the 100 million or so who tune in every couple of years. I thought that was an effective comeback, which underlined how a person projects his/her own perceptions and preferences onto the wider popular consciousness. (And we all do that, including me, who unfailingly muses on if anyone cares about things like awards shows or reality TV, despite being fully away of the millions of devoted fans for each.)

As it turns out, my off-the-cuff citation of that 100 million viewership for the five-ring circus was only half the story:

“I’m very confident we’ll do well from a ratings standpoint,” NBC research guru Alan Wurtzel told reporters Thursday. He said he expects 200 million people to watch at least parts of the Vancouver Games over the 17-day telecast. That number would be fewer than the 215 million who tuned in for the Beijing Olympics, but more than the 184 million from the prior winter Olympics in Torino, Italy.

So it’s more like a couple hundred million viewers who “don’t count” when it comes to the Olympics. All depending on your perspective, of course.

In a fairly staid commercial lineup for Super Bowl XLIV, the clear winner for me was this utterly improbable pairing of David Letterman and Jay Leno (with Oprah in the moderating middle):

Maybe even funnier than the ad itself is the lengths taken to keep its inception secret:

The spot was shot last Tuesday afternoon, under the strictest of secrecy which involved both Mr. Leno and Ms. Winfrey flying in surreptitiously to New York, and arriving incognito at the [Ed Sullivan Theater], while Mr. Letterman was in the midst of taping his show for that night. It also involved Jay wearing a disguise: hooded sweatshirt, glasses and faux mustache. If you happened to be on Broadway between 53rd and 54th street last Tuesday about 4:15, you might have seen a man fitting that description slip into the theater by a small entrance under the marquee.

All that for a “Late Show with David Letterman” promo. And it basically topped every other $3-million, 30-second spot of the night. Dave might have been complaining about his “worst Super Bowl party ever”, but it produced the best commercial break during the whole game.

Maybe I’m not the one to criticize Demond Wilson when it comes to promoting “Second Banana”, his memoirs from his “Sanford and Son” years.

But if Wilson actually wanted this book to catch on, I think he should have gone with the far more obvious choice of title: “You Big Dummy!”. Having Redd Foxx’s signature catchphrase from the show front-and-center on the cover would bring the book instant pop-cultural recognition. Plus, the novelty factor alone would have ensured a few extra sold copies.

Alas, this lost opportunity seems like something that Lamont Sanford himself would have flubbed. Eliciting yet another “you big dummy!” from his Pop, Fred G. — perhaps followed by yet another in a series of “big one” heart attacks.

Not to be outshined by the newly “Jersey Shore”-burnished guidos, New Englanders are coalescing into their own obnoxious subculture:

They’re called Massholes. Though there is some disagreement about what, exactly, constitutes a Masshole, there are several characteristics present in all definitions. A Masshole is a resident of Massachusetts — though sometimes Rhode Island, New Hampshire, or Maine — who possesses a nearly carnal love for the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, and Bruins; operates motor vehicles in an aggressive fashion; drinks Sam Adams; and overuses the adjective “wicked.”

Coming soon to a reality show near you, presumably. The days of regionally-confined objectionableness are long behind us, it seems. I only hope that New York, being caught in the resulting geographic nexus, comes out intact.

It’s the end of an era — or the end of an error, depending on your outlook. “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” breathes its last breath tonight, bringing a close to a messy divorce between O’Brien and NBC over the network’s late-night talent shuffle.

The final show is definitely a must-see. I don’t know if we’ll see a Jack Paar-level of kiss-off from Conan, but a sendoff is a sendoff, regardless of the parting shots.

And with Conan out of the way, the battle between Letterman and Leno resumes. I’m curious to see if Leno’s audience is as portable as it’s been to date: Keep in mind that that 5-million viewership for “The Jay Leno Show” matched what he pulled in nightly when he was on “Tonight”. It’s not the same exact crowd watching him at 10:00 as at 11:30, but the bulk of it probably is. Does that mean Leno slides right back into the lead versus Letterman and CBS? Or has this episode damaged Leno’s appeal, as many critics speculate?

I’d bet that Leno will be back on top in short order. Ultimately, the audience doesn’t care about the off-camera machinations. Plus, Letterman’s been reluctant to make any necessary changes to his show, regardless of the competition — he won versus Conan through little action of his own. A sort of sick entropy will take hold over late-night, once again…

Well, that didn’t take long. Less than a week after NBC announced its salvage plans to move Jay Leno back to 11:35, Conan O’Brien announced that he’s extracting himself from the network’s resultant late-night traffic jam:

Mr. O’Brien’s statement Tuesday said that he so respected the institution of “The Tonight Show” that he could not participate in what “I honestly believe is its destruction.”…

The statement also took NBC to task for not giving the show more time or supplying stronger lead-in audiences, which could be interpreted as a shot at Mr. Leno’s poor performance at 10 p.m. (Though Mr. O’Brien mentioned Johnny Carson, David Letterman and Jimmy Fallon in his statement, he never referred to Mr. Leno by name, only by the title of his show.)

“After only seven months,” Mr. O’Brien wrote, “with my ‘Tonight Show’ in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime time by making a change in their long-established late-night schedule.”

So NBC basically gets its wish: Leno back as “Tonight Show” host for the full hour, followed by Jimmy Fallon and Carson Daly (like either of those two matter). Conan will eventually get a new show with FOX. Letterman will have on-air gloating material for months to come. And Leno gets back to his old digs, which is what he wanted all along (so color him complicit in pushing out Conan).

I personally like Conan’s comedic sensibilities, but I’ll point out that none of this would have happened had he not tanked in the ratings versus Letterman. Even during the last couple of years of his “Late Night” run, O’Brien really seemed to be drifting in his output. Maybe this shock to the system will rejuvinate him, in whatever direction he chooses to go.

As for NBC: This would be their second failure at handling a talent overload in their late-night roster, going back to the Leno-Letterman battle to succeed Johnny Carson. In the future — assuming there is one for them — they should just bite the bullet and let the also-ran jump ship early, and avoid the longer-term headaches.

No one else I’ve tried this on tonight thinks this is funny. Regardless, I’m pressing on:

In consideration of NBC broadcasting this year’s Winter Olympics, I think the network should rebrand one of its hallmark shows, “The Biggest Loser”, thusly:

“The Biggest Luger”. As in luge, the winter sport.

I’m thinking it would involve a big fat guy getting greased up to slide around a treacherous track. Artificial or natural track, either way. Riders optional. Hey, I’d watch it. I’d watch it instead of either an actual luge event, or an episode of “The Biggest Loser”.

Like I said, no one else sees the humor in this. But what do they know? I say it’s funny. Even Larry Sanders-quality comedy.

UPDATE, THURSDAY JAN. 14, 2010 - In fact, this joke is Conan O’Brien-quality, as he used it on “The Tonight Show” last night. “Obese people on sleds”, indeed.

I’ll give Conan a pass on stealing this idea from me. Mainly because a) he probably didn’t steal it, as it’s such an obvious pun; and b) he’s got enough problems lately.

Long-time fans of “The Simpsons” know this Homer-scripted jingle by heart:

Call Mr. Plow
That’s my name
That name again
Is Mr. Plow

Why mess with that simple perfection? Ask Moby, who feels compelled to apply his own spin(s) to that animated ditty:

If that song wound its way into your brain and parked itself there for nearly two decades, you’re not alone. In the documentary “The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special: In 3-D! On Ice!”, which runs on Fox this Sunday, the musician Moby tells the filmmaker Morgan Spurlock he is so obsessed with the song that he created six different remixes of it.

And here’s one of those reworkings, the old-school hip-hop version, with clipped-up video:

The other mixes: Bossa nova, electro, Latin lounge, psychedelic and punk rock. The best I can say about them is that they’re all mercifully short. And while Moby is entitled to play around all he wants, I think he should find a different target for his musical obsessions. Maybe do a new, fresh-fly remix of “Do The Bartman”!

Looks like NBC’s bold cheap 10PM experiment with “The Jay Leno Show” has crashed and burned, with a scramble-back plan about to take effect:

The network has a plan in the works to restore Jay Leno to his old spot at 11:35 each weeknight for a half-hour, while pushing the man who replaced him, Conan O’Brien, to a starting time of 12:05 a.m. Mr. O’Brien would then have a full hour…

The moves are being driven by pressure from NBC’s affiliated stations, which have seen ratings for their late-night local newscasts plummet since September. That was when NBC began “The Jay Leno Show,” a prime-time version of Mr. Leno’s old late-night show. Mr. O’Brien succeeded Mr. Leno as host of “The Tonight Show” in June.

Though Mr. Leno’s prime-time show has not fallen below the ratings guarantees that NBC gave to advertisers, it has averaged only about five million viewers a night. The NBC station managers have blamed consistently low lead-in audiences for much of the falloff in their news ratings — and local stations rely on news programs for the majority of their revenue. The affiliates are due to meet with NBC on Jan. 21.

Good luck keeping that configuration in place. Chances are good that Leno will instantly start lobbying for a full hour, which will entice O’Brien to ultimately jump ship to a competing offer from FOX. Unless NBC discovers a power to add an extra hour to the clock, there’s simply not enough room to accommodate both personalities.

As for the notion of transforming 10PM into the new gateway for late-night, that was doomed from the start during this era of the DVR:

The upshot of this is that, of course, the 10PM slot and most/all of Friday primetime is a challenge for original network programming. It makes you wonder why NBC is so big on “The Jay Leno Show” to occupy five days’ worth of late-primetime slots. Could they not have seen this viewer-habits trending forming a year ago? Or did they see it, and still gambled on the combination of Leno’s appeal and lower production costs carrying the day?

Obviously, the gamble crapped out. The fallout will follow.

It’s a little sad that, with a new active front opening in the War on Terror, the only thing most Americans know about Yemen is that Chandler Bing once fled there to avoid breaking up with a girl.

Leading to… “Friends” as a proto-al Qaeda sleeper cell? It’s not like those Central-Perky twits had anything else to occupy their fictional lives with. Discuss. Or, better yet, don’t.

Along with catching a corker of a Winter Classic today — a thriller in which the Bruins rallied with two sweet tic-tac-toe passes to beat Philadelphia 2-1 in OT at Fenway Park — I noticed a distinct improvement in the quality of the game’s televised commercials this year. Instead of endless replays of generic national ads, sponsors like GEICO and Verizon Wireless created customized hockey-themed spots that actually looked good. A couple of those spots even feature star players like Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin, thus highlighting the league’s most marketable assets.

Why the sudden boost in dedicated advertising for a hockey game? Because, improbably enough, the WC really has become the NHL’s showcase event:

In the past three years, the league’s corporate advertising revenue has jumped 66 percent and the Winter Classic is at the heart of that leap. Sports Business Daily recently reported that sports business executives ranked the Winter Classic fifth among major sporting events they were looking forward to in 2010, ahead of sporting staples like the BCS National Championship, the World Series, the Masters and the Daytona 500. The survey was taken in December and included reports from more than 1,100 senior-level sports professionals.

That’s the money people talking, which explains why extra marketing dollars went into today’s TV ads. Doubtless they’ve noticed the rising viewership:

The Classic has become a surprise TV hit, occupying the 1 p.m. Eastern time slot against three college bowl games (the Outback at 11 a.m. and the Gator and the Capital One at 1 p.m.). In 2008, an average of 3.75 million viewers watched on NBC, which was exceeded last New Year’s Day with a 17 percent jump to 4.4 million, the most-viewed regular-season N.H.L. game in 34 years. Nearly 1.3 million more watched it in Canada.

Pucks beating out baseball, college football, and NASCAR? I’m an unabashed hockey fan, and even I can’t believe it. A lot of this is due to the novelty of the New Year’s Day game, which is only in its third year; will the mindshare still be there ten years from now? Still, the success of the Winter Classic rightly stands out as a rare marketing homerun for a league that traditionally can’t promote its way out of a paper bag.

I’ve hardly made a habit of mentioning Festivus around here. But maybe I should. Because more than a decade after the airing of the famed Seinfeld episode that ushered the fake holiday into popular consciousness, Festivus has taken on a real-life life of its own:

The Festivus faithful have gathered across the globe and have come together in places as various as seedy bars, campus squares and corporate boardrooms. Citizens, with varied degrees of success, have petitioned to raise Festivus poles beside public nativity scenes. Social networking sites and holiday-specific venues — like festivusbook.com and festivusweb.com — are go-to places for those who want to share the cheer, or jeers.

For at least eight years, Julianne Donovan, 35, has been hosting Festivus parties in the Kansas City, Missouri, area. The graphic designer and illustrator said she was drawn to the holiday when her then-company department, which included people of various faiths, decided to trade in the traditional Christmas party for something more inclusive.

“It went over well except for one person who thought it was blasphemous and tried to knock over our Festivus pole,” she said. “He refused to come to the potluck, was forced to, came, ate all the food and left without saying thank you. Grievances were aired about him.”

Chances are good that Ms. Donovan was employed at either Vandelay Industries or Kramerica. Because if any companies out there are going to observe Festivus, those would be the locks.

Frank Costanza would be proud of the spread of his brainchild. He even would have challenged that recalcitrant employee to the Feats of Strength, just to instill the true Festivus-for-the-rest-of-us spirit into the non-believer.

Matisyahu is getting a lot of mileage out of this customized dreidel-shaped disco ball. I stayed up late enough last night to catch this funky ornament shining brightly on “Late Show with David Letterman”, during the singer’s performance. I guess the dance club installations of this signature prop have been a success, and it’s now a built-in part of his stage show.

Alas, no accompanying rendition of the Dreidel Song. I’m still waiting for Matisyahu to put his own unique spin (yes, pun!) on that old traditional number.

The marketing war-of-words between AT&T and Verizon Wireless has been notably high-profile, thanks to the litigious route it took. More recently, I’ve noticed the beginnings of another aggressively-competitive campaign between big brands:

A case in point is a company that has been the object of a competitor’s recent less-than “on-brand” marketing behavior. For several years, Lexus has used an iconic big red bow to help promote its “December to Remember” campaign, created to make it easier for those with the means to surprise a loved one with the perfect gift, purchased at a merrily lower than usual price…

Feeling the intense pressure wrought by the economy, BMW, the competitor of note, is taking some sardonic swipes at its automotive colleague through an advertising campaign not quite in keeping with its cool and cordial brand character. Long known and recognized as a car brand of good breeding and exceptional engineering, BMW, from my point of view, is allowing the economic pinch to get the better of its good manners. While many consumers may find the Lexus big red bow annoying given the size of the average wallet, my belief is that BMW’s holiday campaign tactics are uncharacteristically below the belt, even one less tightened.

Additionally, it seems like Target is going “off-brand” from its traditional brand messaging, apparently in response to market-share loss to competitors like Kohl’s and Walmart.

All’s fair in love and retail, and it seems silly to criticize businesses for going after customers with added brio. But these are highly-polished brands that are supposedly operating on a perceptional plateau that obviates the need for bad-mouthing Brand X. That they’re engaging in a race to the bottom hints that the Great Recession has really taken a toll.

From the looks of the previews, “Men of a Certain Age” is a television series demographically-tuned to appeal the 40-to-55-year-old male crowd.

It’s curious, then, to see that TNT is debuting the show tonight at 10 pm — right in the middle of Monday Night Football on ESPN. That’s opposite National Football League action, which is just about the only TV programming that the sitcom’s intended audience is devoted to.

Is TNT intentionally setting up “Men” to fail? Or is it somehow counting on football viewers to stray away from the Ravens-Packers game, reasoning that middle-aged male eyeballs that are already glued to the screen will stumble upon the new show? Have the cable networks abandoned marketing efforts to get people to set “appointment watching” dates with their TV sets, and instead are just banking on those who already happen to be watching (albeit on a different channel)?

I just can’t think of any other reasons for this attempt at counter-programming versus football. If it’s a new strategy for launching targeted programming, I wouldn’t bet on it working. Not even if the MNF game is an early blowout.

It was only three years ago that the number of televisions per average U.S. household surpassed the number of people occupying said household. This year’s update from Nielsen shows that metric still favoring the TVs: 2.86 screens versus 2.5 humans.

And then there’s my godsister Joanne’s house, which I hear hosts eight TV sets. With four people living there — her, her husband Rich, and their two school-aged children — that 2:1 ratio curves well ahead of the national average. From my recollection on my last visit there (probably a year ago, but I doubt much has changed), at least a couple of those sets were primarily gaming/Web monitors, but with hooked up with at least bare-bones cable service.

I don’t think this count of screens under one modest-sized roof is too far out of the norm. I think having a set in places like the bathroom is overdoing it, especially when you can get the same always-on experience with your ever-present smartphone and other devices. Still, this preponderance of multiple boob-tubes shows that the medium is still alive and well, and fairly far-off from any Web-delivered demise.

That number 8 is causing a bit of scandal/chatter among our parents, who are of a disconnected generation that still considers the TV set to be a singular, central furniture-like item in a dwelling, with maybe a tiny supplemental set in the bedroom. I could try to diagram the new-media landscape for that bunch and explain why so many screens aren’t such a big deal. But I find the luddite-like outrage to be comical when viewed from a distance. Besides, it’ll burn itself out before long.

A big selling point for pitching digital video recorders is the time-shifting option they offer for watching more TV shows. The thing is, that viewing time ultimately has to be shifted somewhere, and that “somewhere” increasingly ends up being at the end of the day/week:

With one-third of American TV households now equipped with DVRs like TiVo, the 10 p.m. hour is emerging as a popular time for people to catch up on what they missed earlier in the evening, or earlier in the week.

Here’s some math: NBC has lost an average of 1.8 household ratings points at the 10 p.m. hour compared to fall 2008, according to the Nielsen Co. At the same time, DVR usage — which is also measured by Nielsen — is up by 1.4 points in that hour.

“The DVR phenomenon is a little bit higher than we thought,” said David Poltrack, CBS’ chief research executive.

For example, many people watch CBS’ “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” Thursdays at 9, tape ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” at the same time, then watch the medical soap an hour later, he said. They may tape “The Mentalist” (Thursday at 10) for later viewing. One casualty of growing DVR usage is that Friday nights, home of “Medium” and “Ugly Betty,” are becoming a TV wasteland because so many people are catching up on programs they missed during the week.

Anecdotally, I’ll buy this breakdown. From what I observe from my modest Twitter following group of 500 and change, I notice recurring tweets during late night and the weekend from people obviously filling up on a week’s worth of DVR recordings.

I’m not on this television catch-up ride, because not only don’t I have a DVR, but I also watch nothing in the way of original series programming. My main onscreen consumption is sports, and while I could record the week’s hockey and football for more convenient viewing, I’m old-fashioned enough to shortchanged if I’m not watching a game live. Plus, any backlog of recordings smacks of a sort of homework assignment to me, so I’d rather pass up the original broadcast window rather than be compelled to watch something in my spare time.

But I’m fascinated by the trending on display. This was what was supposed to happen when the VCR hit the market 25 years ago. The difference this time around is as simple as the hardware: No fumbling with tape cassettes (sidenote: I’m amused by the AP reporter above still referring to DVR recordings as “taping”). DVRs have automated the process more-or-less completely, so that casual users only ever have to work the remote control.

The upshot of this is that, of course, the 10PM slot and most/all of Friday primetime is a challenge for original network programming. It makes you wonder why NBC is so big on “The Jay Leno Show” to occupy five days’ worth of late-primetime slots. Could they not have seen this viewer-habits trending forming a year ago? Or did they see it, and still gambled on the combination of Leno’s appeal and lower production costs carrying the day? Either way, at this rate, the Peacock Network might as well consolidate the losses by making Fridays “Jay Leno Day”: Run marathon five-hour episodes of the show from 6-11PM. Since everyone is playbacking their DVRs at that time anyway, nobody will notice the resultant sucking sound of that broadcasting black hole…

Live (make that “posthumously”), from Baghdad (make that “Europe”, or more likely “location undetermined”), it’s the Saddam Channel, satellite-beaming into Iraq:

The Saddam Channel debuted on Friday, the first day of this year’s Eid for Sunnis. The holiday started Saturday for Shiites. The station’s official name alternates between “Al-Lafeta” (“the banner”) and “Al-Arabi” (“the Arab”).

It is mostly a montage of flattering, still images of Saddam – some of him dressed in military uniform, others in a suit, even one astride a white horse. One image shows his sons Odai and Qusai smiling with their father, and another their bodies after they and Saddam’s grandson, Mustafa, were killed in a July 2003 gunfight with U.S. troops…

All the pictures are set against audio recordings of Saddam making speeches and reciting poetry. Patriotic songs urge listeners to “liberate our country.” None of the pictures appear to be recent, and no announcers or commentators appear or speak.

The motive appears to be to influence the upcoming national parliamentary elections. If so, it’s hamhanded propaganda on the cheap. I’m guessing the all-Saddam all-the-time audiovisual is intended to conjure up the “good old days” of Hussein’s dictatorship, along with whatever martyrdom he now holds among segment of Iraqi society. But without some original commentary to drive home that concept, the old photos and recordings amount to soft messaging, and less chance at any measurable electoral/political result. For all this lack of production values, the mystery backers might as well have tossed this up online — except, of course, that even a boring TV feed like this still has more reach and impact than an even more anonymous website.

Can’t wait to see what becomes of Saddam TV after the election-time blitz blows over. If it’s anything like the typical American single-purpose cable channel, it’ll soon abandon the one-note format in an attempt at broadening the audience (and attracting more advertisers, natch). Think in terms of MTV no longer playing its signature music videos — along with about a jillion other cable TV examples. So Iraqi tube-watchers can look forward to The Saddam Channel morphing into TSC, with a slate of reality shows, classic made-for-TV movies, and maybe a half-hour of Saddam retrospectives per day…