This afternoon, while walking down 8th Avenue toward 14th Street, I passed by a too-tall, too-obvious drag queen. S/he locked eye contact with me, and slowly drew out these words:

“You look mahhhhvelous!”

I muttered a quick “thank you”. And with that, we went our separate ways.

I don’t know if this complimenting queen was channeling Billy Crystal or Fernando Lamas, or both. Or more likely, neither. Regardless, this vignette gives me a good enough excuse to showcase one of my favorite vintage “Saturday Night Live” skits, Fernando’s Hideaway:

Despite my newly-enshrined marvelousness, I have never been to a Hollywood party where dildo-like bodybuilding objects were offered as hors d’oeuvres. But I do know one thing: That it is better to look good than to feel good. If you know what I am saying to you.

It’s been the mass medium of choice for the past half-century-plus. So it’s only appropriate that TV is now showing its age, demographically:

The median age for viewers at [CBS, ABC, NBC, and Fox] is now 51. The broadcasters’ audience has aged at twice the rate of the general population during the past two decades, according to a new report. It’s a quiet trend with a real impact on the way they do business.

“It should be a concern, but it doesn’t seem to be a concern at the moment,” said Steve Sternberg, who wrote the report for Baseline Inc., an information source for the film and TV industries that is owned by The New York Times Co. “You don’t want to have CBS, ABC and NBC all having median ages in their mid-50s.”

The risk in having a rapidly aging audience is the networks becoming less relevant to advertisers, the backbone of their business. Increasingly, that’s a way of thinking that itself is getting old…

A young audience has always been the holy grail for networks, but that’s changing, said Alan Wurtzel, research chief at NBC. Not only are more older viewers available, advertisers are starting to recognize that they spend money and are receptive to their messages.

“But that’s changing” has been the supposed trend for the past couple of decades now. When the chips are down, though, advertisers still skew their pitches to the younger end of the spectrum. The fact is, there’s a cachet in tailoring marketing messages to young adults, because it appeals to older demos and their aspirations to identify themselves as “still young” or “not that old”. That’s not going to change — in fact, I’ve argued that it’s a societal trend that’s only going to get more pronounced.

That doesn’t mean that television will be part of that persistent process. The aging of the boob tube audience is a testament to how fragmented the media landscape has become, especially to youngsters who never experienced a world of TV as the primary media outlet. Without that force-of-habit viewership, we are indeed seeing a fundamental shift in media consumption:

Does TV begin a decade-long transformation, similar to what radio went through in the 1950s, with various shows and other programming migrating online, leaving behind… What? Infomercials and pharmaceutical ads on the boob tube, branding it as something that only “old people” watch?

I think that question, which I asked only a little over a year ago, has been answered by these numbers. Welcome to the end of the Television Age.

Seems that Fox Network gave Craig Kilborn a new show, and then neglected to tell anyone about it:

After five weeks of its six-week test, “The Kilborn File” is averaging a 0.9 rating/2 share weighted metered market average, according to Nielsen Media Research, across Fox-owned stations in seven markets. That’s down 53% from the show’s 1.9/4 average lead-in and 47% compared to last summer’s 1.7/4 average in the time slots.

From what I can tell, the show’s already off the air in the New York market. That, and the above numbers, indicate that the gamble that Kilborn’s old audience flocking to this vehicle were ill-founded. Given that he hasn’t been on the tube in six years, it was a foolish assumption to begin with.

And I say that as a Kilborn fan. He had a memorable presence on “SportsCenter”, providing a solid supporting role during ESPN’s “Big Show” era. And hold onto your hats: I actually preferred him as the original host of the original iteration of “The Daily Show”, over Jon Stewart and what that show morphed into.

So I’m a little disappointed that “File” tanked. Maybe there’s an opening in Bristol that Kilborn can revert back to; that might actually prompt me to tune into the World Wide Leader in Sports again.

Not too long after MTV officially disowned its Generation X heritage, the network is now reviving one of its hallmark properties from that bygone era: “Beavis and Butt-head” is joining the 21st Century.

The move to resurrect the hugely popular 1990s animated anti-heroes has been rumored for several days. But yesterday, sources at MTV confirmed that a new batch of “Beavis and Butt-head” episodes are in the works.

The new series would keep Beavis and Butt-head in their perpetual high-school state, but it would be updated so that the pals — who obsessively watch music videos on a battered TV set — could lob their snarky comments at more current targets like Lady Gaga.

Is it too much to hope for the same magic from 20 years ago being re-created? Snark is timeless, and pop music is certainly a treasure trove of target practice. Regardless, a “B and B” reboot will give me a reason to tune into MTV for the first time in several years. Here’s hoping.

Riding a career-revival hot streak that includes a much-hyped “Saturday Night Live” host slot and a starring role in a new sitcom, “Hot in Cleveland”, Betty White is moving on to time-sensitive wall hangings:

It’s true. The 88-year-old actress is posing for her own 2011 calendar. Some of the photos are archival, others are Betty with animals and more than one month features Betty posing with shirtless, beefcake-type men.

Not to be unduly morbid, but let’s face it — White is 88. There’s a reasonable chance that she may not make it through the rest of this year, let alone next. So it’s entirely possible that this calendar could outlast her. If so, this merchandise would become an instant collector’s item, if ghoulishly so. Very much of a tempting-fate air to all this…

More than a year ago, we were expecting future sports-transaction news to be delivered directly from the players, via social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook.

But when you’re LeBron James, and you’re the preeminent free agent of this 2010 National Basketball Association offseason… Well, why settle for a measly Twitter account when ESPN will give you an hour of airtime to announce “The Decision”?

Sources told ESPN The Magazine’s Chris Broussard that representatives for James contacted the network, proposing the idea of a dedicated special. The sources said James’ representatives requested they be allowed to sell sponsorship for the broadcast, and ESPN agreed.

“Due to the unprecedented attention and interest surrounding LeBron’s decision, we have decided to make this announcement on national television,” James’ business manager, Maverick Carter, said on lebronjames.com.

Old media trumps new media once again, when it comes to the monumental events. And indeed, James announced his choice of the Miami Heat tonight, a moment that was blunted only slightly by the leaks earlier that indicated he had decided on south Florida.

Considering how commoditized other aspects of sports business have become, having a marquee player build a television special (really, an advertising vehicle) around his contract signing is a natural. The NFL Draft is a major offseason viewing event, and “free agent frenzy” coverage is a major staple in all major-pro sports media (including college signing days and the like). Since the audience interest continues to grow, we can expect future dedicated event coverage like this, stemming from the players or the teams/leagues. It’s a significant step in that a player like James now commands enough clout to control the message so thoroughly, and on an enviable national-broadcasting stage.

The only thing, regarding James’ @kingjames Twitter handle: Typical of many celebrity accounts, he’s amassed a few hundred thousand followers while following nobody. A deft move, simultaneous with James’ live announcement on ESPN, would have been that zero-following changing to a 1 — with that one being the team he finally chose. Perfect orchestration, and a nod to the online fanbase. Maybe for the next mega-free agent circus, next NBA offseason.

CBS is rebooting classic cop show “Hawaii Five-O” for a Fall 2010 revival. But, according to the network, this latter-day “Five-O” carries an alphanumeric distinction:

Yep, in what the Eye has billed its “shortest press release in history,” the network has informed journos that it’s not the capital letter “O” but instead, the number “0,” in the show title “Hawaii Five-0.”

But yet, that zero is still pronounced “O.” As in “Oh.” As in, “Oh, we’re just effing with you.”

There must be a tongue-in-cheek spirit behind that pronouncement. Because if the Internet Movie Database counts for anything, it clearly lists both old and new series as “Hawaii Five-O”, as in the letter “o”. (Curiously, though, there’s an in-development feature film listed on IMDb that does, indeed, carry the title Hawaii Five-0, as in the number zero. What to make of that?)

In any case, it’d be hard to for CBS to undo decades of ingrained pop-cultural reference. I’m guessing there’s a couple of generations who’ve never seen a trace of the old Jack Lord TV series. Yet “five-o” is common West Coast urban slang for the police, and that distinctive instrumental theme song is instantly recognizable. Especially if you hang out with me, as I’ve been known to use it as my cellphone ringtone.

Back in the ’80s, we always knew that the rivalry between bubblegum-pop queens Debbie Gibson and Tiffany would inevitably culminate thusly:

[Syfy Network] promises an epic battle between the former teen pop idols, who will star in “Mega Python vs. Gatoroid.”

Gibson will play a fanatical animal-rights activist who frees illegally imported exotic snakes from pet stores, sending them into the Everglades, where they grow to mega sizes. Tiffany will play an overzealous park ranger who uses dangerous methods to save endangered alligators.

In the script, the pair brawl at a party, then take matters outside into the swamp.

Interesting demographic-targeting on the part of Syfy, crossing music nostalgia with B-grade schlock. Because we all know that there’s only one way it’ll ever satisfy the geek audience:

Ooh, I think I can write this scene!

TIFFANY: “I think we’re alone now.”
DEBBIE: “Only in my dreams.”
[They make out.]

Look for that alternate outtake on the unrated DVD, sure to hit store shelves several months days minutes after the television premiere.

Since it doesn’t play music videos anymore, MTV is prepping for the next generation of content-filtering talent: An officially-designated, in-house “Twitter jockey”, or TJ.

The recruitment effort, which is officially called “Follow Me: The Search for the First MTV T.J.,” is planning to announce its first 18 candidates this week, culled from viewers with strong Twitter and Facebook presences. Two additional candidates will be chosen through a Web site, tj.mtv.com, where viewers can nominate friends or — more likely — themselves. The candidates will then face off in a series of competitions starting in July, with a winner to be selected in a televised event on Aug. 8…

Stephen Friedman, the general manager of MTV, said in a telephone interview that the T.J. position was created partly because of the huge online spikes that MTV enjoys during broadcast events like, say, a new episode of “Jersey Shore,” or when Kanye West grabs Taylor Swift’s trophy at an awards presentation.

And they’re not skimping on the salary, either: $100K for a year of tweeting. I would nominate myself, except that I’m ridiculously too old for MTV (39 tomorrow!), and I’m probably not tapped into the proper pop-cultural zeitgeist to pull it off. Maybe if VH1 ever needs a “teej”…

I see that upcoming new release Grown Ups features Kevin James in the role of The Fat Guy (not really his character’s name, but it might as well be).

Meanwhile, the rest of this comedy’s main-character ensemble is: Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Rob Schneider. Those four share a common history as former cast-members of “Saturday Night Live” — in fact, they were all on the show at roughly the same time.

That background makes James the odd-man-out. In more ways than one: I can’t look at this movie’s lineup and not think that another “SNL” alum from the same era, the late Chris Farley, would have slotted into this project perfectly. Farley is, in essence, the missing ingredient in this de facto “SNL” reunion.

Not that Farley, had he survived, would have made this flick look any less sucky than it now does. The domestication of former frat-boy comics is predictable enough, but it doesn’t guarantee any laughs. Not even with a substitute fat schlub.

Both the National Hockey League and National Basketball Association are enjoying double-digit percentage-point increases in ratings this month, and there’s an interesting contributing factor:

Ratings for major sports events have been strong this year, including the record set for the most-watched Super Bowl. TV executives think it’s no coincidence the increases coincide with Americans’ rapid adoption of high definition television, which is very popular with sports fans.

An estimated 52 percent of American homes had HDTVs and were actively using them, according to a Nielsen study done in April. That compares with 33 percent a year earlier and 17 percent in 2008, Nielsen said.

A sharper picture yields a more engaged sports-fan audience, I guess. My own experience bears this out: I’d be watching sports anyway, but the HD coverage encourages me to watch more. And in instances where, for instance, there are multiple NHL games being broadcast in my area, I’ll opt for the HD broadcasts over the ones that are in standard-definition.

HD video is available online, so that alone doesn’t insulate television providers from Web competition. But it does reinforce sports programming as a key hook for customer retention.

Much like the much-reused Wilhelm Scream sound effect, movie and television productions seemingly pass around the very same for-show-only newspaper:

Someone on Reddit recently put together a compilation of photos from various television shows, commercials and movies, showing how one newspaper prop gets around and is reused, and reused again. I don’t know the story behind this prop newspaper, but I assume it was created as a royalty free prop for television shows. Somewhere along the line, the prop became a reoccurring gag between propmasters.

See a small sampling for yourself, below. The giveaway is that headshot photo of the woman, along with the surrounding headlines and blocktext:

I suppose this could be an elaborately Photoshopped bit of fakery, but I’m prepared to believe it’s truly the incestuous laziness of Hollywood on display. I will say that, based on my own indulgence of old TV shows, this much-copied broadsheet probably didn’t come into use until the mid-1980s. That’s the era of at least a couple of the screenshots below: “Married with Children” and “Doogie Howser, M.D.”. I’ve paid attention to the onscreen newspapers in older 1970s reruns, and noticed that some of the legible headlines were often relevant to the news of that time period, which hints that those shows might have used real daily editions.

The larger joke: That such video entertainment includes characters that still read newspapers, given that dwindling behavior in real life. Rather than update their bag of tricks, Hollywood’s propmasters can just wait until print newspapers die out altogether, and the problem will solve itself.

My previous concern over this past weekend’s Stanley Cup Final schedule on NBC seemed unfounded. By the numbers, Game 1 and Game 2 turned in great ratings, with a 2.8 and 4.1 share respectively.

So I guess back-to-back Saturday-Sunday championship games aren’t essential for National Hockey League viewership. Then again, it’s important to remember the context:

We’re talking about the No. 3 and No. 4 TV markets in the U.S. facing off in this series. The local viewership is fueling these ratings, much like it did for the last two finals between the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins, and much like it does for the NHL’s regular-season games on NBC.

It’s a dangerous game for the NHL: It’s impressive how hockey can dominate big media markets during special events (Stanley Cup Finals, Winter Classic), but what happens when a Canadian team sneaks back into the championship round? Or an American team that isn’t from the Original Six or a strong Northern market?

Not that I think it’s worth worrying about non-marquee teams making it to Cup contention. Excepting the Super Bowl, every sport plays that “dangerous game” of the potential ratings hit from the championship round suffering smaller-market teams. That’s where the marketing (particularly player-focused marketing) should kick in.

Still, that 4.1 is impressive enough. It’s still on the low end of comparable NBA or MLB final-round coverage, but at least it shows that prime-time televised hockey has a pulse.

Gary Coleman is now dead, but his “Avenue Q” character lives on:

“Avenue Q,” which won the Tony Award for best musical in 2004, as well as Tonys for [writer Jeff] Whitty and the composers, Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, has included a character called Gary Coleman since its debut.

Introduced in the show’s opening number, “It Sucks to Be Me,” the character (who is played by a woman) identifies himself as the former child star who “made a lot of money that got stolen by my folks.”

Now he works as the superintendent in the tenement where the show’s puppet and human characters live, and he often reminds them that, as bad as their lives may seem, his is much worse. (“Try having people stopping you to ask you, ‘What’choo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?’ ” he sings. “It gets old.”)

After some debate and a little tweaking, this character will remain on the stage. In pop-cultural terms, maybe that’s more of a sign of respect for the deceased. It’s certainly a case of diff’rent strokes for different folks.

This year’s National Hockey League Stanley Cup Final will have the Chicago Blackhawks and the Philadelphia Flyers. What it won’t have is a repeat of last year’s Saturday-Sunday scheduling of Games 1 and 2 on NBC. Instead, this Saturday’s Game 1 will be followed by Game 2 on Monday, setting the pattern for an every-other-day series.

I’m not sure why the Peacock Network is forgoing 2009’s Stanley Cup Weekend format. After all, it was a solid ratings success last year, and I thought it keyed viewership for that entire series:

You can debate how successful that would have been for NBC had it been, say, Columbus versus Florida. But I’m convinced that it’s the right way to kick off the showcase series of the playoffs: No opening-night pomp, followed by a day or two off for casual viewers to promptly forget about the whole thing. Saturday night served as the lead-in for a returning audience on Sunday, and the ratings momentum remained sustained from there, right through to Game 7’s breakthrough. So that two-game opener schedule will remain in place next year (and beyond).

So much for “remaining in place”. There’s nothing on NBC this Sunday in primetime that would prevent a hockey game from breaking out on network air. The only thing I can figure: Game 7 of the NBA Eastern Conference Final is scheduled on another network. Perhaps the TV folks still aren’t confident that the NHL can top the hoopsters when going head-to-head.

Still, a Saturday night Game 1 between two of the more iconic American hockey cities should provide something of a boost. And Monday will still be part of the Memorial Day extended holiday weekend. So who knows? Maybe a ratings boost will fall into the league’s lap this year without the back-to-back backing.

It somehow completely passed me by that “Jenn” from Versus’ sports-talk roundtable show “The Daily Line” is none other than Jenn Sterger. That’s the same Jenn Sterger who was thrust into fame four years ago, as the FSU Cowgirl.

She looks different nowadays. And not just because she tends to wear more clothes on Versus than she did at Seminoles games. She’s a lot more tan now, for one. I also think her face looks significantly different. It has been four years; some physical changes aren’t out of the question. Also keep in mind that Sterger hasn’t been shy about plastic surgery in the past, including breast enhancement and reduction. I don’t know if she’s moved onto facial reconstruction now, but it would explain why (to me) she doesn’t look like the same cowgirl of old.

None of which compels me to watch “Line”. No amount of host remodeling makes that talking-head noise any more palatable.

Nearly thirty years after first seeing it, the “Saturday Night Live” 1984 skit “News Bar” still makes me chuckle. Especially the brief, My Fair Lady-like musical numbers:

Edwin Newman [singing]:
They read the news with foot in mouth, instead of tongue in cheek,
Why can’t the anchors learn to speak?

Brad Hall: “Iranians’ pains come mainly from Khomeini!”

Edwin Newman: I think he’s got it!

Tom Snyder: Alright, I’ll buy that.

Brad Hall: “Khomeini’s reign is mainly based on pain!”

Edwin Newman: Let’s try something a bit more difficult. Environmental pollution in the Northeast.

Brad Hall: Northeast… um… uh…
“Terrain in Maine is stained with acid rain!”

Edwin Newman as Henry Higgins. In a glam-news media commentary that, the ’80s topicalness aside, still is relevant today.

CBS added a prime-grade bit of corporate-speak to our lexicon yesterday:

The [schedule] changes, and the five new shows, are part of what Kelly Kahl, senior executive VP for CBS primetime, calls “aggressive stablity.”

“Every year the goal is to make the schedule stronger,” Kahl says. “To make the schedule stronger, you have to put new shows on the air. That usually means clearing out some space, some of the lower-hanging fruit. Most of the shows we canceled were either ones that had the biggest declines year to year or were simply the lowest-rated shows. It’s the network circle of life.”

“Aggressive stability”. Basically presented as a proactive strategy to stave off eventual decline, but really, it smacks of change just for the sake of change. With a dose of self-denial about it, to boot. Does this stuff actually make sense when it comes out of a suit’s mouth, or does it need to be repeated endlessly until any meaning is beside the point?

Well, that was quick. Less than a year after Twitter account @ShitMyDadSays was launched, it’s been turned into a network sitcom, set to debut this Fall on CBS.

Absorb that for a moment. Because here comes bombshell No. 2:

William Shatner himself is starring, as Dad. Yeah. (As always, I’m hoping some of the Shit He Says will be in Esperanto.)

The realization of this social-media-to-television deal only confirms my original suspicions:

Call me crackpot, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that SMDS was a false front from the start. Frankly, I’ve been suspicious of its authenticity all along — some of those quips come off as totally made-up. Maybe CBS launched the Twitter account months ahead of time to build a Web audience for a supposedly-real screwball family, as pre-marketing for developing the series that they were going to produce all along. Crazier things have happened.

I say this has been one big, elaborate set-up, designed to look like a grassroots effort. Not that it ultimately matters, since the officially-entitled “$#*! My Dad Says” probably will be canceled after one season. No amount of Shatner-ization will prevent that shit from happening.

Conan O’Brien finally had his televised say on “60 Minutes”, and came off as a gracious loser in the entire “Tonight Show” fiasco.

I like Conan; always have. But one thing bothers me about this ordeal:

CONAN O’BRIEN: …I think for anyone to say that the results were in after six months — that doesn’t ring true to me.

Team Coco’s chief complaint has been that the show just wasn’t given a fair chance, in the form of enough time to hit its stride and (re)build an audience. But wasn’t six months long enough? Every television season, new and existing shows are given far less time to make or break themselves — and that’s on a once-weekly basis, versus the five episodes per week that Conan had. To argue that “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” wasn’t on the air long enough to stick comes off as a feeble excuse.

Six months on network TV is an eternity. If that long of a tryout wasn’t enough, nothing else was going to save Conan. Had he raked in the ratings in the first place, he wouldn’t have felt he was on the clock at all.

So we’ve all seen that Kia Sorrento Super Bowl ad with the joyriding kids’ toys. And we all know that Muno of “Yo Gabba Gabba!” fame is a prominent member of that car-selling entourage.

But not everyone in the automotive-marketing world is picking up on Muno’s family-friendly image:

What the hell, Kia? I understand that this “one-eyed monster” is a character from some kids’ show, but to your child-free customers this key marketing character looks like an infected phallus with a nasty case of genital warts. If that’s what you get with a new Kia Sorrento, I’ll pass.

Of course, “child-free customers” wouldn’t be in the market for a minivan anyway. So it’d be easy enough to dismiss such criticism, seeing as how it comes from a jaded car-showroom human prop. On the other hand, speculation about Muno’s phallic-reminiscent vibe(ration) has been around since the show’s 2007 debut:

“He’s tall and friendly,” the theme song informs us, as the giant orange cyclops jumps up and down (vibrates, really) and giggles. His most noticeable for-her-pleasure feature by far is the fact that he’s covered with Astroglide little bumps that aren’t unlike several products you’ll find in the Good Vibrations catalogue.

So is Muno really an overgrown joystick, in more than one sense of that word? I guess there are worse things to be patterned after.