Planet Abell

Conan O'Brien tells 60 Minutes that, had their rolls been reversed, he would not have returned to The Tonight Show if it meant pushing out Jay Leno. I thought as much three months ago . "He went and took that show back and I think in a similar situation, if roles had been reversed, I know -- I know me, I wouldn't have done that," O'Brien tells 60 Minutes interviewer Steve Kroft, as reported by TV Newser . "If I had surrendered The Tonight Show and handed it over to somebody publicly and wished them well -- and then...six months later. But that's me. Everyone's got their own, you know, way of doing things."

In a bid for stability over reinvention NBC has tapped former nightly news anchor Tom Brokaw to take over hosting duties for "Meet the Press," the Sunday public affairs program whose long-time moderator, Tim Russert, died unexpectedly 10 days ago. NBC said Brokaw would moderate MTP through the 2008 presidential election. The choice of gravitas over what might otherwise be seen as an attempt to attract another -- or at least an additional -- demographic is significant because NBC has an unusually deep bench of seasoned on-air political interviewers and commentators who ply their chair-bound trade nightly on MSNBC -- unlike any of the other networks, who do not have cable counterparts. Continue reading on wired.com's Epicenter blog.

T he New York Times' Bill Carter has done some amazing reporting in the past few days on the fits, starts and apparent dead stop of ABC and NBC to get the first post-jail interview with Paris Hilton. The Hilton family has been portrayed as prostituting their celebutante daughter (imagine that), with a hefty cash offer from network #1 only emboldening them to squeeze network #2 for more. This one jumped off the rails quickly. The $100,000 ABC was reportedly willing to pay was used to try to negotiate a much larger payday from NBC, which even gave the potential Paris interview a code name -- Rome -- to thwart enemy code-breakers. But even some insiders have had enough: TV Newser has a picture of a very professional sign displayed at the Today/GMA softball game that said: "For $1 million, we'll let you win!" (Today beat GMA 8-7, and there are no reports of money changing hands apart, perhaps, from a few side bets or victory rounds at the bar). This is an moment-in-tim...

T he day after, nearly every broadcast network has drawn a line in the sand about further airings of the Cho tapes. While reserving the right to air them in whatever way merited in the future, they are saying enough is enough, sometimes in very strong terms. The statements are all at TVNewser , the best outlet for breaking news about TV news, and I quote them all from that source. NBC : "Beginning this morning, we have limited our usage of the video across NBC News, including MSNBC, to no more than 10 percent of our airtime." It used to be that news organizations risked doing irresponsible things for competitive reasons against only other news organizations. Now the argument is extended to the point that if it is on YouTube, it is fair game. FNC : "We believe that 18 hours after they were first broadcast and distributed via the Internet, our news viewers have had the opportunity to see the images and draw their own conclusions about them. We see no reason to continue ass...

I 'm no fan of self censorship but NBC's decision to air Virginia Tech mass murder Cho Seung-Hui's video "manifesto" is difficult to understand. What is the news value in this pathetic, meaningless, juvenile rant mailed to NBC in New York by Cho? This student, who according to fellow students and faculty said almost nothing in life is permitted to veritably spit venom in death. "NBC News has indeed received what I would call a "multimedia manifesto" from the gunman," Brian Williams says in his blog, the Daily Nightly . "We received it today, and immediately handed it over to Federal law enforcement authorities. We are still going over our own copy -- its a lot of material -- we are talking with law enforcement, our own standards people -- and Pete Williams, our Justice Correspondent, will join me live on the broadcast to go through the material." Well, maybe not so immediately. Coming up on Today -- More from the Mass Killer What is...