Jessell: Whose Public Interest Is It Anyway?

On CW's High Society, a privileged set of self-absorbed young New Yorkers aren't nearly as interesting as they believe themselves to be, which makes for painful viewing even in this lowbrow reality TV niche.

The best viewer for NBC's Who Do You Think You Are? will be both a People magazine subscriber and an armchair genealogist. Unfortunately for NBC, those may be mutually exclusive areas of interest.

When FX's Nip/Tuck signs off after seven seasons and, notably, 100 episodes, its series finale signals the end of the era, when basic cable networks proved they could compete with HBO in original programming -- FX with The Shield and Nip/Tuck, and USA with Monk.

Having created Band of Brothers, HBO's masterful 2001 miniseries that followed Easy Company from its training in Georgia through the D-Day invasion and until the end of the war, exec producers Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg decided to balance the equation with a mini set in the Pacific theater. The result is The Pacific; it is a gem of a production and would be a highlight of any TV season.

Spike's new sitcom Players treats humor the way a 12-pound sledgehammer treats a thumbtack. It's not subtle. Players makes It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia look like Masterpiece Theater, and Cheers like Shakespeare. That is, it's right on target.

The fundamental transformation of television news began to happen in the late 1980s. Before that, each network had the overriding philosophy that it owed America the highest quality news it could gather. In the takeover binge of that time, ownership of each network changed. NBC was acquired by General Electric; the Walt Disney Co. bought ABC; CBS went to Wall Street investor and self-made billionaire Laurence Tisch. These were not people who embraced any concept of operating at a loss.

On American Idol, amateurs try to look like professionals. On the Oscar show, professionals often come off looking like amateurs, whether they're trying to or not. It's impressive, in a depressing way, how pretentious an untrained and even untalented young performer can be on American Idol, though the trained and the talented do a pretty good job of it on the Oscarcast.

Welcome to family life, TV-style. It is a pressure cooker where the stress never ends and where parenthood is less a clearly defined position of authority than a perpetual work in progress. It is not always clear who's in charge. What is clear is that Father does not necessarily Know Best, and Mother doesn't always have much of a clue either.

There's word out of Washington that the Newseum, the museum of news history, is not only interested in exhibiting the suit but may already be in discussions about the possibility. There's no disputing the impact the Simpson case had, and continues to have, on news. So if there's one place the suit fits ... it's a museum devoted to news.

The newest judge on Amreican Idol is too tentative in her comments and comedy. She should remind everyone what a juggernaut she is in the entertainment field by countering Simon Cowell's harshness with her.

So should Disney President Bob Iger be popping the Champagne this morning, or is it Cablevision CEO Jim Dolan who is celebrating over the new deal between the companies regarding carriage of WABC New York? Bottom line: Disney is getting more money for its programming but Cablevision isn't paying what Disney wanted. Yes, this might be a case of the dreaded win-win.

The FCC is determined to reclaim all of the broadcast spectrum for broadband. If ever there was an opportunity for conspiracy theory, this seems to be one. The government agency in charge of regulating broadcast television appears intent on killing it.

Events such as the Olympics and Tiger Woods' apology draw a huge response in all kinds of media. In the last six weeks, Americans have watched and talked about big sports events in numbers that have achieved record levels for television as well as online, including social media -- from the Super Bowl to Tiger Woods' public mea culpa and now the Winter Olympics. (Los Angeles Times)

the FCC has issued a "limited waiver" of its requirement that video programming distributors, including television stations, publish two types of information in local telephone directories -- contact information for the receipt and handling of immediate closed captioning concerns, and contact information for the receipt and handling of written closed captioning complaints. As a result TV stations may be eligible to benefit from this waiver as well, thereby avoiding the additional costs of extensive local telephone directory listings. (Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman)

How Mr. Stephanopoulos, onetime Rhodes scholar and Clinton policy wonk, is adjusting to a life of fluff on morning TV. (New York Observer)