Dateline Pasadena: Glenn Beck, Larry King, Hallmark Channel ... what is this, the AARP edition?

Let me see if I have this right. You, Glenn Beck, do a loud and often contentious talk radio program and cable TV show. CNN Headline News, which airs your shoutfest at 6 p.m. CT weeknights, promotes you as a blowhard with opinions about seemingly everything.

  And yet, you, Glenn Beck -- the same guy who set off a whirlwind of protest when you asked newly elected Congressman Keith Ellison, a Muslim, to “prove to me that you are not working with our enemies” -- come before the nation's TV critics to promote yourself as a voice of reason who wants to have a “conversation” about the issues of the day?

  Yes and yes, said Beck, whose quiet tone and contrite demeanor left the impression that it was really his evil twin who has the TV show. The Ellison debacle, he said Tuesday, was caused by “quite possibly the poorest worded question of all time.” As a Mormon, he realizes now that, as Radar magazine puts it, linking Ellison to terrorists is like linking Beck to gun-toting polygamists living in the rural outposts of Utah.

 

  But give him a minute here. Beck's strategy, even when it backfires, is a sound one: Tell people where you're coming from. Try to be civil. As he said of the Rev. Al Sharpton, a recent guest on his TV show, “We don't agree on anything, but we like each other.”

  Beck likes to point out that he will tell you his political leanings (conservative, though anti-death-penalty) and those other guys (Bill O'Reilly, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, whose MSNBC show competes with Beck's) won't tell you theirs.

  “The key,” he said, “is people being willing to say who they are. We are in a medium right now that's in denial. 'I'm just being fair and balanced.' Come on, man!”

  Beck's radio show is heard on more than 200 stations, though many of these, like KCMO-AM (710), are weekend affiliates only. (He airs 6 to 9 p.m. Saturdays on KCMO.) And “Good Morning America” just made Beck a contributor, which means one of two things: Either “GMA” is about to get louder, or he's about to get softer.

Other news from winter press tour:

  * CNN will mark Larry King's 50 years in broadcasting with a “King-sized week” April 23-27. Oprah Winfrey, Bill Clinton, Angelina Jolie and Katie Couric are his tentative guests that week on “Larry King Live,” with the host agreeing to sit in the guest seat and be interviewed by Couric. Bill Maher will host a roast and a “CNN Presents” special will look back at King's career, which started on radio in 1957 and TV in 1959.

  * CNN will launch a high definition channel this fall.

  * Hallmark Channel's “movie movie” agenda was spelled out Tuesday by its new chief, Henry Schleiff. Beginning in March, he said. “Mondays will be mysteries. Tuesdays will be tear-jerkers, which may be redundant on the Hallmark Channel. Wednesdays will be romance; Thursdays, westerns; and Friday, more mysteries.”

  * Five years after “100 Centre St.” vanished from its schedule, A&E is getting back into the drama business. Besides airing reruns of “The Sopranos,” the network — now better known for seedy reality fare like “Growing Up Gotti” — will air an original movie, “Kings of South Beach,” from the writer of “GoodFellas” and starring Jason Gedrick and Donnie Walberg, March 12. A&E's Tana Nugent Jamieson also announced several crime dramas are in script development, including “Dry River,” set on the Texas border, and a romantic procedural from legendary producer Steven Bochco (“NYPD Blue”).