Lou Dobbs, your time is up; George Lopez and Wanda Sykes, your time is now

Paul Harris and I talked on KTRS Radio in St. Louis. For a summary of our chat and the nifty web player, visit Paul's site.

The Hasan case: Will cable news ever learn?

Click to hear this TV Barn Podcast

KOGO Radio's Chip Franklin and I discussed the instant errors made by media outlets in covering last week's Fort Hood tragedy. We also talked about "Mad Men," "Sons of Anarchy" and "The Prisoner" -- a great week for great TV.

Looking forward to "V" ... not

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WBAL Radio talked to me today about "V" (full review here) and the hits and misses so far of this fall television season.

Is Leno in trouble? Will Wanda Sykes tank?

TV Barn Podcast: click here to listen

KOGO Radio's Chip Franklin and I discussed Ben Grossman's excellent interview with Jay Leno this morning. Leno admitted he's playing rope-a-dope with the press until they go away and then he'll stage yet another comeback. We talk about that, as well as Wanda Sykes' new Fox late night show that starts Saturday. We also discussed Tuesday's premiere of "V" and the Barack Obama film.

Will anyone west of Philly watch this World Series?

KOGO Radio's Chip Franklin was kind enough not to bring up his Chargers drubbing my Chiefs yesterday. Instead we talked a little baseball. (Note: I know I got the start of the National League wrong.) We also talked about USA Network's terrific new "White Collar" and how "Dexter" is actually pretty good again ... and some other stuff this morning on San Diego's news-talk powerhouse.

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Fox News bites back at my tweet. (Yes, my tweet.) I tweet, they bite, you decide!

So last week I tweeted about an amusing Glenn Beck promotional email I'd gotten, and someone at "Countdown" saw it and passed it onto Keith Olbermann, who read it on the air. Well, Fox News didn't like that. A spokesman for the news channel then told The Huffington Post on Monday (10/12) that they didn't send that email.

The headline of the article reads "Fox News PR Never Sent Aaron Barnhart 'Glenn Beck Raising Fears' E-Mail That He Tweeted About." Not "Fox News PR Says..." but simply "Fox News PR Never Sent." This, I believe, is an historic occasion -- the first time Huffington Post has ever taken Fox News PR at their word.

What's more, Danny Shea at HuffPo didn't even ask me for my response. But I sent him one anyway on Tuesday:

Hi Danny. If a department inside Fox News is disclaiming an email saying that Glenn Beck would be raising fears about the H1N1 vaccine on Thursday's program, I can understand why, especially this week. All I can say is, I saw that email, and like so many things that make me laugh, I had to tweet it. Yes, Glenn Beck's going to raise fears tonight, and Jay Leno's going to tell a Jon and Kate joke, and the cheerleading coach on GLEE is going to break someone's balls. I like Fox News, but something about Keith Olbermann makes lasers shoot out of their eyes.

Moving on ....

AUDIO: Before this all blew up, on Monday morning I did my regular radio segment with San Diego morning man Chip Franklin on KOGO Radio. First we talked about the nutty David Letterman video I had just posted. Then we talked about the news that the White House was attacking Fox News. Regardless of my own drama with the news channel's PR department, I still think the White House is insane to go after Fox.

Also in our podcast, I gave Chip a brief history of cable television in America and told him which TV shows to see and skip this week.

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Letterman's Monday mea culpa was OK ... but did this really belong on the show? Also: What's this "former" assistant nonsense?

As this picture makes clear, the revelations of an extortion plot linked to David Letterman's tendencies to sleep with members of his staff have not exactly been bad for business. Ratings were up for last week's shows and Monday's numbers are expected to be through the roof when they are released later this morning.

Still, the goal at the "Late Show" is to get back to normalcy, although the new normal may possibly include fewer Mark Sanford and Bill Clinton jokes. And if that is all that Joe Halderman achieved through his alleged! blackmail attempt, gee, maybe it was worth it. Well, for me anyway...

"Chilly outside my house ... chilly inside my house ..." A pretty good line from David Letterman, as was that joke about the Appalachian Trail, but it wasn't the funniest moment of Monday's "Late Show" broadcast — I give that prize to Steve Martin's pyrotechnic banjo stunt, which was all the better because it was unexpected. (Unlike Dave addressing all this nonsense.)

I spoke with KNX Radio today about the message control of the Letterman camp and the fact that this whole controversy has been, in effect, the Jeremiah Wright of late night, knocking CBS off its message of Dave's ratings surge. Of course, his ratings have surged ever since the news of the extortion attempt broke ... but don't expect to see too many ratings releases about that.

By the way, did you notice — I'm talking to you, Daily News, LA Times, and Wikipedia! — that in the end credits that ran last night, Stephanie Birkitt is still listed as one of Mr. Letterman's assistants? Better update those web versions! Former lover, current assistant ...

Meanwhile, over on Facebook my friend Jeff Kisseloff, the Nation's archivist and author of a definitive oral history of television, noted:

"But what he didn't do was apologize for taking advantage of his staff members. And imagine what his wife must think about his making light of the situation. After thinking about this, it just seems to me that he didn't have to make this part of his routine at all. Why not call a press conference, make a statement, take questions and leave it at that. That way, he makes it clear that this isn't a joking matter. I know he likes to bring personal stuff into the show, but there's a line you can cross, and with this he crossed it, and he didn't have to.

"I tell you something else, the more he talks about what this guy did, the better case he builds for him that he can't get a fair trial. If I was Halderman's lawyer, I'd applaud every comment Letterman makes just for that reason. Shargel is a pretty smart guy, so I’m sure he's taking good notes."

While the show was still airing on Monday, I spoke with WTOP Radio for my insty-reaction. I said I thought the show did OK as damage control but given how few particulars we know — and how unseemly the whole business with Stephanie now seems, in hindsight — this story has not played itself out by a long shot, and we'll just have to see how Dave handles it.

And here's our pal Marisa Guthrie, talking to Keith Olbermann last night. It was a really informative interview, especially KO's revelations about the year he worked with the accused in 1981. Guess what percentage of Dave's audience is made up of women. Take a guess, and then click to hear Marisa give the answer. Even I was astounded ...

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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The Letterman revelation: "Devastating"

That's the best way I can describe my feelings this morning to Chip Franklin on KOGO Radio. I know other people feel differently about David Letterman's admission of indiscretions at the office — trust me, I've heard from them! — but here it is Monday morning and the whole thing feels very depressing.

On a brighter note, Chip and I talked about "Sons of Anarchy," which is having a great second season, and "Dexter" which has finally jumped the shark (or the stork).

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Previously on TV Barn, I mapped out three scenarios for where Letterman goes from here, post-revelations.

Reactions to David Letterman's "creepy" revelation

It has been, as I just told KNX Radio (click to listen), a late night Rorschach test. Viewers are responding in very different ways to the revelations of David Letterman last night on CBS.

Fittingly, it was also a late night of conversing with TV Barn readers on Twitter and Facebook. This morning I've been reading your comments -- which have been piling up ever since I got Drudged -- and digesting, along with you, the latest revelation that it was Stephanie Burkitt, the woman who appeared frequently as Dave's assistant on the show and had, I think we can all agree, a special way with the host of the show, who was one of the women sleeping with Dave.

Here's my reaction to what appeared on the show, and now, your reactions and my responses.

@ourbuddydave: With Letterman, one is never sure if the story is true. I wasn't sure until the end, so I tittered along with the audience.

E O'Neal: Letterman's audience thinks they're supposed to laugh every time he pauses. It's a conditioned reflex that shows they're in on the joke. The audience laughs at his attitude and manner rather than his wit, which has atrophied almost to the vanishing point. Last night was especially creepy.

I don't blame the audience at all. And while I think the producers should have stepped in before the second act and warned the studio that something dramatic was going to be announced, you wonder how much chaos was going on behind the scenes. Remember, the dude wasn't arrested until around noon and the show tapes at, I believe, 5:30.

Annette: The audiences he has would laugh if he got up and told he raped a girl and murdered her. They laugh at anything he says and hes not funny anymore.

I wouldn't quite go that far, but it's absolutely true that this audience was in a good mood and ready to laugh. They laughed at the Roman Polanski jokes. They laughed at the Mark Sanford joke. Of course, they had no idea that David Letterman was about to enshrine himself in their rarified company. But they were a good crowd, and it's possible that Dave made a last-minute decision just to play to the crowd. It's also possible that Dave knew all along that he was going to tell this as just another funny personal story, like the time a bear got into his cabin or he and Regina decided to go get hitched. Either way, the result was surreal.

@scott_tobias: Do you think he was too flippant about it, then? That may be the case, but he certainly flipped the script in TV confessions. My first reaction was "Huh. He did not do what you're supposed to do in situations like this." And that's kinda remarkable.

Well, I'm not sure there has ever been a situation quite like the one Letterman finds himself in — even Johnny's three divorces were fairly antiseptic and easy to poke fun at, besides it was a different era — but what's interesting to me is that he did not do the one thing that he could have done at that point, and that is apologize to those he took advantage of.

@TeresaKopec: It was fine. He didn't molest a child nor has anyone accussed him of sexual harassment. People sleep around at the office. Human.

@SusanDennis: unless he had no power over their jobs - financially or otherwise - he's on the hook.

As the owner of his production company Worldwide Pants, and moreover as the one indispensable person in that company, the sole reason for its existence, Letterman has a special power over people. That is why people get sued for sexual harassment, no? It's not about the sex, it's about the power.

Now that we know Stephanie's involved, there are issues to consider that weren't so obvious last night. Stephanie had great chemistry with Dave. Is that why they had sex? Probably. Is that why she was used so often on the show? Ehhhh.....that's dicier. The sex certainly was an audition that no other staffer at "Late Show" (well, maybe no other staffer) got to have with the host. But in this case, the casting couch worked. She was a good foil for Dave on the air. But there was an innocence to their interactions that has evaporated this morning. I mean, Jack Benny and Mary Livingstone obviously had sex, too, and there was always a sweet virgin quality to her -- but at least Mr. Benny had made an honest woman out of her before she ever was on his show.

pitter43: Typical obama voters. letterman is up there telling jokes ( he's funny?)and his brain dead democrat/liberals are laughing. If he's said the sun had exploded there wouldn't have been enough brains in the audience to realize what had happened.

Getting quite a few of these thanks to Drudge. I can't eliminate any motivation right now because we just don't have the information. But clearly how you view the world socially and politically is going to influence your perception of Letterman's confession. On the other hand, I doubt pitter43 is watching much CBS late night, don't you?

MH: Is this the same Dave who thought making Sarah Palin's daughter a slut was funny? The so-called "ladies" who slept with him are something much worse. Willy Clinton and Dave, what a pair.

This is, I think, where conservatives and liberals can find common ground. No matter what your political stripe, I think many of us have grown tired of the constant late-night joking about "another politician caught with their pants down and money sticking in their hole," to quote Lou Reed. Besides coarsening the overall level of political humor in this country, it's of a piece with Dave's tradition of ridiculing women who don't conform to feminine stereotypes — how many people remember Janet Reno? the Peach Lady? — which, I'm happy to say, his 12:35 colleague doesn't seem to share.

@tuffyr: I love Craig Ferguson, but female-friendly? Why? I don't find him terribly misogynistic, but femme-friendly?

Heavens, yes. That brogue, that hair, and the way he eyes you ... I've been hearing it from women, especially older women, that they find the "Late Late Show" host sexy as all get-out. And indeed, much of his audience growth — he now beats Jimmy Fallon handily in overall viewership — came from female viewers. As I say, it will be interesting to hear Craig's reaction to all this.

tmole: After Les Moonves and Julie Chen, i'd have to say the odds Dave is bagged for banging the help are pretty much zero.

A female assistant at the bottom of the totem pole in Letterman's company is considerably different from an accomplished on-air host who happens to get involved with a powerful figure. Moonves really belongs more in the company of fellow media moguls Sumner Redstone and Rupert Murdoch, who've had their own tabloid episodes with women.

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You know what's creepy? Telling a story about having sex with your employees to people who LAUGH and APPLAUD

Wow.

I don't know where to begin with David Letterman's bizarro, play-it-for-laughs on-air admission that he had sex with staff members.

On the one hand, good for him for telling a fairly unvarnished account of being blackmailed by a Connecticut man for $2 million and admitting to the "creepy things," as Dave kept putting it, the blackmailer was threatening to take public.

On the other hand: Couldn't somebody have gone out between the first and second act and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Letterman is about to talk about something very difficult and though you might be tempted to laugh, please don't."

Instead, Letterman (whether by accident or design) wound up playing the story for laughs, and even drew applause with his admission that he'd had affairs with employees. Here are the highlights...

After a monologue that included more than one Roman Polanski joke -- which I found odd given my knowledge of what was coming -- act two began with Dave, who was clearly enjoying his audience, saying "I'm glad you folks are here tonight and in such a good mood ..... Do you feel like a story?" (Crowd: Yeahh!!)

So he starts talking about finding the package in the back of his car at 6 a.m. and the note, which read, "I know that you do some terrible, terrible things." Laughter. "A guy is going to write a screenplay about me ... unless I give him some money. ... That's a little hinky!" More laughter.

You can tell Letterman is trying to ratchet up the gravity. He uses the word "terrifying" to describe his response to this extortion letter. Later on he says, "This whole thing has been quite scary." But for every one of those statements there's one like this: "If you know anything about me, I am just a towering mass of Lutheran midwestern guilt." Of course, the crowd laughs. It sounds funny.

The first tipoff to the audience should have been Dave's statement, "This guy knows creepy stuff about me" --not "this guy thinks he knows creepy stuff about me."

And then finally, after telling the audience that the suspect, now ID's as Robert Halderman, had been arrested, applause, finally Dave reveals the allegation in the screenplay: that "I have had sex with women who worked for me on the show." And....?

"My response to that is, yes, I have," said Letterman. At this admission, the audience laughs and then rolls into applause.

If this was the reaction of most of Dave's audience at home, then he's home free.

If it wasn't, he's got a lot of damage control to do. Click to hear my reaction on the radio tonight.

I'm sure over time, the blackmailer will merge in my memory with the would-be babynapper and the schizophrenic stalker as evidence that David Letterman is some kind of magnet for seriously disturbed people -- the "King of Comedy" as well as of late night.

But right now, this night stands out as singularly icky in the annals of David Letterman. And I don't think that feeling's going to fade anytime soon.

For one thing, as employees of Worldwide Pants (!), the females who had sex with Dave work or worked for Dave. So there's potentially a power issue involved, as anyone who's been in an unfortunate liaison with their boss already knows. Hello! Summer of 2008!

Don't have time to sift through all the comments? I've pulled some of my favorites and responded to them - plus, Friday morning breaking news on the Letterman fiasco, click to read.

It will be interesting to hear the reaction of his west coast colleague, Craig Ferguson, who's probably the most female-friendly late night host of the bunch.

And on a personal note, CBS is reporting that the suspect works at the CBS newsmagazine "48 Hours." Which longtime readers will recognize as the TV show that came to visit me in my basement apartment in Evanston, Illinois, nearly 15 years ago to interview me about my online fan efforts on behalf of .... "The Late Show with David Letterman."

NEW POST: How will the Letterman story end? Three scenarios ... CLICK HERE TO READ

Previously on TV Barn, I commented this evening to KNX Radio about the Letterman bombshell. And in what seems like two weeks ago, I reported an historic ratings victory for the "Late Show" over "The Tonight Show."

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What will Dave's revelation mean?

It was supposed to be a day of triumph, with this fantastic ratings news. But it worked out very differently for David Letterman today, as he was forced to admit to sexual liaisons with staff members as part of his testimony before a grand jury earlier today. He dropped the bombshell on his "Late Show" audience and ... well, it was weird. Really weird.

Anyway, click the red box to hear what I told KNX Radio this evening.

Dave has gotten the chance to write the first chapter of this tabloid tale. He will not be writing the second chapter, or the third. And how this story ends, I think, will largely determine if Dave suffers any negative impact in the ratings ... and whether he decides he has had it with public life and it is time to shift to the next phase of his life sooner rather than later.

We really don't know much right now, but that's kind of what's at stake.

TMZ.com has ID'd the blackmailer as a 51-year-old businessman who lives in Connecticut but has a business in Manhattan. CBS later reported it was an employee of "48 Hours." That employee's name MAY be Joe Halderman, based on this.

The people I feel worst for are the women, not just Regina Lasko, his wife and longtime girlfriend, but the "Late Show" staffers who now may very well be thrust into the public eye against their will.

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Chip Franklin: He's as wrong as rain.

So Chip thought he had me on the Fairness Doctrine yesterday. The KOGO Radio morning man was absolutely convinced of two things: (1) that Democrats were thisclose to reintroducing the Fairness Doctrine on the House floor, soon to move it to the Senate and then the President's desk for signing; and (2) that the FCC falls under the executive branch.

He was wrong on both counts. Realizing that he was losing the argument on the feasibility of anyone ever shutting up Rush Limbaugh, he shifted gears and began harping on the rather picayune point of who actually runs the FCC.

Well, speaking as someone who has written about and researched that agency, I can tell you the FCC is technically independent but that in all regulatory day-to-day operations it is accountable to Congress. Quoting FCC.gov,

About the FCC

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent United States government agency, directly responsible to Congress.

Chip, however, was possessed of the idea that the FCC falls under the Executive Branch and that Ronald Reagan himself killed the Fairness Doctrine. Not to be deterred, Chip found something on the Internet that backed him up ... and when he tired of hearing the truth, he finally shouted me down. Good times.

Bookending our Fairness Doctrine yellfest, we talked about the Roman Polanski case, "SNL's" F-bomb fallout, and what to see and skip this week on TV.

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The fall season: talking "NCIS: LA," "CougarTown," "Glee," "Flash Forward!"

Here's audio of our CNN.com "Bloggers Bunch" segment featuring yours truly and three others discussing some of the most buzzed-about shows of the fall season. The video is here.

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Obama on with Letterman, DeLay "Dancing with the Stars": Which was magic, which was tragic?

The President spent the entire hour with David Letterman Monday night, while earlier in the evening ABC made viewers wait an hour and a half before seeing how former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay did the cha-cha on "Dancing with the Stars." Each was compelling TV in its own right, and I talked about both this morning on KNX Newsradio in Los Angeles.

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Emmys another lovefest for cable. But don't cry for the big networks

Here I am on KNX Radio this morning, reminding one and all that NBC, CBS and Fox all won at the Emmys last night — even as they lost. And trust me, the day is coming when we're going to look back at this whole cable-vs-network division and say, "What was that all about?"

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So THAT'S why they don't have me on KMBZ!

I figured it was Darla Jaye or Mike Shanin who was plotting behind the scenes to ensure that I was booked on my hometown news-talk station only once in a blue moon. Since my last appearance on KMBZ, I've been on news formats in Washington, Baltimore, St. Louis, Chicago and Seattle, not to mention my weekly chats with Chip and the regular commentary I provide to NPR and KNX Newsradio. What's the deal with Kansas City?

Well, now I can take comfort in knowing that it has nothing to do with me. With that phone system they have over at Entercom Radio, they can't talk to anybody!

I was booked to discuss the fall season this morning on KMBZ. Click to listen to what happened instead. The first 30 seconds you can hear E.J. Becker and Ellen Schenk vamping because I've already been dropped once. But KMBZ's VOIP was just getting started with me. In the next three minutes my perky voice would be replaced with a ghostly silence two more times before E.J. and Ellen finally gave up.

I haven't been dropped this much since that clumsy obstetrician delivered me.

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From soup to nuts, and I'm the soup

Chip Franklin and I covered the waterfront, that's for sure, in our weekly yak session this morning on KOGO Radio in San Diego. What started out as just another conversation about Joe Wilson veered over into Lenoland, as we discussed the previous night's debut of "The Jay Leno Show," then moved on to Tina Fey and why dudes find her hot, before settling into a sermonette on why you MUST watch HBO this Sunday.

Stick around after I'm gone to hear Chip explain the difference between irony, coincidence and stupid.

Remember you can subscribe to these podcasts. d/l

Fall TV preview: Hear what I showed at Watch the Pilots

If you were among the 200-plus attendees at my fourth annual "Watch the Pilots with Aaron" event last week at the fabulous Legends 14, then you already know what shows I find really promising. If you missed it, well, what's your excuse? And don't give me that "I live in Portland" line ... we all know the airports are open!

Anyway, here's a little taste of what people saw. This week on the "Walt Bodine Show," I played audio from three of my favorite shows debuting this fall. These are the exact clips as they were screened at "Watch the Pilots," and I explain what I liked about them.

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"The Jay Leno Show": The same show you've always loved/hated, now with 90% less desk!

I liked Jay Leno on the Tonight Show. Therefore, I liked "The Jay Leno Show." It's exactly the same, minus the words "on the Tonight"!

Well, not exactly the same, but you get the point. Anyway, after I filed my story for tomorrow's Kansas City Star, I spoke to WTOP Radio about my first impressions. Click the Podcast bar to hear.

I posted this to Twitter and it got mad RTs, so I should follow up with the exact quotage.

Jay, a few minutes ago: “This is not another annoying promo, this is the actual show!”

David Letterman, on his first CBS show, 1993: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a promo. This is the actual show!"

Also, kudos to various sharp-eyed viewers who noticed the desk making an appearance for "Headlines." Way to hedge your bets, Jay! (In fairness, "Real Time With Bill Maher" has been experimenting with the two-chairs format, too. It's only a big deal if your network bothers to promote your show.)

Anyway, here's the review I just sent to the desk -- not that desk, the copy desk:

Why Jay Leno is almost certainly going to be a hit

Yes, I have heard what you have heard: NBC's competition griping that no matter what Jay Leno does this week as host of his own prime-time nightly program, NBC will declare it a success. Yes, I do remember the NBC press release declaring Conan O'Brien the "King of Late Night" after one week of "The Tonight Show." I agree, that was just wrong -- and I love the new "Tonight Show." (Kudos to NBC's Rick Ludwin for saying if he had it to do over again, that press release would have never gone out.)

But that doesn't negate the following fact: "The Jay Leno Show" is almost certainly going to be a hit, because if by "a hit" you mean it makes a pile of money, then the low cost of the show and the almost predictable audience that's going to tune in for Jay will ensure it covers its nut, and then some. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that NBC is making more money at 9 p.m. than any other hour of the day except, maybe, 7 a.m.

Anyway, click the podcast bar to hear my interview today with KNX Radio about "The Jay Leno Show."

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