Audience

Howard Stern, Howie Mandel and Sharon Osbourne continue their talent search -- this week in Austin, Texas. Apparently the show doesn't mind reinforcing stereotypes because the first act of the night is a mariachi band led by a 10-year-old named Sebastien Delacruz. He's adorable and the whole act is just really entertaining. The band gets three "yeses" from the judges and they advance to the next round in Las Vegas. Next up, a cowboy who does impressions, but when he opens his mouth it just sounds like he's mimicking a Southern auctioneer.

If “The Voice” was the NCAA Final Four, my bracket would be looking pretty clutch right about now. If we didn't have enough numbers, during the season finale of “The Biggest Loser,” what with pounds lost, body weight percentage lost, etc., etc., NBC producers must have thought their audience simply wasn't getting enough math in their lives , because, oh Lordy, there was math Tuesday night. After Monday's show, coaches were asked to split 100 points between their two semi-finalists.

"VEEP," the widely-praised Maryland-made comedy starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, got off to a solid start Sunday night with an audience of 1.7 million viewers for two showings. The 10 p.m. showing opposite AMC's  "Mad Men"  drew 1.4 million viewers. "VEEP"  drew 300,000 more viewers than the finale of "Eastbound and Down,"  which aired the previous week in that timeslot for HBO. "Girls,"  another critically-acclaimed HBO comedy, opened the week before with 810,000 viewers in its 10:30 p.m.Sunday timeslot and 1.1 million for two showings.

Most business conferences celebrate success, with speakers who urge attendees to become the next rock stars in their profession. But in Baltimore on Friday, failure will get its due. At BmoreFail, local business leaders and entrepreneurs will expose their biggest mistakes to show how they overcame initial missteps on their path to success. "My philosophy is, how could you ever possibly know success if you don't have any idea about failure," said Tracy Gosson, who founded the nonprofit housing group, Live Baltimore Home Center, in 1997, but left it behind for economic development consulting several years ago. Gosson will be one of the speakers at the conference at the Du Burns Arena in Southeast Baltimore.

If Monday's “The Voice” was a night of shock but little awe, Tuesday night was a night of crappy filler and little justification. After the merciless blow of instant eliminations, Christina Aguilera was called upon to defend herself for her cut of fan-favorite (and probable finalist) Jesse Campbell. She brushed it off, saying “I'm no stranger to controversy. I'm OK with that.” Are you? No one else is OK with it, Christina. No one. The coaches did hold all the power Monday, but Tuesday the audience had a bit more say, with their votes saving one person out of three remaining on Teams Blake and Christina, and the coaches saving one. (I think “The Voice” producers are making the rules up as they go; this is a decidedly different - and more prolonged - format than last year, and not even Wikipedia's charts and infographics are offering any clarification.)

HBO's "Game Change," the docudrama about the John McCain and Sarah Palin presidential campaign in 2008, was a big ratings winner for HBO in its Saturday premiere drawing 2.1 million viewers. That was the largest debut audience for an HBO movie since Something the Lord Made" in 2004, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Read that here . That film about a pioneering medical worker at Johns Hopkins was also filmed in Maryland, by the way. It drew an audience of 2.6 million.

Gov. Martin O'Malley gave his most detailed explanation to date for the evolution of his stance on gay marriage, at the inaugural Baltimore Sun Newsmaker Forum Wednesday evening. Until last year — when he said he would sign a gay marriage bill if passed by the General Assembly — O'Malley had been a public supporter of civil unions. During the hour-long conversation in front of roughly 120 people, the governor said that his long-held private belief in civil marriage for same-sex couples was sacrificed for political goals.

Growing up in Bethesda, Giuliana Rancic thought there was nothing more glamorous than the news women she saw on TV. First at the University of Maryland, College Park, then at graduate school in Washington, she trained to join their ranks, heading with mike and camera to the White House, Pentagon and Capitol Hill. But there was a problem. "I couldn't bring myself to report the news straight," Rancic remembers. "I liked asking senators not just, what do you think of a policy, but what do you do for fun, what's your favorite movie.

Reporter Richard Gorelick reviews Cass McCombs at Ottobar, the other big show Saturday night besides Dru Hill . Cass McCombs played a packed Ottobar Saturday night.  A veteran by now, his seniority was underscored by some of the people on hand to welcome him back to Baltimore - including members of Celebration, Wye Oak and Beach House, none of whom had came together as bands when the native Californian started recording music...

The Ravens-Patriots and Giants-49ers championship games Sunday drew the largest audiences of any shows on television since the Super Bowl, according to Nielsen data released by the NFL. Sunday's games also made for the most watched championship Sunday in three decades. The Ravens loss to the Patriots was seen by 48.7 million viewers, while the Giants victory over the 49ers drew 57.6 million. But the latter was in prime time and went into overtime, which makes a big difference.