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NEW YORK -- Just how much news can television use?As the network news divisions add programs from early morning through the entire night and continue to seek the financial advantages of using news programs instead of increasingly costly entertainment shows, the limit to the air time available to these programs appears to be nowhere in sight.All three big networks now have all-night newscasts. In the fall, NBC will break the Saturday morning tradition of children's cartoon shows to add a Saturday version of "Today," a move that most analysts expect will be highly successful among adults.

The Ravens won't get their season-opening home game, like reigning Super Bowl champions have for the last decade. But they will play four prime-time games, including a Thanksgiving night showdown at home against the rival Pittsburgh Steelers, and a much-anticipated rematch with the Denver Broncos to kick off their Super Bowl XLVII title defense. The NFL released its regular-season schedule Thursday and it's highlighted by the Ravens' Sept. 5 matchup against the Broncos, a pairing that produced one of the league's most memorable games from the 2012-13 campaign.

If there is one television sportscaster to whom the adjective “legendary” can honestly be applied, it is Al Michaels, play-by-play announcer of NBC's “Sunday Night Football.” From almost two decades in the booth at ABC's “Monday night Football,” to his “Do you believe in miracles?” call of the U.S. victory over the Russian hockey team at 1980 Olympics, Michaels' resume and the history of the biggest moments of TV sports are practically one and the same. Michaels and his colleagues on NBC Sunday Night Football will be in Baltimore when the Ravens meet the New England Patriots.

Al Jazeera America Thursday announced that veteran business reporter Ali Velshi will join the Qatar-owned channel to develop and host a daily prime-time business show. The announcement comes one day after news that Velshi was leaving CNN where he served as business reporter and show host for almost 12 years. Velshi's last day at CNN will be Friday, according to TVNewser. Here's the release from Al Jazeera America: Al Jazeera America, the new US-based news channel set to launch later this year, today announced that Ali Velshi, CNN's former chief business correspondent and anchor of “Your Money” and CNN International's “World Business Today,” has joined Al Jazeera America to develop and host a daily primetime business program.

The Baltimore Ravens will probably never be "America's Team," as the Dallas Cowboys came to be known in the 1970s, thanks to their frequent appearances in nationally televised games. But with the Ravens appearing in prime-time matchups three of the first four weeks of the NFL season - starting with tonight's season opener of ESPN's "Monday Night Football" - no team will have a higher national profile during the first month of NFL play. What makes that all the more remarkable is that the defending AFC North champs are a small-market franchise in a world where media market size largely determines which teams are featured in night-time, national TV games.

What's happening tonight is either the greatest development since the Internet or another sign of the apocalypse, depending on your point of view. Now instead of wasting your time watching "Survivor" or some dopey sitcom, you can waste your time watching beefy guys in expensive suits talk on their cell phones and become instant millionaires while a slew of network analysts drone on and on about how tough the beefy guys are and what a great "motor"...

NBC will air a one-hour look at the career of Michael Phelps at 7 tonight, the network announced late Saturday night. "Michael Phelps: America's Golden Champion" will feature what the NBC Sports is calling an "exclusive" interview by Bob Costas done with the Phelps at the end of his final day of competition Saturday. "America's greatest interviewer sitting down with the world's greatest Olympic champion makes for an inspiring piece of television," NBC Olympics executive producer Jim Bell said in a statement announcing the prime-time special.

I did not think I'd ever see a better medical documentary series than the Emmy-Award-winning “Hopkins 24/7” that aired in 2000 or its sequel, “Hopkins,” which won a Peabody Award in 2008. The backstage access, immediacy and range of gripping real-life drama that ABCNews Executive Producer Terence Wrong and his team captured at Baltimore's world-renowned medical institution were landmark. But with “NY Med,” which premieres at 10 p.m. Tuesday, Wrong surpasses his earlier work in terms of prime-time storytelling without sacrificing any of the cultural seriousness or grand reach of the Hopkins series.

Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana, the executive producers of "Homicide: Life on the Street," return to prime time tonight on BBC America with "Copper," starring Tom Weston-Jones. (That's Weston-Jones sitting with them in the picture above, taken in California where they were promoting the series.) Set in 1864 in New York, the series is cop drama meets frontier saga, and I like it. I loved "Homicide," "Oz" and Levinson's last TV effort, "You Don't Know Jack," a docu-drama look at Dr. Jack Kevorkian, starring Al Pacino, for HBO. But I hated "The Jury," a series the duo did for Fox. They've had some failed projects since "Homicide" and "Oz," but I think "Copper" could be a winner.

It didn't take long for Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon to become a national TV punch line in the wake of her guilty verdict. Thursday night, NBC comedian Jay Leno made her part of his monologue. "I love this story," Leno said near the end of a prime-time monologue filled with jokes about Tiger Woods. "The mayor of Baltimore, a woman named Sheila Dixon, found guilty this week of embezzlement. The mayor! The mayor! Embezzlement for spending $1,000 worth of gift cards intended for the homeless on herself."

The Ravens 2013 preseason schedule is highlighted by a prime-time home game against the Carolina Panthers on Thursday, Aug. 22 at M&T Bank Stadium, the NFL announced today. That game, which will be the third of four preseason games for the Super Bowl XLVII champions, will start at 8 p.m. and be televised by ESPN. The Ravens will open up the preseason against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium. The exact date and time of the game has yet to be announced. In Week Two of the preseason, the Ravens will host the Atlanta Falcons on Thursday, Aug. 15 at M&T Bank Stadium.

The joint appearance by President Obama and Hillary Clinton on “60 Minutes” wasn't about the Democratic nomination in 2016, as some analysts have insisted this weekend. Watching the actual interview Sunday night, I am certain it was about something both much more immediate and long lasting. It was President Obama using TV - and the folks at "60 Minutes" happily allowing themselves to be used - to write the first draft of history on Clinton's performance as secretary of state.

Twitter and web radio carried a new kind of prime-time crime drama in Baltimore Saturday when a Waverly man refused to allow police to serve a warrant and then broadcast the ensuing standoff after a S.W.A.T. team arrived. He was on the air live Saturday night for more than 5 hours, much of it spent talking to a police negotiator before surrendering peacefully. Another day and night in the brave, new world of social media… Frank James MacArthur, a cabdriver, who tweets, blogs and broadcasts on the Internet as The Baltimore Spectator, left the airwaves just before 11 p.m. saying, “All right, it's 10:57.

UPDATE (11 a.m. Nov. 29): Jeff Zucker named head of CNN Of all the major executive, talent and programming moves that CNN has made in the last few years, the expected announcement of Jeff Zucker as the president of CNN Worldwide looks like one of the best. Of course, when you're comparing that to, say, giving the 8 p.m. hour each night to Eliot Spitzer, that might not be such high praise. Seriously, this is a decision that truly matters -- not just for CNN and Time Warner, but for the future of TV journalism.

Former two-sport standout and current NFL Network analyst Deion Sanders, in town for Thursday night's Ravens home game against Cleveland, stopped by Oriole Park at Camden Yards to take batting practice with the Orioles. Some players got a kick out of it -- left-hander Troy Patton asked Sanders for his autograph -- and Orioles manager Buck Showalter, who was Sanders' manager with the Double-A Albany-Colonie Yankees in 1989, reminisced about Sanders' athletic ability, saying that watching Sanders leg out a triple is "still one of the prettiest things I've ever seen.

If there is one television sportscaster to whom the adjective “legendary” can honestly be applied, it is Al Michaels, play-by-play announcer of NBC's “Sunday Night Football.” From almost two decades in the booth at ABC's “Monday night Football,” to his “Do you believe in miracles?” call of the U.S. victory over the Russian hockey team at 1980 Olympics, Michaels' resume and the history of the biggest moments of TV sports are practically one and the same. Michaels and his colleagues on NBC Sunday Night Football will be in Baltimore when the Ravens meet the New England Patriots.

Today's most enticing television is available before prime time (thanks to the football playoffs on NBC and CBS), after prime time (thanks to "Saturday Night Live"), or on cable -- thanks to HBO's "Comic Relief VI."* "AFC playoffs" (12:30 p.m.-conclusion, WMAR, Channel 2) -- The weather forecast up in Buffalo, where the Bills play the Los Angeles Raiders, calls for snow flurries, high wind and bitter cold -- the perfect kind of game to watch on TV. Marv Albert and Paul Maguire have booth duties.

The Baltimore Ravens will probably never be "America's Team," as the Dallas Cowboys came to be known in the 1970s, thanks to their frequent appearances in nationally televised games. But with the Ravens appearing in prime-time matchups three of the first four weeks of the NFL season - starting with tonight's season opener of ESPN's "Monday Night Football" - no team will have a higher national profile during the first month of NFL play. What makes that all the more remarkable is that the defending AFC North champs are a small-market franchise in a world where media market size largely determines which teams are featured in night-time, national TV games.

Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana, the executive producers of "Homicide: Life on the Street," return to prime time tonight on BBC America with "Copper," starring Tom Weston-Jones. (That's Weston-Jones sitting with them in the picture above, taken in California where they were promoting the series.) Set in 1864 in New York, the series is cop drama meets frontier saga, and I like it. I loved "Homicide," "Oz" and Levinson's last TV effort, "You Don't Know Jack," a docu-drama look at Dr. Jack Kevorkian, starring Al Pacino, for HBO. But I hated "The Jury," a series the duo did for Fox. They've had some failed projects since "Homicide" and "Oz," but I think "Copper" could be a winner.