Prime Time

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.

For the second week in a row, Baltimore got some prime-time, Sunday-night love on high-end cable TV. Two weeks ago, Lutherville got a mention on "Mad Men. " Granted, it was a throwaway line, but a mention is a mention in self-conscious Baltimore -- and its north county cousins. This Sunday, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco and running back Ray Rice got the shoutout on HBO's "VEEP," which is made in Maryland. The mention came when Vice President Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus)

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"...

At first, it seemed as if Rick Santorum was questioning President Barack Obama's religious faith. Now, it appears that what he meant was to question the faith of all Americans who believe clean water, air and land is in the public interest. For someone running for secular office, the former Pennsylvania senator has expressed a lot of thoughts about Catholicism, Christianity and religion in general, but even his supporters must have been surprised when he denounced President Obama as embracing a "phony theology" during a recent campaign appearance in Ohio.

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.

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."

ON AND OFF THE AIR:* His name sounds more like an actor in some ponderous BBC drama, but Garth Brooks is really hot stuff in the American country music world. So there's no surprise that he is getting his first prime time network special at 9 tonight on NBC (Channel 2)."This is Garth Brooks" includes footage from a summer concert in Dallas -- including big hits "If Tomorrow Never Comes," "Friends in Low Places" and "The Dance."But interviews with the performer, family and friends also profile the artist who swept last year's Academy of Country Music Awards.

The Atlanta Braves said yesterday that Deion Sanders was their starting left fielder and leadoff hitter.With that, the Atlanta Falcons' "Prime Time" cornerback had accomplished his goal: becoming the first pro athlete to play football and baseball in the same city, on the same field.Gene Conley had pitched for the Braves in Boston and played basketball for the Celtics there, but on different playing surfaces."It's one of the biggest accomplishments of my life, probably the biggest," said Sanders, the Falcons' No. 1 National Football League draft pick two years ago. "It's like the motto I've got taped inside my football helmet: You gotta believe."

THERE IS A SLIGHT paunch around the belt now, but the jacket that covers it is still a flashy double-breasted model, its shade of dark blue contrasting smartly with the bright red of the striped shirt, dotted tie and patterned socks.There are some sags and wrinkles in the face, yet it retains an elemental boyishness. And though thick glasses often block the view of the always-hooded eyes, somewhere back there you can still catch a glint of merriment.It's been a quarter century since David Frost first sprang upon the consciousness of the American public, seemingly the model of modern English wit as he hosted the satirical, acerbic "That Was the Week That Was," a brilliant bit of political parody that blazed across prime time like a shooting star in 1964 and 1965.

As if NBC didn't have enough trouble selling its TripleCast -- the $125, three-channel, pay-per-view, oh-my-gosh-I-can't-miss-a-minute-of-the-Olympics package -- along comes the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs.Yesterday, the department served notices of violation under the New York City Consumer Protection Law on NBC and Cablevision, partners in the TripleCast, The Associated Press reported. The city charges deceptive advertising. TripleCast ads, the department says, don't say that events after 5 p.m. will be taped replays.

Editor's note: This is Bill Burt's second column in the Baltimore Sun. He is executive sports editor of The Eagle-Tribune. He has covered the Patriots and the NFL for 21 years. He has covered six Super Bowls, including the Ravens' win over the Giants in Tampa Bay in 2001. You can email Bill Burt at bburt@eagletribune.com .   Here we go again. The only thing missing this morning is Bill Murray's character, weatherman Phil Connors, in “Ground Hog Day,” slamming the clock-radio realizing he is reliving Feb. 2 all over again.

Oh, that's right. Cafe Hon is a restaurant. It would have been easy, last year, to mistake Denise Whiting's Hampden establishment for almost anything else. It was only in November, when Whiting announced she was rescinding her controversial "hon" trademark, that the municipal emergency surrounding Cafe Hon subsided. Two months after the TV show "Kitchen Nightmares" gave it a wholesale makeover, Cafe Hon has settled back nicely into its primary business of serving food to customers — lots of them, too. On recent visits spanning several weeks, the Hampden restaurant was full of patrons, many but by no means all of them families with young children.

The Ravens-San Diego Chargers game, set for next Sunday night on NBC, will remain in primetime. There was plenty of speculation that the game, which is scheduled for an 8:20 p.m. kickoff, would be moved to the afternoon in favor of the game between the New England Patriots and Denver Broncos, pitting quarterbacks Tom Brady and Tim Tebow. However, no changes will be made, not that the Ravens were too concerned about the matter. "We're a team that loves to play football regardless of what time," said Ravens safety Ed Reed.

It's a good thing I like the Muppets, because there was no escaping them Thursday on the NFL Network. Ads for their movie, “The Muppets” were all over the screen as sponsor of the NFL Network's “Gameday” show that started at 10 a.m. from Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium. And then, Kermit and the gang were back as sponsor of the pregame show at 8 p.m. Every time I looked at the screen Thursday, I saw a furry, crazed character. But that's OK, and not just because the Muppets make me smile.

Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf are not my favorite announcers - far from it. But give them and their producers credit Sunday: While it wasn't their main story line, they did include in their opening remarks Sunday a description the Baltimore Ravens troubling pattern this year of letting down after big wins.  And that was the same sad story for Sunday's 22-17 loss to the Seattle Seahawks. They didn't nail it, but at least they got a piece of it right in their pre-kick-off set-up.

Bob Costas is one of television's most thoughtful and engaging sports commentators. His essays, analyses and interviews for NBC Sports are in a league of their own. He understands the sociology and poetry of sports like few others - and is one of the reasons NBC's Sunday Night football package is headed for a second straight year as the highest rated show on prime-time television. The winner of 22 Emmys talked to the Sun last week about the Ravens-Steelers matchup -- and why this rivalry almost always seems to make for great TV. Q. In Baltimore, at least, Sunday's matchup feels like something more than just a football game.

Television has often been accused of harming the standards of reading in this country. Now the argument can be made that it's really the other way around, that it's reading that doing damage to television.The prime evidence is a miniseries which will be begin broadcasting on NBC this weekend. It's called "Lucky/Chances" and at six hours is one of the very few stories deemed worthy of more than four hours of screen time.It is also one of the worst pieces of garbage ever to be seen inprime time.

This year, I gave up reporting cable news ratings every month. The numbers and spin tell us about the horse race to some extent. But what they mainly do is distract us from the important moral and cultural stories of the way these channels are warping our view of the world with their ideological and show biz priorities rather than any genuine commitment to news and information. But there are ratings, and then, there are ratings. And the October numbers that just came out offer a sobering snapshot of just how badly CNN's misadventures in programming are going -- even as they cheapen their news brand identity to try and find larger audiences.

As he listened to his quarterback Joe Flacco speak to reporters and waited his turn at the podium following his team's 30-27 comeback victory over the Arizona Cardinals Sunday, Ravens coach John Harbaugh stole a couple of quick glances at a corner television, which was tuned in to the Pittsburgh Steelers' eventual victory over the New England Patriots. For the rest of this week, there will no ambiguity as to where the Ravens' focus lies. While always-entertaining linebacker Terrell Suggs may have been overstating things slightly when he guaranteed that the "whole NFL shuts down just for that game," there is no question that the Ravens-Steelers prime-time showdown Sunday at Heinz Field will not only add another chapter to arguably the league's most intense rivalry, but it could go a long way in determining the winner of the AFC North.