Viewers

Top TV shows for the week of Nov. 5-11, according to A.C. Nielsen Co.: ShowNetworkViewers* 1CSI: Crime Scene InvestigationCBS21.9 2Without a TraceCBS21.7 3Dancing with the Stars, MondayABC20.5 4Grey's AnatomyABC19.5 5Desperate HousewivesABC18.6 6HouseFox18.2 7NCISCBS18.1 8Sunday Night FootballNBC17.3 9Dancing with the Stars, TuesdayABC17.1 10CMA AwardsABC15.9 *The listing gives estimated numbers of viewers (in millions) for each show last week.

WASHINGTON -- Although I oppose the death penalty, I toyed for many years with the notion that all executions should be televised. The video of Saddam Hussein's hanging that has popped up on Internet sites has disabused me of that notion. Too many viewers appear to be enjoying it too much. I found at least one video-sharing Web site that was offering the event as a download in two portable formats. Web-savvy kids can share Mr. Hussein's last moments with each other on the video iPods that Santa brought.

Top TV shows for the week of Dec. 17-23, according to A.C. Nielsen Co.: ShowNetworkViewers* 1Sunday Night Football: Redskins vs. VikingsNBC14.1 2CSI: MiamiCBS14.0 360 MinutesCBS13.5 4NCISCBS13.0 5Criminal MindsCBS11.6 6Biggest Loser 4NBC11.4 7Two and a Half Men, Monday, 9:30 p.m.CBS11.2 8CSI: NYCBS11.2 9Two and a Half MenCBS11.1 10The UnitCBS10.7 The listing gives estimated numbers of viewers (in millions) for each show last week.

Viewers who tuned into yesterday's Orioles season opener expecting new/old analyst Mike Flanagan to bowl them over with dazzling stuff probably came away disappointed.And that's no dig at Flanagan, who starts his third tour of duty in the booth, wrapped around turns as the Orioles' pitching coach. The team's all-time winningest left-hander is a fount of baseball knowledge and possesses one of the game's quickest wits as well.For instance, while Flanagan, fellow analyst Jim Palmer and play-by-play man Michael Reghi were discussing Arthur Rhodes and his off-season weight loss, Flanagan dropped in that he had once lost 15 pounds during an off-season.

ABC, NBC and CBS all make some version of the on-air claim, "More Americans get their news from (fill in the blank) than anywhere else." Fox and ESPN also make the same kind of claim on sports coverage.But when it comes to the news that will be made at Camden Yards tomorrow night when the Orioles play a Cuban all-star team, the network with the most legitimate right to make the claim is one you might not recognize: Univision, the nation's leading Spanish-language network.Now under the leadership of Henry Cisneros, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Univision reaches 92 percent of Hispanic households in the United States -- a market of 30 million and growing at five times the rate of the non-Hispanic population.

NEW YORK -- CNN's Headline News channel unveiled a make-over yesterday that it hopes will help it boost flagging viewership at a time of increased cable news competition.The changes, to be seen by the public next week, are largely cosmetic and designed to give the channel less of a canned, predictable feeling, said people familiar with the situation. The overhaul follows on the heels of changes at sister channel CNN, which is also trying to update its look.CNN Headline News' new look, according to sources, will include color-coded graphics and a more modern set.The channel has already made some changes in its content in the past year, boosting the number of stories in each half-hour segment by 50 percent.

WASHINGTON -- Those tuning in to the impeachment trial this week may find themselves wondering: Is Sen. Jesse Helms dozing off? Is Sen. Edward M. Kennedy throwing an intimidating glare at the House managers? Are other senators nodding in agreement? Fidgeting? Yawning? Sneezing? Rolling their eyes incredulously?Who knows? Certainly not the average American sitting in the TV room.Senate rules prevent television cameras from showing much more than a static shot of the speaker's podium, where prosecutor after prosecutor has spoken at length about why Bill Clinton should no longer be president.

One thing you can say about "Strangers With Candy" is that the premise of this new series from the Comedy Central cable channel is certainly original."

MOSCOW -- Sergei Dorenko, television news commentator, sighs as he considers the cross he bears: Every week, as 40 million viewers across Russia watch in disgust and satisfaction, he crucifies Moscow Mayor Yuri M. Luzhkov."

If you watch "The Rosie O'Donnell Show," you might know the face, if not the name, of Judy Molnar. Since late December, Molnar has been a regular presence in her new position as Chub Club coach.After eight years at a St. Joseph, Mich., advertising company, Molnar has moved to Manhattan. Her career change came after her 150-pound weight loss caught the eye of O'Donnell's producers last fall. She was on her way to the Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Hawaii.Here was a woman who had lost 150 pounds "one doughnut at a time," as she is fond of saying.

Burnett Roane, a retired bricklayer in Waverly, figured he'd be watching a sporting event or a classic Hollywood movie by evening on his newly converted TV. Gone would be the days, he hoped, of jiggling rabbit ears sitting above his back bedroom TV in order to get a sharp picture. It didn't happen. Roane, a 63-year-old widower and great-grandfather, was anticipating a free, in-home converter installation by AmeriCorps volunteers who were to switch his TV from analog to digital television signal reception.

A small Maryland-based cable channel and a large Pennsylvania family have improbably teamed up to supplant Hollywood starlets such as Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton as the new epicenter of our celebrity-obsessed pop culture. TLC, which began in 1980 with the educational mission implied by its title as The Learning Channel, has a megahit on its hands with the fifth season of Jon & Kate Plus 8, a no-holds-barred reality TV series about a suddenly unhappily married husband and wife, Jon and Kate Gosselin, and their eight children (sextuplets and twins)

Ted Koppel retired from ABC News a few years back, but he certainly hasn't stopped delivering thoughtful and serious journalism. And he continues that tonight with a new documentary, Koppel on Discovery: The Last Lynching. There is a warning that some viewers might find scenes and language "disturbing." Consider whether you want your children seeing images of lynchings of black citizens in 20th-century America and hearing the "n" word. Discovery is airing the program at 10 p.m., as late as possible to keep it from young children, but still in prime time when the greatest number of viewers are available.

Going into last night's debate, some argued that Barack Obama would come out ahead unless John McCain clearly dominated their faceoff, largely over foreign policy, his area of expertise. By that standard, Obama may have gained an advantage. McCain didn't blow him off the stage and, at least at the outset, when the audience may have been largest, McCain was somewhat less focused than his Democratic rival. But overall, the 90-minute encounter was a lot like the exceedingly tight 2008 election: a nearly even contest between two closely matched candidates, each of whom had his moments and avoided obvious blunders.

Stars - and a blue-haired boy - land in Venice You'd think George Clooney and Brad Pitt making two appearances at the Venice Film Festival this week would be enough of a stir. But no, Us magazine went to the trouble to report on its Web site that Maddox Jolie-Pitt, the 7-year-old son of the actor and Angelina Jolie, was spotted sporting a blue mohawk as he and brother Pax were boarding a speedboat with their dad. The Clooney-Pitt appearances include a visit to the red carpet tonight when the Coen brothers film, Burn After Reading, in which they star, opens the festival.

Next week, Katie Couric will celebrate her second anniversary as anchor of the CBS Evening News. Given the nature of that tenure, however, "celebrate" might not be quite the right word. "Can't win for losing," is the phrase Couric used to describe parts of the past two years in an interview last week. "It's been, quite candidly, pretty tough some of the time for me in my new job," she says. After a cosmic build-up in the summer of 2006 and a huge, first-night tune-in of about 13 million viewers to see the popular star of NBC's Today show assume the chair once held by Walter Cronkite, the wheels quickly started to come off Couric's new show.

The Hollywood writers' strike safely behind them, Baltimore's TV watchers are flocking back to the network affiliates, with viewing levels up 2.3 percent over last year, according to figures released this week by A.C. Nielsen, a national ratings firm. The increase marked the first time since May of last year that overall ratings had gone up during the "sweeps" months of February, May and November, when stations traditionally put on their best programming and set advertising rates. In February, for instance, the overall audience was down 3 percent from a year ago. In November, the audience was down 5 percent.

The news division at WMAR, Channel 2, has spent nearly a generation in Baltimore's ratings basement. But this month's newsroom shake-up suggests management still believes it can pull the station out of the hole it has been in for the better part of two decades. "My focus is 100 percent on trying to get those ratings up," says WMAR Vice President and General Manager Bill Hooper, who this month has fired the station's news director and decided not to renew the contract of veteran anchor Brian Wood.

The premiere of Sunday night's series finale of HBO's The Wire was seen by 1.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. That represents about 4 percent of homes that subscribe to HBO - or less than 1 percent of the American TV audience. By comparison, the June 10 finale of HBO's crime drama The Sopranos drew 11.9 million viewers, according to Nielsen. The cable channel's surfer series John from Cincinnati was seen by 1.2 million viewers Aug. 12 - the last night it aired before being canceled at the end of its first season.

One of the most disturbing media trends of the past two decades has been the continuous cutback in TV coverage of presidential politics. Nowhere was this more apparent during the last two election cycles than in the networks' dearth of national convention coverage. The reason most often given by news executives: lack of viewer interest. But this year, news outlets on the Internet and long-established cable TV channels have greatly expanded the amount of coverage, and viewers are responding in record numbers.