Matt Walsh is guest blogging at GQ

Matt Walsh, creator/star of the Spike TV series Players, is currently guest blogging at GQ.  So far he has used the platform to give readers advice on how to make it through their twenties.

Howard Stern on the Early Show

Howard Stern talks about Jay Leno and the current state of late night television.

Craig Robinson will host Last Comic Standing

NBC announced that Craig Robinson, of The Office, will be the host for the upcoming seventh season of Last Comic Standing, which is set to begin this summer.
(via Hollywood Reporter)

Scott Van Pelt drops f-bomb on Sportscenter

Scott Van Pelt, co-anchor of the 11pm edition of ESPN’s Sportscenter, accidentally said the f-word on Thursday’s show as they were going to a commercial. Later in the show, he issued an apology. I don’t think that this is actually a big deal, but I’m always amused when something like this happens.

GQ interviews FX president John Landgraf

GQ spoke with FX network presient John Landgraf about how the channel takes chances and are quickly becoming the go-to network for quality comedies.

GQ: Our office exploded in joy when you announced you were renewing Archer for a second season. But as of our interview a week ago, Adam Reed sounded pretty nervous about the show’s chances. The ratings are pretty rotten. Why give it another chance?
Landgraf: Ratings are very imprecise; it can take a long time for people to find a show, even if we promote it. We don’t have a great environment to support Archer right now. We had great lead-ins for it the first two weeks with big movie premieres, then it tailed off and now it’s the Olympics, so we took responsibility for the struggles in the ratings. In the second season, we think we’ll have a much more robust environment. We also look at anecdotal information. It’s selling very well on iTunes, it’s getting a lot of streams on Hulu. This week, it outperformed Dimitri Martin and Sarah Silverman on Comedy Central.

GQ: Did the critical reception and cult following help make the case?
Landgraf: We look at the blogs, how people are responding to the show. We really do go online and pay attention to that stuff. We’re trying to do business differently so we can renew shows based on whether they’re good, rather than whether they happen to catch the first wave and get good ratings.

GQ: How much of an incubation period are you willing to get new shows, if they don’t come out the gates quickly?
Landgraf: With a very fragmented marketplace, it’s not like Friends and Seinfeld, you can’t just force-feed a new comedy to thirty million people. But, if something’s really funny, people will find it eventually. Really Funny is a precious resource, there isn’t an abundance of it in the world. But it can take years, you know? When you make a massive investment in a hugely-expensive show with the expensive talent and marketing, you need it to come out of the box really big. We’re in this mode where we’re content to break even and be patient if we really believe in something.

How to watch tv shows and movies online

Lifehacker posted a very informative piece on how to cancel your cable television subscription, and watch most of your favorite shows and movies using a variety of legit sources on the internet. Not everything that they mention is free, but it’s still likely cheaper than your cable bill.

Super Bowl XLIV was the most watched program in US history

Sunday night’s Super Bowl XLIV was viewed by 106.5 million people in the US, becoming the most watched program in US television history. The prior most watched program was the series finale of M*A*S*H, which had 105.97 million viewers when it aired in February 1983.

Super Bowl XLIV is also, obviously, the most watched Super Bowl in history, edging out last year’s Super Bowl which had set the record with 98.7 million viewers.
(via The Hollywood Reporter)

Hulu to charge fees?

According to the L.A. Times, Hulu is considering implementing a monthly fee of $4.99 to access back episodes of television shows. Under the proposed system, users would still be able to view the five most current episodes of shows for free.

New York Times to charge readers for online content

The New York Times announced that they will begin charging non-subscribers to view online content beginning in January 2011. Readers will be able to read an as of yet unspecified number of articles for free each month. To view more articles, readers would have to pay a fee which would give them unlimited access.

NYTimes.com is currently the most widely read newspaper website in the United States.