TVSquad

The Space Shuttle Discovery was supposed to launch around 1:30 this morning, but bad weather in Florida means it has been put off until the same time tonight. On board will be the COLBERT, the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, named after the host of a certain late night comedy show. In this video, that host thanks NASA.

Update: tonight's launch has been scrubbed.

Everyone is always up in arms about the Nielsen ratings, saying they don't accurately represent the shows that a lot of people like or aren't measured correctly or simply don't matter in this age of DVRs, iTunes, network web sites, and DVDs.

Now it looks like the networks are giving a thought to providing an alternative. CBS, NBC, Disney, News Corp, Discovery, Time Warner, and Viacom are getting together and hope to have some sort of plan on what the "consortium" will do by the end of September. A VP at Starcom MediaVest, one of the companies involved, says that they don't necessarily want to replace Nielsen but there's no reason why another company can't "come in and do both [TV measurement and digital measurement]"

[via TV Tattle]

Usually I post videos that I think are funny, interesting, clever, or maybe important. This one I'm posting because it's unfunny, silly, and only important because it shows what the Tonight Show is like now (unfortunately).

Last week Discovery had Shark Week. Last night, Conan showed up a preview of Bark Week. Yeah, a week dedicated to tree bark. This is one of the reasons I can't get into the Tonight Show. It seems like they're throwing every lame idea for a video into the show. Conan and Andy are funny guys, but there's so much on this show that just kills it (and I still hate Conan's mugging after every video and joke, and his painful introductions to bits).

Even though they have experts telling us that the volunteers in The Colony will internalize their situation and begin to think of it as their real lives, I don't believe it. The premise of the show is to take ten ordinary people from a variety of backgrounds and sequester them in a warehouse. Then we'll all pretend it's post apocalyptic Los Angeles and they have to find a way to survive.

But it's just not working. Two episodes in, and I'm not buying it at all. I'm not even really buying that the volunteers are buying into it. They seem just like any other reality show participant, enjoying their moment in the spotlight. The producers have rigged up marauders to go after them, but does anyone really believe they're in any danger? A true post-apocalyptic scenario would be a nightmare of terrors and fears with mortal peril at every turn.

When Billy Mays died a couple of weeks ago, we were trying to figure out what exactly Discovery was going to do about their show Pitchmen. Would they cancel the show? Renew it with just Anthony Sullivan as the star? Try to find another pitchman (or woman)? Turns out it's going to be none of those things.

Instead, the show is going to continue with the addition of Mays' son, Billy Mays III. No word yet if the younger Mays will step into the co-host role with Sullivan or be involved in other ways, but I'm sure he'll have at least some on-screen role.

Jessica Alba could be facing vandalism and tagging charges for gluing several "shark conservation posters" all over Oklahoma City in an organized stunt.

Alba apologized for her participation in the incident after she was busted online. She's in Oklahoma City shooting her new movie and somehow got lured into this sticky "save the shark" poster campaign.

The city wide display is an obvious move for shark preservationists, as millions of the large fish are slaughtered every year by heavy hunting off the Oklahoma coast. Also, the classic film Jaws was set near Tulsa.

I can juggle a little bit, and one thing I can do it juggle a loaf of bread, a can of soda, and a piece of candy. It took a while to get used to the difference weights and sizes, but it was easy compared to this. It's Penn Jillette, juggling broken bottles, a preview of a new "Las Vegas" episode of TLC's Time Warp that will air on June 17. I guess it's one of those things where you have to think that you're still juggling bottles that aren't broken or you'll lose your concentration.

Can't embed that video, but here's Penn doing the same thing in London a while back.

There's a famous scene in The Godfather: Part III -- the only really memorable one -- where Michael Corleone says, "Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in." I thought of that when I read that Oprah Winfrey may not be ending her talk show in 2011 after all. What? I thought it was a done deal, but no. Every time I think she's done, she's back again.

When asked by Access Hollywood about The Oprah Winfrey Show ending in 2011, Ms. W said, "I'm not done." Well, you sure could have knocked me over with a feather. I mean, really, I understand that it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind, but I really thought Oprah had other worlds to conquer, other fish to fry.

At the beginning of the year the beautiful and sexy Jay Black presented a wonderful dissertation on the state of channel drift in cable television that discussed many of the reasons for this phenomenon. Being someone who likes to jump on an idea and trample it to death, I decided to expand on Jay's initial premise and provide some specific examples of cable networks that have drifted one way or another. Yet, being someone who likes to add something to an existing idea before the trampling begins, I decided a twist was in order.

Since a drift can range from 'small, but noticeable' to 'am I on the right channel?' a ratings system needed to be designed to determine how far a channel has gotten away from its origins. So, in the fifteen examples I list after the jump, you will see one of four categories...Minor Shift, Moderate Shift, Major Shift and Mother of All Channel Shifts. It is these four categories that you can use to agree or disagree with my findings once they are presented. So, without a continuing narration, here are the cable networks that have encountered some sort of channel drift.

When I saw the headline that Discovery Channel was working on a Da Vinci series, my first thought was that they were finally dipping their toes in the scripted drama pool. Because, really, there's some mileage to be had with a show about Da Vinci, don't ya think? And with other cable channels having success in the fiction department, it doesn't seem an unreasonable idea for Discovery to join the fray.

Alas, that's not what we have here. It's still a pretty good idea though. A team has been assembled and they will be tasked with taking the original designs of Da Vinci and building them with modern tools to see if they really work. The team will be comprised of a rocket scientist, a special effects expert, and an in-the-garage inventor. The show is tentatively titled Doing Da Vinci, but I suspect that will change. Somewhere in the development process someone is going to point out that, "It might mean something different than what you think it means."

Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Andy DeHart, a shark expert who currently works at the National Aquarium in Washington, D.C. Dehart talked to me about his first experience with sharks (when he was five!), about his interest in conservation of the species, and about Shark Week, Discovery's annual documentary series (in its 21st year this summer). Other than Big Brother, Shark Week is the only reason I turn on the TV in the summer. I was pretty excited to talk to him about this year's event.

The 21st annual Shark Week is coming this summer to Discovery. Les Stroud (Survivorman) and Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs) will join Adam Savage and Jamie Hyman (MythBusters) and many more experts on excursions to Bahamas, South Africa, the Arctic, Australia and a whole lot of places in between. This year they will spotlight lesser-known and unusual sharks, address myths about sharks, and educate the public on the conservation of sharks.

Shark Week will air July 27 to August 2nd. Sunday through Friday programming will run from 7 p.m. till midnight ET/PT. And on Saturday programming will run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. ET/PT.

Find out what show I'm looking forward to and what other shows Discovery has planned after the jump.

On Tuesday , June 17th at 10 p.m. an all new season of After the Catch will premiere. This five-part series, airing each week after Deadliest Catch, will look deeper into the most dangerous jobs and people who do them. One of these behind-the-scenes looks will feature Captain Phil Harris and Gloucester's legendary fishermen. The captain will sit down with Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs for an interview. Rowe will also talk to the crew, author Spike Walker and Dutch Harbor bartender Lisa Roberts for the inside scoop on what life is really like in the port town.

This summer Discovery is launching a "green" television channel, called Planet Green. ABC newsman Bob Woodruff is slated to anchor an eco-friendly newscast for the new network. The newscast is described as "in-depth news for half an hour each week."

It'll be interesting to see what the story count is for this half hour of news. CBS Sunday Morning is something that I would consider to look "in-depth" at stories and it takes an hour-and-a-half to do that each week. The "green" newscast will focus on scientific analysis, as well as debates on issues. It's being produced by ABC News, where Woodruff is a correspondent.

This is a very different direction for Woodruff, who was briefly co-anchor of ABC World News Tonight until he was seriously injured in a roadside bombing in Iraq.

If you turned on your TV over the weekend, you probably noticed that Discovery had gone all Deadliest Catch, all the time. That was, of course, because the new season is upon us today. That's a good thing, because it really is the best of the deadliest, scariest, dirtiest, frozenest job-based programming. To get ready for the big event, I thought I'd toss up this little video from youtube.

As part of the background filming for the show, the Discovery crew headed out to one of the local watering holes, J. R. Phinickeys, with Josh from the Cornelia Marie. After the jump, you get a look at a whole lot of flaming monkey shots being set ablaze. You'll also see the Discovery camera man on the left, and Josh coming in to high five the bartender at the end. One more reason to order up that Discovery HD.