TVSquad

Writing about this is just asking for trouble from the more politically extreme, but it's television news so I'm writing about it. President Barack Obama will be appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman this coming Monday, Sept. 21. He is the sole guest and will take up the full hour of the program.

It is the first time a sitting U.S. President will be appearing on Letterman's CBS show. Obama is likely trying to promote his new health care reform. Usually a television appearance like this one is reserved for those on the campaign trail for the office. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Why stop with Letterman? He could stay another hour on CBS and appear on Craig Ferguson. And why not appear on Leno's new show? Or Conan? Or Jimmy Fallon? Or even Jimmy Kimmel? However, the President is likely a busy man and doesn't want to spread himself too thin. Letterman will do for now.

As I was watching President Obama chat with Jay Leno last night, one thought kept crossing my mind: how unusual it was to see a current president sitting in the same chair as David Spade. It's just odd and somewhat disconcerting to see the man who's the supposed leader of the free world engaging in lighthearted banter with Jay, and responding to the audience when it cheered or booed something. During the third segment, I almost expected to see the flat screen TV behind Jay pop up so they could show a clip from Obama's latest project.

And that's why the appearance was so historic. It doesn't matter how many times a president goes on a talk show before or after he's in office; while in office, pretty much all interviews go to him. It doesn't matter what show it is; it could be a Sunday morning issues show like Meet The Press or a twinkie-fest like Larry King Live. But in just about every case, the interviewer goes to wherever the president is and sits down with him for a quiet, reverent interview.

I get that there's a lot going on, and normally I don't have a problem with the President coming on television to tell us what's up, but I think Obama is looking to get his own weekly show on all four major networks. And I'm sure Fox is just thrilled that he's been picking Tuesday's at 8/7 Central to speak. If you're going to interrupt our regularly scheduled programming, why not do it during the biggest show on television? Gives you the best chance of pissing off the largest number of people who didn't know you were going to be on instead of Ryan Seacrest.

Now with the NCAA playoffs also starting this week, there was a big question as to how the networks were going to respond. Fox's American Idol is a live show, so it's not like it can just be moved around the schedule without some prep work being done. That said, once again Idol will be shifting both of its episodes back a day to accommodate the Presidential Address. Let's take a look at how the networks are responding to this sweeps interruption.

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate followed President Obama's recommendation and approved a delay in the digital TV transition date from February 17 to to June 12. If a similar measure passes in the House, then we all know what that means: four more months of DTV transition ads! Woo hoo!

Seriously, though, will it matter if the transition date is February, June, or sometime in Obama's second administration? At this point, even the most casual observer has figured out that the transition hasn't been communicated very well to the American public. People who have cable or satellite still think that they need to buy a new HDTV or upgrade to digital cable in order to be compliant with the conversion, people who got discount coupons for converters early on have found that the coupons have expired and they can't get more, and the people who have converted are being surprised that some weak stations won't come in due to the "digital cliff effect."