The Fall TV season begins in earnest next week (though the CW and NBC jumped the gun and began showing off their new shows this week) which means we're all about to be bombarded with analysis of Nielsen overnight ratings (not to mention DVR ratings). But unlike box office receipts, few people really know what it means when you get a 1.4 rating / 4 share of the Adult 18-49 market with 2.989 million viewers. But you know who does know? ESPN's puppets. And they're happy to explain it to you: more ›

It's no surprise why TV news divisions love winter weather events like Snowmageddon/Snowpocalypse 2010—keep hyping it, viewers keep tuning to see what will unfold! Storm Field, weather man (and son of Dr. Frank!) tells the NY Times, "There was a point — I think this goes back 20 years or more — when you had consultants coming in, telling stations weather was something important and you should move it up in the show.... I had these moments where I thought they wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t get on the air like Crazy Eddie and scream, ‘It’s coming, it’s coming, white death from the sky.’" Wait, like this infamous AccuWeather.com guy? more ›

Yes, Michael Phelps's quest to win eight gold medals has helped give NBC much higher than expected ratings for the Beijing Olympics. And his eighth gold medal on Saturday was a bonanza. According to Variety, "You have to go back to 1990 — when Phelps himself was 4 years old — to find the last time NBC drew a larger aud for a Saturday program. That was with an episode of 'Golden Girls' spinoff 'Empty Nest,' which averaged 31.4 million viewers." Viva Dreyfuss! You can watch Phelps' various races here or you can revel in the New Yorker's Nancy Franklin's complaints about the Olympics telecast (Gawker says the review is so curmudgeonly, it "sounds… very New Yorker circa 1990!"). more ›