Posted 7:24 PM by Gene

Tonight, network news had a nervous breakdown.

It is hard to believe THE LORD GOD SUMNER will persist with Danno much longer. He may live to be 150, but this very bad year for VIACON -- a richly deserved very bad year -- has perhaps knocked a few years off His life expectancy. (Unless, of course, being Ken Auletta's favorite God, He lives forever.) Possibly God is afraid of challenging the spectre of Murrow, but that ectoplasm doesn't live at Black Rock anymore and wouldn't DARE approach 1515 Broadway; nonetheless anyone who's read the comedy Hamlet knows ghosts can inflict some pretty nasty business on the living. Then again, Kenneth clearly shares THE LORD GOD SUMNER's politics -- and why chase out a certifiable, uh, GENIUS? Still it's not too soon to consider the future of VIACON NETWORK'S EVENING NEWS sans Dan. Who will replace him? John Roberts? A girly man. Bob Schieffer? His political bona fides are as suspect as Danno's, and besides, he's "old." Indeed one can't imagine anyone on the bench with the "heft" of the Decayed Triumvirate, and without commanding figures the nightly network "news" will sink into irrelevance, the core hard-news audience having already migrated to cable, and the indifferent no longer willing to be bothered.

P. S. VIACON CENTRAL was the old HQ of -- W. T. GRANT. Hmmmmmm.