cindy adams

After a few weeks of rumors, denials, and "will she or won't she" talk, it looks like Governor Sarah Palin is finally set to appear on NBC's Saturday Night Live.

The Alaskan Governor and VP candidate will appear on the October 25 episode, according to Cindy Adams at The New York Post. If that wasn't exciting enough, this is the same episode that Jon Hamm will host, so I bet we can look forward to a Mad Men parody. Wouldn't it be great if Palin could appear in that sketch? Maybe she could play Joan Holloway. The mind reels.

Of course, she'll probably appear in the cold open, I'm guessing alongside Tina Fey and her fake Palin, similar to the time that Hillary Clinton appeared alongside Amy Poehler and gave her tips on how to play her.

I wonder if Palin will change the opening to the show and say something like "LIVE FROM GODLESS NEW YORK, HOME OF THE MEDIA ELITE, IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE!"

We've been hearing a lot of stories about Jay Leno and what he will (or won't) do after Conan O'Brien takes over The Tonight Show in 2009. Could he move to another network?

On the heels of news that NBC might be building Conan O'Brien a new studio on the Universal lot (O'Brien will probably have to move from New York to L.A. when he takes over the show) comes word from gossiper Cindy Adams that Leno might be moving to FOX. Adams says that there's no way that Leno is going to retire (Leno is making more and more jokes about leaving NBC lately, and you can tell it's not all in jest), and the best odds are that FOX will want to get back into the late night game.

FOX makes the most sense. He certainly wouldn't go to CBS since Letterman has 11:30 (and produces the 12:30 show). Would ABC want to get rid of Kimmel in some way to make room for Leno?

That's the opinion of New York Post columnist Cindy Adams.

Besides the hype and media attention and marketing mistakes made by CBS, Adams thinks that it's Couric's voice is turning off viewers. That regular network news viewers want the stronger, deeper voice of a male anchor like Charles Gibson or Brian Williams.

In today's New York Post Cindy Adams gets the story behind the story of Leno's quiet abdication of his late night throne to Conan. While it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, Leno had no intention of retiring in 2009. The decision to hand the 11:30 reigns over to Conan was made by network executives who were interested in capturing a younger demographic. NBC could hold on to Leno, but would owe Conan a major default fee.

Adams reports that ABC and Fox are both interested in scooping Leno up if NBC really does kick him to the curb in two years, which it probably will considering this move has been public for nearly three years now. Carson Daly and Jimmy Fallon have already thrown their hats into the ring for Conan's old slot. Things could get even wilder in late night if Letterman announces his retirement. (...a big "if"...) Carson retired when he was 67. Dave turns 60 in April so he's got a few more years in him, but sooner rather than later, this playing field is going to be wide open.

It's T-minus two months and counting until Katie Couric's NBC contract expires and we finally hear about what her future plans are. I say May can't come soon enough. How many times over the last year or so have we heard or read the words "Couric is the leading candidate to anchor the CBS Evening News after her contract expires," or something along those lines? Look, it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things whether she takes the job or not; the world will still rotate on its axis, babies will still be born, and George Clooney will continue to be a self-righteous windbag.

Which is why this missive from the New York Post's resident yenta, Cindy Adams, strikes me as a bit ridiculous. I mean, the article doesn't state any facts or even reveal any new rumors. This is just Cindy's impression of what she thinks will happen with Katie, after being interviewed by the Today anchor about her dog book. No chatter, no nothing. Just Cindy's half-baked opinion. And TVNewser reports this as if this is a big deal. It's not.  It's the musings of a gossip.

So is someone going to report on my complaining about Cindy's guess about Katie? God, I hope not.