headline news

You can't blame Joy Behar for forgetting the name of Colin Quinn's new live show this morning on 'The View' (weekdays 11AM ET on ABC). Not only does she co-host this daily show but she has a show every night over on CNN Headline News too, so she'd probably forget everything if it wasn't in front of her on a blue card (side note: how did blue become the card color of choice for talk show hosts?).

Quinn doesn't let her off the hook though, since they've known each other for years. That's what good friends do: try to insult and embarrass you at every opportunity. That's probably even more so in the world of stand-up comics.

Do you think we need another court show? What if I told you that this new court show was going to be hosted by Nancy Grace.

Yup, Grace is planning to star in her own daily syndicated court show next year. And it has actually gone past just a "talks" stage because Grace has reportedly filmed a presentation to show CBS Television Distribution. The name of the show (right now anyway, this could change) is Swift Justice with Nancy Grace. I guess The Biggest Loser was already taken.

On 9/11, the cable news networks added a news crawl at the bottom of the screen. In those days and weeks after 9/11, it was a very good thing to have, because it gave us updates throughout the day and made you think you were involved. But after a while they seemed like just more screen clutter, another sign that TV networks wanted to look like web sites, and another reason why so many people have ADD. Now it looks like one of the channels has gotten rid of the crawl.

CNN has not only changed their on-screen graphics and fonts, they've also gotten rid of the news crawl. There's still text at the bottom of the screen though. Instead of the crawl CNN now has changing info about the news story they are talking about, reactions from viewers, Twitter and Facebook comments from viewers, etc.

I think this is a good thing. I'm not sure what value having a bunch of comments from viewers at the bottom of the screen is, but I like that there isn't news coming at me from all over the place. It's rather retro. I bet some teenagers can't even remember a cable news channel before the crawl.

At 12:30 p.m. on May 19, Headline News will debut News to Me, a half-hour news program hosted by Eric Lanford and consisting of amateur footage found via the Web and also submitted directly to CNN's I-Report.

According to CNN's press release, the point of this new show is to bring people the best viral videos from the Web so they don't have to surf around and find it on their own. The content used on the show, which will air Saturdays and Sundays at 12:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., will range from the very serious to the very funny. Lanford will also interview some of the folks who submit material through I-Report.

I'm not the world's biggest fan of Larry King - I think he's become increasingly unprepared for his guests and the show's obsession with murder cases borders on nauseating - but I'd rather see him in that chair until he's 100 years old than have Nancy Grace take over the slot.

That's the buzz in the industry right now, that Grace, who has an incredibly popular show on CNN's Headline News right now (you should all be ashamed of yourselves) will someday replace King, who is reported to be on his way out because he's too frail to work that much anymore. CNN head Jon Klein denies all of this, of course, but CNN has made a lot of changes in the past couple of years, some shocking and irritating to viewers. And King can't stay there forever.

So who would you like to see in that slot if King retires?