Here are the weekly TV ratings, by number of viewers.

Um, OK, I had to do a double take (or maybe a triple) when I saw these ratings for Lost. Number 1 for the week?? I knew it would do better since it was the season finale, but the top spot, up 18 spots from last week? That's pretty cool.

The new edition of Password took the number 3 spot. Meanwhile, the number 18 show really kinda baffles me.

1. Lost (ABC)
2. Two and a Half Men (CBS)
3. Million Dollar Password (CBS)

That's the advice the NBC newsman gave Katie Couric when she left The Today Show to take the anchor gig at The CBS Evening News in 2006.

He told her that going from a morning show like Today to a hard news anchor position was "a dive off the high board" and that it's "harder than it looks." Though I wonder if anyone gave that advice to Brokaw when he left Today to do The NBC Nightly News back in the 80s. Or maybe they didn't because he's a guy, right?

This is approximately the 57th "Katie Couric is doing badly in the ratings and will probably will fired or quit her job at CBS" story that has surfaced in the past year, but since it's The Wall Street Journal, perhaps he has a little more gravitas to it?

Possibly.

The newspaper is reporting that "CBS executives" and "people close to Couric" say that she will probably leave her job as anchor of The CBS Evening News well before her contract is up in 2011. She might even leave in early 2009, right after the current Presidential election is over.

Way back in August, I listed my choices for the three worst anchors on television. I said in that post that "later this week" I was going to name the best news anchors on television. Apparently, "later this week" meant seven months later. Sorry about that!

Here are my choices for the six best news anchors currently on television. Feel free to disagree and argue with me in the comments section (as if you need any suggestion from me for that).

• It's the 60th anniversary of NBC Nightly News.
• Today's tip: if you're selling bootleg copies of The Carol Burnett Show, don't use a newspaper's address as your address. [via Lee Goldberg]
• Should CBS show Dexter, even if it is cleaned up?
• Tom Shales is not happy with Turner Classic Movies.
• What did William Shatner, Tina Fey, and Naveen Andrews do during the strike?
• This may be a silly question to ask on a TV blog, but are you a movie person or a TV person?
• Aaron Barnhart has a list of strike winners and losers.

OK, this isn't exactly "Who Shot JR," but it does have people guessing.

NBC Nightly News will have a new announcer starting tonight (longtime announcer Howard Reig retired in 2005), and they're trying to make it a surprise. The only clues from the network is that it's a name we all know, and this person had "an extensive, award-winning theatrical career for nearly forty years." Some of the guesses from fans include James Earl Jones, Patrick Stewart, James Lipton, Morgan Freeman, and ... Tom Brokaw? Yes, he was great in A Streetcar Named Desire.

"No offense to those over 60, but that's not a demo we want."

That's a quote from Les Moonves at a press conference yesterday, talking about statistics that say the average age for a viewer of the nightly network news programs is 61.

Looks like all of the younger people in the country are getting their news from the web and cable.

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams has two gigs this week: hosting the nightly news show and preparing to host Saturday Night Live this weekend, rehearsing and helping to write some segments. Some people say he's blurring the line between news and entertainment, but I'm looking forward to seeing how he does. And he's keeping a blog of how the week is going so far.

The Daily Nightly is one of the better network news blogs anyway, but these entries show Williams' funny side. After working one night, he actually had to go to 30 Rock and join the writers for their all-night writing session.