Jonathan posted news recently that J.J. Abrams is in talks with HBO to direct and produce a show through his Bad Robot Productions. That's all well and good, but let's play junior programming executive for a moment. How would you feel about buying a show from Bad Robot, given their history.

Are you making a deal with the brilliant team behind the top 20 hit Lost? And does the fact that we have now switched that qualifier from top 5, to top 10, to top 20 cause any concern? Or are you making a deal with the team that so bungled Alias that by the end of the run it was almost an act of charity for ABC to even air the show? Seriously. May 17th, 2006, Alias is the #5 show in its time slot behind Deal Or No Deal (NBC), Bones (Fox), The Amazing Race (CBS), AND Next Top Model (UPN), only managing to beat out the movie Final Destination 2 (WB).

Lost Remote has a bunch of year end lists from the folks at Nielsen covering TV, movies, music, and books. The one I found really interesting is the top time-shifted shows of the year. It seems that this is really not a list that you would want to show up on. NBC places Studio 60 (#1), Friday Night Lights (#5), 30 Rock (#5), and Kidnapped (#9), all of which are having well publicized struggles with ratings.

ABC's lone entry on the list is The Nine (#7), and we all know how that turned out. Surprisingly, the CW ties NBC as the most time-shifted network with Gilmore Girls (#3), Next Top Model (#4), Supernatural (#7), One Tree Hill (#9), and Smallville (#9) making the list. The only top time-shifted show that has been able to translate that into ratings success is Heroes (#2).

If nothing else, I think this adds to the case that the current ratings system is broken. For so many low rated shows to show up on this list, something is getting lost in the numbers.