Flash!

Never underestimate Washington's ability to conjure up pressing national problems that can be solved only by the heroic application of taxpayers' dollars, funneled through expensive government programs. The latest example (OK, maybe not the latest—something worse probably happened three minutes ago) can be found in a new Government Accountability Office report on a bill passed by Congress in 2000 authorizing $1.25 billion in loan guarantees to help local communities finance satellite carriage of local TV stations or to build cable systems.

Oh, it was a dire situation back then. Congress was rushing to protect consumers in remote locales where broadcast reception is lousy and cable's not available. Though in retrospect this sounds like a solution in search of a complaint, the GAO itself warned at the time that the “financially and technically risky” program could cost $365 million during its first five years. Congress approved it anyway, at the urging of Montana's Sen. Conrad Burns and Virginia Reps. Bob Goodlatte and Rich Boucher.

“This bill is crucial for Americans in rural and smaller markets who rely on their local television stations for news, politics, weather, sports and emergency information,” Goodlatte pleaded on the House floor shortly before the bill was approved.

Now five years has passed, and GAO is still trying to kill the program —but not because it's too expensive. The GAO's new report urges a shutdown because not a single penny has been loaned and only one application has been received. (It was turned down.)

It seems that the good old unsubsidized free market is bringing local channels to the TV-deprived at a rapid pace. The latest numbers available show that just 600,000 U.S. households couldn't get local stations via cable or satellite as of September 2004. That's down from 2.9 million the year before.

Happily, administering the unspent funds and fielding nonexistent requests has kept several bureaucrats occupied. The program has cost $1.2 million in salaries and overhead for staffers provided by the Agriculture, Commerce and Treasury Departments.

And Goodlatte is not disappointed. The lawmaker believes the program served its purpose, says an aide: “Satellite decided to provide more local signals than they would have, had Congress not spoken on the issue.”

CNBC announced late Friday that Tina Brown was giving up her talk show Topic A With Tina Brown in order to work on a book about the legacy of Princess Diana. But alarm bells had been ringing all week at NBC Universal after the performance of the May 1 show. The former editor of Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and Talk magazines was able to attract just 4,000 souls in the 25-54 news demographic that night. The total audience was 26,000, with 22,000 viewers 55 years and older—which means the number of under-25s watching was essentially zero. (Brown's season average is 75,000 viewers, with 22,000 in the 25-54 demo.) The guests on this Topic A included documentary filmmaker Simone Duarte and Kingdom of Heaven director Sir Ridley Scott. The last episode of the show will run on May 29.

Deadwood fans and admirers of the flamboyant use of the f-word were bereft last week: Jeff Kay went camping. That meant Kay's episode-by-episode tally of the number of f-words used in HBO's Old West cuss-a-thon was suspended, pending Kay's return from a trip to Myrtle Beach, S.C., from his home outside Scranton, Pa. (Or at least that's what we gleaned from the West Virginia Surf Report, the blog where he's listed as the proprietor and where the Deadwood f-count can be found).

Disproving the widely held theory that Deadwood characters use the f-word so effing much that no one could ever keep track, Kay is not content just to track each utterance; he also crunches the numbers. Kay vowed to update the totals once he crawls out of his tent, but here are a few intriguing numerical morsels he has uncovered so far:

The f-word per-episode frequency has increased from the first season, when many folks were agog at all the cursing. In its rookie year, Deadwood achieved a 69.3 F's-per-episode rate; this season, it has improved to 96.4 FPE. The F's per minute are up as well, of course—from 1.23 to 2.10. Indeed, the show recently reached the high-water mark so far in the FPM category, rattling off 51 F's in the last 10 minutes of episode 19.

Yes, that's quite a gaudy score, perhaps unbeatable, but those Deadwood boys need something to aim at other than each other.