Well, at least we didn't have to stay up late.

NBC's "The Jay Leno Show," billed as a weeknight show with topical comedy, kicked off  in prime time tonight with some parts salvaged from Leno's "Tonight Show" days and a collection of jokes the host had clearly been itching to tell for days, weeks, even months.

The president and a certain South Carolina congressman? Days.

The troubled marriage of a certain South Carolina governor, a joke Leno had been trying out on reporters on a conference call with reporters only last week? Weeks, if not longer.

Cash for Clunkers? Months.

Even Jerry Seinfeld, who showed up in a tux in honor of being the show's first guest, had a line he could've been saving for a rainy day.

"You know, in the '90s, when we quit a show, we actually left," he told Leno, then pulled a lame bit involving Oprah Winfrey and a monitor that came down from the ceiling.

Though there'd been speculation that the one bit of topical material -- Kanye West's outburst at Sunday's VMAs -- might actually have been a stunt encouraged by NBC, given that the performer was also due to appear on Leno's first show, West's mournful mien suggested otherwise.

After thanking his apologetic guest for "honoring [his] commitment" to appear on the show the night after he'd interrupted an acceptance speech by Taylor Swift, Leno asked him, in Dutch uncle fashion, what the singer's late mother would have thought of his outburst, reducing his guest to sad incoherence.

In retrospect, it almost felt like a cheap shot.

Leno then moved -- quickly -- to introduce West's performance with Jay-Z and Rihanna, a musical number that preceded the show's true topper, a not particularly lively segment of  the popular "Headlines" that Leno and NBC felt would be a better lead-in to the affiliates' 11 p.m. newscasts.

There's no point, of course, in judging this experiment by one night, or even one week or one month. Leno will sooner or later run out of stored-up thoughts and be forced to deal with actual current events. Another guest will come on after some public disgrace, as Hugh Grant once did, and the host of "The Jay Leno Show" will make it work for him.

Or not.

It's just too soon to say.

So far, though, there's nothing on "The Jay Leno Show"  that's worth losing sleep over.

Come January, there'll be yet another new news anchor at ABC's "World News."

ABC News announced this morning that Charles Gibson, its main news anchor since May 2006, plans to retire, and that Diane Sawyer will replace him in January.

"Diane Sawyer is the right person to succeed Charlie and build on what he has accomplished," ABC News president David Westin said in a statement. "She has an outstanding and varied career in television journalism, beginning with her role as a State Department correspondent and continuing at '60 Minutes,' 'Primetime Live,' and most recently 'Good Morning America.'"

That Sawyer will become the second woman to be named solo anchor of a network newscast -- CBS' Katie Couric being the first -- probably won't attract as much attention as the fact that barring any further developments, two of the Big Three anchors will be women.

 In an e-mail to ABC staffers, Westin wrote:

"Charlie and I have been talking about his decision for several weeks, and he has persuaded me that this is both what he wants and what is best for him. I respect his decision, just as I respect the enormous contribution he has made to ABC News through the years.

"Most recently, he stepped in to lead World News after a difficult and turbulent time -- both for the broadcast and for ABC News over all. We suffered from the loss of Peter [Jennings] and then the severe injuries to Bob [Woodruff]. Charlie came to the fore to keep us on the path of doing the first rate journalism that had distinguished 'World News' for many years. We owe him much for the leadership he gave us when we needed it most.

"Since then, Charlie has covered all the major events with the substance and grace that we all expect from him. Most importantly, he headed our coverage during a presidential election unlike any other. Now, having accomplished so much in so many different parts of ABC News, Charlie has decided it is time for him to step down. I have told him that he has an open door to continue to work with ABC News, but he's asked for a bit of time before he comes back to us."
 

Broadcast and cable networks are juggling their prime-time schedules today to cover the death of  Ted Kennedy. Here's some of what's happening:

• MSNBC has moved up tomorrow's scheduled premiere of its "Hardball" doc, "The Kennedy Brothers," to 9 tonight. (Corrected from an earlier entry, regarding the time. It will also air at 7 p.m. tomorrow, as originally scheduled.)
• CBS News will air "Ted Kennedy: The Last Brother," anchored by Katie Couric, at 8 p.m. on Channel 3.
• ABC News will broadcast "Remembering Ted Kennedy" at 10 tonight on Channel 6, anchored by Charles Gibson in Hyannis Port and Diane Sawyer in New York.
• CNN is picking up HBO's "Teddy: In His Own Words" and will show it from 7 to 9 tonight.
• PBS is re-airing its "American Experience" installment, "The Kennedys," at 8 tonight. 
• The Bio Channel will show "Bio Remembers: Ted Kennedy" at 9 p.m. tomorrow.

"In a Dream," a documentary about artist Isaiah Zagar, who's covered 50,000 square feet of South Philadelphia with his tile-and-mirror mosaics, will premiere on HBO2 Aug. 19.

Filmed by Zagar's son, Jeremiah, the documentary, according to HBO, "uncovered the dark side of this gifted, tortured man, exposing the struggles of the Zagar family."

"I started filming a documentary about my father in 1999, back when I thought of him and our family as perfect," Jeremiah Zagar says in HBO's press release. "As the interviews progressed, I began to realize there was a much larger movie to be made than I originally envisioned...What started as an exploration of my father's life has exposed the secrets of our entire life."

HBO 's announced the renewal of  "True Blood," "Hung" and "Entourage" for next season, but are still talking about the future of "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," which stars Philadelphia's Jill Scott as a "traditionally built" detective in Botswana.

Programming president Michael Lombardo cited cumulative ratings -- totals for multiple showings -- of 11 million for "True Blood," 10 million for "Hung" and 8 million for "Entourage."

Other HBO nuggets:

-- "Curb Your Enthusiasm" returns for a  seventh season on Sept. 20, with an arc that will focus on the "Seinfeld" reunion that the real Larry David -- as opposed to the "Curb" Larry -- has avoided for years.

-- Filming's wrapped on the pilot for Martin Scorsese's "Boardwalk Empire," and Lombardo said he's waiting to see it before ordering a series. "Our fingers are crossed."

-- Emmy-nominated "Big Love" will be back in January.

-- As for a third season of "In Treatment," "we're trying to put it together," in light of the fact that it's adapted -- pretty closely -- from an Israeli series that's only had two seasons, said HBO co-president Richard Plepler.

-- Asked if "Flight of the Conchords" will return for a third season, Plepler said, "When they're ready, we're ready," but stars Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement have an album to write first.

TLC president Eileen O'Neill's worried enough about "Jon & Kate Plus 8" questions interfering with sessions she's doing -- including, one, a wedding show called "Masters of Reception," produced by Kelly Ripa and husband Mark Consuelos -- so she reads a short statement about her channel's high-rated train wreck.

Here's some of what you can expect when the show returns to original episodes on Monday:

-- The couch is gone," replaced by "separate interview chairs" for Pennsylvania's Jon and Kate Gosselin, who filed for divorce several weeks ago.

-- "You'll be seeing them separately parenting," says O'Neill.

-- Kate's going to pitch a tent for the kids, presumably without adult assistance.

-- Jon's going to be "struggling in the kitchen" to prepare pizza.

        "This is real life," said O'Neill, whose idea of real life -- an existence that takes place largely on camera, no matter how ugly things get -- might be different from yours or mine.

         As for Ripa's show, she calls it -- via satellite -- "a love note to New Jersey."

         Though she and Consuelos eloped, the show focuses on a family catering business in Mountain Lakes, N.J., that specializes in weddings.

You know how the late Ann Landers used to recommend that people who couldn't afford therapy should consider seeking out the clergy?

Now there's an alternative: "reality" television.

For the second time this week, members of the Television Critics Association are being  told -- by couples who opened their homes and marriages to video crews -- that it's the equivalent of couples therapy.

On Tuesday, it was the men and women who'll be appearing on a Fox Reality Channel show, "Househusbands of Hollywood," who were arguing that the genre forces couples to confront their differences in a healthy way, and today, it's newlyweds Bill and Giuliana Rancic, who are putting their commuter marriage on the line in the Style Network's "Bill and Guiliana."

Having done the commuter thing as a newlywed eons ago -- and off camera -- I expressed my usual concern, the history of marriages recorded on television being a rocky one.

No need to go all the way back to the 1970s, when the Loud family fractured on camera in PBS' "An American Family."

Guiliana, whose work on E! includes updates on Jon and Kate Gosselin, almost certainly knows the sad outcome of  MTV's "Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica" -- or "Meet the Barkers," with the now divorced Travis Barker and Shanna Moakler. (I seem to remember the latter couple being asked the very same questions, and offering the same assurances, at this very event.)

But like the men and women on "Househusbands," Guiliana's convinced she and Bill are different.

And that the lessons she's learned from watching herself on the show -- including the fact that she can be annoying -- can only help their marriage.

These two won't be landing on the cover of People, promises their boss, Comcast Entertainment Networks honcho Ted Harbert.

I wish  them all the luck in the world, but since these press conferences are transcribed -- and archived -- if they ever do break up, there'll be plenty sadly ironic quotes for People to work with if things don't work out.

On the other hand, if the worst happens, it won't necessarily be bad news for Harbert's empire, whose E! fall lineup includes "The Lamas Life," whose cast includes Lorenzo ("Falcon Crest") Lamas, his daughter, Shayne ("The Bachelor"), Lorenzo's ex-wife and their other kids, son A.J. and daughter Dakota.

A.J. and Lorenzo acknowledge an estrangement, but insist the show's brought them together, at least in the sense that they've seen more of each other in the past two weeks than they have in four years.

"There's only one way to get a family back together, and that's television," says producer Mike Fleiss.

A few minutes later, Shayne Lamas gets pretty emotional, talking about those who've asked -- including us -- if she's worried that the show will tear her family apart.

After recounting just how bad things have been with the Lamases -- her father's trying to avoid details, but she says he and A.J. haven't spoken in six years -- she says her answer is, "Well, no, because we were already pretty apart."

Drug abusers in MTV's target demo will soon have a new place to turn beyond A&E's "Intervention": an MTV show hosted by recovering addict Adam Goldstein -- a k a DJ AM --called "Gone Too Far" that will feature interventions and follow the subjects into rehab and beyond.

Goldstein, a Philly native who claims, among other things, to have been the world's only fat cocaine addict, at one point weighing more than 300 pounds, is slim and sober now, but describes his condition as having "an allergic reaction to drugs and alcohol -- I break out in handcuffs."

Besides addiction, Goldstein's reportedly survived, along with Blink-182's Travis Barker,  a September 2008 crash of a Learjet that killed four people. Other survival stories, not touched on in Wednesday's press conference at the Television Critics Association's summer meetings, reportedly include gastric bypass surgery and a high-profile engagement to Nicole Richie. But during the years he was using, he admits, "I would personally have run from a camera" from a show like "Gone Too Far."

"These people were all volunteers," he added.

And his role in interventions, he said, predated the show, which premieres Oct. 5. "The only thing that ever worked for me is when a recovering addict tried to help me...The only way I can keep it [sobriety] is if I give it away."

The DJ, who grew up in Center City, "near Rittenhouse Square," attended the Philadelphia School, Greenfield and Friends Central before moving to Los Angeles at 14.

"I love Philly. Philly has like more character and flavor than any city I've ever been to," he said. "I think energy kind of gets soaked into old buildings."

While admitting that "the bad things started in Philly," Goldstein said, "it got much worse when I left. I think it's just around that time, though -- 14, 15, I was just so insecure moving to a new city, trying to fit in, that I would do anything, you know, to be accepted and liked."

CNN/U.S. president Jon Klein's tap-dancing as fast as he can as he attempts to explain why Lou Dobbs is devoting so much time to questions about President Obama's birth certificate.

"There are the facts and there are the flaps," says Klein. "There is no doubt" that Obama was born in Hawaii [and is thus a native-born citizen], but there are also people who don't believe it.

"What Lou's done," according to Klein, is to host people with a wide range of views on the subject.

"He's exploring the issue, but the facts are a settled issue," Klein said. "We're expected by our viewers to do the reporting, present the facts and a range of points of view."

Asked about his position on the "birther" story, CNN's John King said,"I think that we live in a world where there are conversations going on...that occasionally reach a point at which if you're a political reporter...they're worth keeping an eye on."

 "If people still think something that is not true," then maybe CNN isn't being clear enough, he said.