The Mayor of Television Salutes You

Welcome, good people of Television. The Council of Network Executives and I have labored mightily to ensure that Television is a place where entire families that have been strategically relocated outside of the FX and HBO Districts can thrive and enjoy life – we’re still working on making life palatable for those dwelling in the neighborhoods dominated by QVC, Spike TV and Lifetime – and that our community truly will be a place where your fantasies can become real life.

First, a few housekeeping notes:

* Once again, I must implore reality-show producers in the Southern Quadrant to limit their attacks on more northern Regions of Good Taste on a Need-to-Bomb basis. Talks are ongoing with the insurgent creators of “Flavor of Love,� “My Super Sweet 16� and “Date My Mom� to cease their audiences’ metaphorical beheadings, and we’re making quite a bit of headway, so to speak. So other reality-program producers need not escalate the hostilities toward their viewers with ever-more-visceral assaults on genteel sensibilities.

Also, I beseech those in that area to give a wide berth to the loyal patriots in Kevlar-enhanced Hazmat suits cleaning up the spillage from “My Fair Brady: We’re Getting Married!�

Remember, Television is home to all of us, and our goal is a serene, relatively incident-free environment that we would all be proud not to denounce as our own.

* There will be a Zoning Commission meeting Tuesday to discuss whether The CW’s Sunday-night comedies – “Everybody Hates Chris,� “All of Us,� “Girlfriends" and “The Game� – might be allowed to exist peaceably at other points on the schedule.

* Will whoever is planting the effigies of Jeff Zucker’s head on a pike in public spaces please remove them. Again, I remind you, Television is a land of happiness, enforced or otherwise, and such forms of protest are at odds with our Doctrines of Infinite Q Scores and Failing Upwards.

* Also, we implore those who are leaking to YouTube.com the results of our Test Laboratories’ failed Petri dishes – known to some as “pilots rejected by the networks� – to please cease immediately. Television is a land of Compulsory Harmony, and the dissemination of such confidential governmental documents may lead the citizenry to question not only our motives but our sanity.

OK, these notes aside, we have some new business to attend to. As you know, the Council of Network Executives and I are pleased to announce the commencement of a new television season that we are confident will be the most successful ever or, at least, not result in the embarrassments of seasons past. Fox, being Fox (desultory chuckle), will commence the season on Monday, with the season-two premiere of “Prison Break� and the debut of “Vanished.�

There is a great deal of hope amongst all involved this year, particularly in the area of gentrifying the Eastside Comedy Ghettos.

Our Ministry of Aesthetics will be issuing Analytical Reports of each broadcast networks’ prospectus in the coming days, and we invite you to inspect our thoughtful inquiry as to how Fox has improved upon its already celebrated schedule when it appears on this blog on Monday. Subsequent White Papers analyzing each network’s impending fortunes will be issued at appropriate times as the new season continues to roll out.

Moreover, we are fast approaching the Emmy Awards, many of our citizens’ favorite time of the year, except for those at the newly rechristened CW and, apparently, some disgruntled fringe elements at ABC, who have opted to air “Pirates of the Caribbean� opposite our bread-and-circuses ceremony. (Remember, if viewers can’t enjoy yet another spurious awards show, the terrorists win.) Our upcoming discussions of the controversial nominating process within this forum threatens to be nominally insightful and to contain an almost certain amount of vague interest. So keep your eyes on this forum: We of Television haven’t made this a Constitutional Requirement – yet – but it’s always nice for a constituency to have a healthy interest in what little we Leaders want you to know about the democratic process.

Finally, would those posting signs proclaiming, “Recall the Mayor� please desist. You knew coming in that Television has never been a Meritocracy: It’s a Stalinist Democracy. And so it shall ever be.

All Hail Television!