San Jose Mercury News - CA, USA - In April, NBC announced that Keith Olbermann would cozy up to the fireplace with Bob Costas, Peter King, Tiki Barber and Jerome Bettis — and thankfully NOT Sterling Sharpe — for “Football Night in America.” On a conference call then, I asked if it would be an odd fit given his standing on the political left and the NFL’s embrace of the military and White House.

“If you are thinking that this is going to be some sort of venue for promoting or criticizing a political viewpoint, I don’t see it happening,” he said then.

On Monday, NBC announced that “Countdown with

Playbill.com - New York, NY, USA - As previously reported, Tony Award winner Billy Crystal will receive the tenth annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor Oct. 11 at 8 PM in the Kennedy Center Opera House.

The starry list of entertainers who will salute Crystal include Bob Costas, Jimmy Fallon, Whoopi Goldberg, Rob Reiner, Marc Shaiman, Martin Short, Barbara Walters and Robin Williams. The evening, which will be taped by WETA Washington, D.C., will air on PBS stations nationwide Nov. 12 at 9 PM ET.

The Mark Twain Prize, according to press notes, recognizes "people who have had an impact on American society in ways similar to the

Rocky Mountain News - Denver, CO, USA - First, a football question with an obvious answer: How many players does a team have on the field at the same time?

Eleven.

Now a trickier one.

How many members of a sports broadcasting team are needed at a news conference to promote NBC's upcoming Sunday night NFL football coverage?

Would you say two? How about four? Or maybe a half-dozen.

The answer: 11.

Talk about team play. Let's call roll of the TV personalities who paraded onto the hotel stage for a 50-minute interview.

In alphabetical order: Tiki Barber, Jerome Bettis, Cris Collinsworth, Bob Costas, Dick Ebersol, Fred Gaudelli, Andrea Kremer, John Madden, Al Michaels, Keith