Obamavision Returns -- Minus Preemptions

The broadcast networks appear to have agreed to turn President Obama into a TV star in an effort to get the White House to knock off the whole incessant-prime time-preemption speechifying thing.

First, Obama gave a shout-out to Conan during the unveiling of NBC's "Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien." The next night, NBC ran a two-part prime-time special, "Inside the White House," hosted by Brian Williams -- now out on DVD. (Obama also lent the White House's North Lawn to Mariah Carey's husband, Nick Cannon, to shoot a promo for his new hosting gig on NBC's "America's Got Talent.")

Next week, ABC will broadcast its own tour of the White House. "Good Morning America" will come to us from the South Lawn on Wednesday (including interviews with the first couple); Charlie Gibson's evening newscast will come from the Blue Room that evening, followed by a "Primetime" health-care Q&A with Obama from the East Room, which will continue into late night on "Nightline."

No wonder Bill Maher whined on his HBO talker, "I don't want my president to be a TV star. . . . You're the president, not a rerun of 'Law & Order'!"

And that was before CBS announced Harry Smith will probe the "Two Sides of Barack Obama" starting this Sunday and winding up the next day. On Father's Day, it's a special broadcast of "Sunday Morning" called "Barack Obama: An American Dad." The next morning it's "Barack Obama: The American President." The two-parter, CBS says, will look at the U.S. financial mess, the president's initiative on health care and Obama's role as first dad.

The networks much prefer to air Barack Obama with ad breaks than a Barack Obama speech hour stripped of all the ads.

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Two weeks after CBS and the TV academy announced they were moving this year's Primetime Emmy Awards from its traditional night-before-the-TV-season-starts (Sept. 20) to Sept. 13, to get it out of the way of CBS's NFL double-header on the 20th, the trophy show was sent scurrying back to its original date after CBS learned MTV plans to telecast its Video Music Awards on the 13th.

"After we announced plans for September 13th, MTV informed us they were locked into the same day for the Video Music Awards, with venue and sponsorship agreements in place," CBS exec veep of specials Jack Sussman said yesterday. "We had the flexibility to move; they didn't," he explained, adding, "If the Emmy broadcast has as much excitement as the scheduling of the date, viewers are in for an unforgettable event."

Yes, the Emmycast commands the larger audience of the two trophy shows -- last year it clocked more than 12 million viewers to the VMA's 8 million and change. But the VMA cops a much larger crowd of younger viewers -- last year it logged around 4 million 18-to-34-year-olds, twice as many as did the old-school Emmycast.

Even more important, the VMAs produce major buzz. In recent years, that buzz has included: Britney Spears making out with Madonna, Michael Jackson kissing his wife, Lil' Kim in a dress that exposed virtually all of her left breast (which Diana Ross squeezed like a ripe melon), Eminem mooning the audience, Rose McGowan showing up in a gown from the House of Emperor's New Clothes, and who can forget BritBrit's 2007 "comeback" train wreck.

Meanwhile, the Primetime Emmy Awards last year had Tom Bergeron and William Shatner tugging at Heidi Klum's tear-away tuxedo. There's just no comparison.