Jon Gosselin and TLC network settle lawsuits

The aggrieved father claimed TLC failed to get work permits for his kids. Yes, he figured out that children need work permits only after milking the show for five seasons.

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Expect the broadcast networks to break into their daytime lineups at 11 a.m. Friday to cover Tiger Woods's news conference in step with the cable news networks -- just as though it were a presidential address to the nation.

In fairness, in the western swath of the country, the broadcast networks will be airing their morning infotainment programs "Today," "Good Morning America" and "The Early Show," for which Woods's news conference coverage falls under the heading of "news."

Woods's agent told the Associated Press on Wednesday that they are gathering three wire services and a small group of reporters selected by the Golf Writers Association of America, as well as one pool camera, for the news conference, in which Woods is expected to speak about his past and his future and to apologize for his behavior.

By "behavior," he means "shagging many, many, many women who are not his wife." (Allegedly.)

The news conference will end Woods's three-month-long silence since crashing his sport-utility vehicle near his Florida home in the wee hours of Nov. 27.

The golf great will speak from the clubhouse of the TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., home of the PGA Tour, the AP reports.

The news conference will be held during the Accenture Match Play Championship in Arizona. That's being covered by the Golf Channel and by CBS on the weekend. Coincidentally -- or not -- Accenture was one of the first sponsors to drop Woods when word got out about that whole (alleged) shagging many, many, many women who are not his wife thing.

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NBC tipped its hat to Fox's "American Idol" the morning after the singing competition thumped NBC's coverage of the Winter Games in Vancouver.

"Congratulations to 'American Idol'; the show extended its six-year undefeated streak from 221-0 to 222-0. The show is a juggernaut," NBC Sports senior vice president for marketing Mike McCarley said in a statement Wednesday.

Had NBC's broadcast of figure skating and snowboarding competition actually outstripped Fox's singing competition, it would have marked the first time since 2004 that "Idol" had been beaten in the ratings.

NBC could afford to be gracious. "Idol's" lead over the Games was less than half its lead over NBC's broadcast of the Winter Games in 2006 on the comparable Tuesday. Then, "Idol" had clocked 26.6 million viewers; this past Tuesday, an expanded two-hour "Idol" logged 23.6 million. Meanwhile, NBC's Gamescast has climbed in four years by about a million viewers, to 19.7 million.

And "Idol" had to work hard to hang on to its lead. Not only did it expand the broadcast by an hour into the 9 to 10 p.m. time slot, when the number of Homes Using Television is higher than at 8, but it also sent out word it would reveal some of the 24 singers who had made it through to the next round of competition as an incentive to keep people watching.

Fox, meanwhile, noted that although "Idol's" overall audience was 16 percent higher than the Games', its crowd of young viewers was nearly 70 percent higher than the sporting event's and that among teens, it had a 137 percent lead.