Yet whenever they strong arm major media companies, it’s for all the wrong reasons. This prudish $1.4 million penalty against ABC for a shot of a nudity on a 2003 episode of “NYPD Blue” is unreasonable and silly.

The FCC is fortunate government fines are not subject to the same requirements as civil lawsuits, which require proving damages. Because nobody could reasonably claim the network harmed anybody by revealing a side-view of a woman’s butt and breast. (Oh, but the FCC does try, noting a young actor about 7 or 8 years old was on the “Blue” set. Surely today he’s curled in a corner somewhere, catatonic and traumatized).

The repeated claim of the FCC is that the scene was worthy being singled out for government fines because it was “titillating.” Agreeing with this logic requires investing in several assumptions: That titillation is inherently harmful, that large swaths of television programming isn’t already titillating, that the “Blue” shot was more titillating than anything etc.

When consumers can find any and all forms of nudity online faster than you can finish reading this sentence, to punish ABC for an five-year-old ass-glimpse makes the FCC — as well as the broadcast networks — seem like hopelessly outdated institutions, clinging to their nostalgic illusion that they’re still in control of the consumer entertainment experience.

Both are serialized, broadcast network action-dramas where an isolated likeable group of people struggle for survival following a catastrophe they don’t understand.

ABC’s “Lost” is the sexy one.

An attractive international cast that maintain perfectly white teeth after being stranded for months on an island. After three seasons, the show is beloved for its Big Twists and Sneaky Clues that jerk the narrative this way and that, like shiny fishing bait dangled in front of viewers with attention spans too short to remember that a couple ago what they’re now being told wouldn’t make any sense.

CBS’s “Jericho” is pure Midwest morality tale.

The group of scruffy small-town characters on last season’s “Jericho” debut have gradually devolved into desperate survivalists — shell-shocked and stunned at the humanity draining from their Kansas community following a nuclear terrorist attack.

What makes “Jericho” better is the show is more consistent. “Jericho” earns its suspense without resorting to cheap ploys and is more successfully entertaining when watched cold, from beginning to end (which I recently did on DVD after resisting the series since its inception — a CBS terrorist attack drama starring that guy from “Scream”? Please…).

The backstories of the “Jericho” characters are gradually teased out, yet hold true. The evolution of their relationships with each other are often surprising, yet feel emotionally correct. And the story’s gradual ramp up to war with neighboring town New Bern is more tense and apocalyptic than any face off between the Losties and their cryptic boogiemen, The Others.

A season of “Lost” always feels transparently like it’s shoved along by a writers room rather than by the characters or the story. A succession of drunken ideas get thrown into the show that become next season’s hangover as writers try to figure out how to explain them (“Let’s introduce a mysterious monster … let’s introduce a mysterious hatch … let’s show a statue with four toes … let’s adds a box where things magically appear inside…”). Plot lines are introduced and discarded as fast as fans can complain about them on message boards. Mysteries drag out for years, with producers freely admitting many are slapped into the story without an upfront solution.

Whereas every major question mark in “Jericho” was neatly wrapped up in the first season. The show employed many of the same teasing cliffhanger tactics used by “Lost,” but writers either started with a firm plan and stuck to it – or are better at disguising their lack of preparedness.

Now.

Let’s hedge this argument a little bit: The absolute heights of “Lost” last season – the flash forward, Charlie’s death, Desmond’s Twilight Zone-style time-travel flashback episode – were arguably better than the best moments of “Jericho.”

But we’re talking about averages here. “Jericho” is like the quality mutual fund that starts merely good and kept getting better (especially after its winter hiatus). It’s the steady performer who always turns out a quality show that can look you in the eye and tell its story without flinching — unlike the desperate narrative U-turns of “Lost,” a series that bounces around like a volatile stock, spiking to pay off occasionally but often too inconsistent to invest your time lest you end up with an episode where, say, Hurly discovers a VW bus and drives it around the island – you go Gilligan!

Next month, both return for eight-episode seasons (shortened for “Lost” due to the strike, shortened for “Jericho” due to low ratings).

If “Jericho” is unable to get another renewal, that’s fine. Two endings have been shot this time, producers have reassured, so viewers are not left in a lurch. After CBS threatened the show with cancellation despite last season’s cliffhanger, they’re considerate like that.

Meanwhile, there’s all this other frenetic and suspiciously pointless Quidditch-related activity going on. Aside from the Seekers, each team has six others players (dubbed Chasers, Beaters and a Keeper) who fight over an entirely different ball (the Quaffle) and try to get that ball through small hoops at ends of the field.

If they succeed, they score a mere 10 points and the game continues.

Author J.K. Rowling established these wildly unpractical rules for her alleged team sport in her first Potter book and she likely has no regrets. Since the Seeker has the awesome power to (A) end the game and (B) effectively score 15 goals at once, Rowling’s narrative would have to bend over backwards to allow any character to ever take center stage during a Quidditch match except the Seeker – which, naturally, is the position played by her story’s protagonist Harry Potter.

This just goes to show why Rowling was a highly successful novelist instead of, say, a sportswriter. Just imagine a football game where one player from each team is empowered to abruptly score 15 touchdowns and send everybody home. Would you watch anything on the field other than that player?

Or, for a less hypothetical example, check out NBC’s “American Gladiators.”

Both Quidditch and “Gladiators” are highly unbalanced to invest a small portion of the game with all the power to determine the winner. But “Gladiators” proves that skewed game design is less entertaining when played for realsies.

In the current incarnation of “Gladiators,” two amateur contestants fight through about five rounds of competition against the fearsome spandex-clad, non-steroid using Gladiators.

Yet none of the early rounds actually matter.

The head-to-head final round, an obstacle course called The Eliminator, is the sole determining factor of who wins.

The game isn’t quite billed this way. The contestant who has earned the most points in the first several rounds receives a head start for the Eliminator, seeming to provide an advantage. In the episodes thus far, however, the head start has mattered little-to-none due to the length and complexity of the course.

Last week, for instance, contestant Sharaud bested contestant Andy in most of the competitions, earning a significant four-second head start in the Elminator. Then he was sluggish during the swimming portion of the Eliminator and lost by a mile.

“Gladiator” contestant Sharaud scored a bunch of Quaffle goals, in other words, but fumbled the Golden Snitch.

Last night, two contestants with head starts (one a typical 2.5, the other a whopping 9 seconds) both went on to win the Eliminator and the game. But they appeared to win by far more than their head starts.

So, in almost all cases, a contestant either gets a head start and loses anyway, or gets a head start and wins by an even greater amount of time. Either way, points earned during the early challenges don’t seem to matter and contestants are better off conserving their energy.

A second season of “Gladiators” is commencing production soon, and NBC is looking at tweaking the games. The trouble they face here is that the Eliminator is the most popular portion of the show. And there’s something anticlimactic and downright un-American about somebody bursting through that final victory wall of cushy blocks only to lose because of points.

Producers have a three options: Have the early rounds give the leading player a more significant advantage for the Eliminator. Move the Eliminator to the start of the game and use it to eliminate potential contestants, determining which players compete for the remainder of the game. Or just accept that, just as Harry Potter readers know that the Seeker is all the matters, viewers know they only need to watch the last 15 minutes of “Gladiators.” The rest is just lights, noise and fake tans.

Did he keep his cell extra tidy?

Volunteer to organize books in the library?

Share his portion of tater tots with fellow inmates?

Barely make a sound when he was probed for contraband?

Please.

Sutherland is a wealthy actor from a respected Hollywood family who spent less than two months in suburban jail.

How tough was it, really, to follow the rules?

This isn’t a “24” fight scene battling five actors playing terrorists in a warehouse that took three days to choreograph.

It’s sitting quietly in a cell.

He can do that.

As a bonus, he also did some laundry.

Let’s recap: TLC’s “Trading,” based on a UK reality format, launched in 2000 with host Alex McLeod. The show was popular from the start, but in the second season, McLeod was replaced by Davis.

By 2002, the show had become the most successful program TLC had ever aired. “Trading” launched a ton of knock offs across a slew of basic cable networks in two genre directions – shows about decorating/houses, and shows about makeovers.

TLC over-stuffed their schedule with as much “Trading” as they could produce and, like ABC over-airing “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” the short-sighted strategy blew up in their faces.

The ratings for “Trading” crashed in 2004, dragging TLC down along with it.

That same year, Davis was photographed like this (NSFW), trading the space inside her panties for fistfuls of cash while stripping at a fundraiser.

Then she was fired in January, 2005.

Was that fair?

Well, it certainly wasn’t her fault the ratings crashed. Audiences weren’t rejecting Davis, they were weary of watching the same show every couple hours.

It was her fault that she got her thong stuffed by eager hordes of men in a New York club but, hey, it was for charity, and the network should have been more forgiving. We’re all grown ups here in the home improvement aisle, right?

Welcome back Paige.

It makes the guys holding picket signs look like ineffective chumps.

Writers are out there striking and chanting and denying the world any more new episodes of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” while the directors sauntered in and made a groundbreaking deal that got them a bunch of new media windings.

The writers fume: Those damn directors get all the cute girls — and they get better residuals on ad-supported streaming! No fair!

Relax kids.

The directors got their great deal because you went on strike and pushed the negotiating envelope. They’re standing on the backs of your hard work. You know, like always. Now you just gotta put a tie on, go back into negotiations and score a few fresh victories and you’ll look like geniuses.

The big question: Will studios do a “take it or leave it” and insist writers accept the directors contract?

This is a toughie. If the date was late December or early January, I’d say: Yup, that is exactly what the studios would do. Already some writers are saying “Take the deal! Take it! Take it! Take it!” So issuing a stern ultimatum would divide the WGA membership and make leaders have to battle their membership and send the whole thing into a scuffle for a few more weeks.

But everybody is getting kinda tired of this whole strike thing.

Advertisers are pissed. Viewers are ignoring ABC and CBS. Next season’s pilots are in jeopardy. And all parties want the Oscars to air next month.

Rodd Serling’s bet: With informal talks beginning this week, the writers will make a deal in this round.

That’s what it’s like watching the broadcast networks struggling to program their airwaves during the writers strike.

Now NBC and ABC have stepped into the Thunderdome to fight over celebrity circus reality shows.

ABC is looking to revive the 1980s show “Circus of the Stars” while NBC is eyeing the imported format “Celebrity Circus.”

God. Mark Cuban, Omarosa and Heather McCartney learning how to juggle and use the trapeze.

C-list celebrities performing low-budget vaudeville antics for our amusement.

Is this what our proud primetime TV programming has been reduced to?

What are we, British?

“American Idol” is back.

Its ratings are like Jack Nicholson slapping Faye Dunaway in “Chinatown.” The ratings are huge! The ratings are disappointing! The ratings are huge AND disappointing!

They are bigger, bigger than anything else this season. Bigger by a mile. So tall you can’t see the top.

Yet they are also down. Tuesday night’s premiere down 13%. Wednesday’s second episode down 19%. Lowest premiere numbers in four years.

Whatever does this mean?

“Idol” is getting old. Reality shows are like dog years. Seven seasons is old for a reality show.

Fox is defensive about this. Its the fading quarterback who’s still on top, but his bum knee is catching up with him and he no longer gets carded at the bar and he rather just sit around and grill a steak than play in the game against Denver on Saturday. He’s denying he’s losing his touch, convinced he’ll play forever.

His fall may take a long time. Got many more seasons left in him. But fans know he’s past his prime and the standings prove it.

Since this ratings-boosting stunt started, contestants have lined up to “No Deal Howie!” their way to record-setting six figure offers … then “No Deal Howie!” their way right back down to earn relative squat.

This has been enormous fun to watch.

The issue is that contestants believe they are psychic and that math doesn’t apply to them.

This week, two vivacious, happy, center-of-attention desperate housewives declared their belief that, in their heart of hearts, they just knew their randomly chosen briefcase has $1 million inside and so, therefore, they could not possibly lose despite taking chance after chance. Even offers of about a quarter of a million couldn’t shake their belief that, darn it, they are meant for better things.

On the sidelines, F&F (Friends and Family) sit, ever urging them to reject massive, life-changing sums of cash because, god darn it, they deserve more and “there’s a lot of money left on that board!”

The crux point of the recent “Deal” episodes has often been the same. About two-to-four offers into the game, the contestant gets up into the low six figures. About 25% of the board are million-dollar cases. The rest are 100,000 or much-much less.

Now. If these people worked for several years to save up $250,000, they would almost certainly never risk it all on a 25% chance of quadrupling their money (I know, the math doesn’t exactly work out this way — since it assumes players will “No Deal Howie!” their way until the bitter end, but if they hit one more $1 million dollar case then their offer drops sharply, and then that’s often exactly what they do).

At the crux point is also the part where the audience turns on the contestant. You go from rooting for low numbers, to rooting for the contestant’s own immolation.

I don’t care how many family members they have serving in Iraq, life doesn’t reward poor decisions and neither should “Deal.” Dammit.