Last night, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart won its ninth Emmy in a row for outstanding variety, music or comedy series. The show also won a writing award, the acceptance of which prompted New Yorker television critic Nancy Franklin to tweet, "Jon Stewart's writing staff: 14 men and — wait for it — 2 women!…

A subway station I walked through last night was taken over by advertisements for NBC's fall lineup, dominated by images of women in contradictory roles. Bunnies in The Playboy Club (and, not far away, vintage flight attendants on ABC'sPan-Am.) Frazzled moms on Up All Night. Maria Bello looking badass on Prime Suspect…

From the moment the imperious music began and the narrator intoned that the Republicans wanted to "kick out" Obama from the White House, CNN left no overwrought TV styling untried.

A big New York Times story on the ratings declines of late-night network variety shows says, of David Letterman, that "some of his biggest advocates have suggested that it might be time for him to consider stepping away before his legacy is tarnished" by bad ratings, the worst he's ever seen. Not mentioned in the…

In her new installation at the Winkleman Gallery, Jennifer Dalton picks apart the lack of female guests on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, among other programs. (Image courtesy of Dalton and the Winkleman Gallery.)

There was a dramatic drop in the number of female writers in the last television season, and AOLtv's Maureen Ryan asked a few people high in the ranks — men too — why that happened. The answers will depress you!

We'll be deprived of Mad Men til the beginning of next year, but in the meantime, crumbs are falling from the plates of Matthew Weiner and Jon Hamm. They commented on the epic episode "The Suitcase" for The Daily Beast, which included several moments of truth between Don and Peggy.

Girls who like girls on TV, rejoice: "There's a major uptick this fall in sitcoms about young single women, and, even better, several of these shows were created by female writers," writes New York's Emily Nussbaum. But will it reverse the depressing drop of women onscreen and behind the scenes seen in the last…

Both shameless panderers to attention for its own sake, Christine O'Donnell and Piers Morgan are clearly a match made in heaven. This morning, having slowly walked off Morgan's CNN show two nights ago, O'Donnell was on the Today show to declare, "I wanted to stop that borderline sexual harassment that was going on."

Last night, Gloria Steinem was on Colbert to promote the new HBO documentary about her life. As Stephen Colbert put it cheerfully, it's "only seventy five percent as long as documentaries about men."

She tells the Times Magazine, "Hopefully some of these women who resent me for being naked or in little to nothing will be pleased that I'm knocked up [in Boardwalk Empire, and they'll pay attention to the performance." [Earlier]

Melissa McCarthy was presenting the Primetime Emmy nominations this morning when she heard her own name announced — watch her delight above. Overall, she's having a pretty good year.

Your following Kim Kardashian on Twitter is the reason we don't have a female president yet. Or something.

Roseanne Barr has an awe-inspiring rant in this week's New York magazine about the sexism of TV executives. And she says not much has changed: "All over the tube, you will find enterprising, overmedicated, painted-up, capitalist whores claiming to be housewives." Is she right?

Last year, an analysis declared the worst year in a decade for women in pilot season, the crucial period when networks decide which writers' pilots to pick up. But are things looking up?

The final episodes of the ABC soaps will air in September 2011 and January 2012, respectively. Each has been on the air for around four decades.

The New York Post points out that ratings at Lifetime and Hallmark are slipping, while other networks like the History Channel and MTV are gaining shares of women viewers.

Even though there's been no confirmation that either Katie Couric or Matt Lauer are planning to leave their current TV gigs, there's already speculation that the pair may be teaming up again for a talk show.

Erin Burnett is hot. She is also a financial reporter. Unfortunately, many of the men around her seem incapable of separating the two.

Numerous outlets have reported that Meredith Vieira is strongly leaning towards leaving Today when her contract expires in September. How could anyone's appetite for Kate Gosselin heart-to-hearts and flirting with Colin Firth possibly abate?