“Throughout 2001, 2002, 2003 and so on, the United States actually every month, 5.3 million started new jobs and about 5.1 million would end jobs, so you had tremendous turnover. So in the course of a year, 60 million would start jobs and 58 million people would retire or move to other jobs, so when you netted 2 million new jobs, it wasn’t that everybody stayed in place and 2 million people walked into the room and got jobs. A lot of people were shifting back and forth. A lot of new jobs were being created. Read full article > >

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Grover Norquist’s economic blame game

After 18 months of waiting, an average of 3.5 million people tuned in Sunday to watch “Mad Men’s” fifth-season debut. That’s a series best for the show — and about 600,000 more people than watched the fourth-season debut in July 2010. “Mad Men” had been off the air since October 2010, following the fourth-season finale, as the studio, the network and the creator wrangled over this and that — product placement within the show, adding another ad break, creator’s salary, blah, blah, blah. Read full article > >

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The TV Column: ‘Mad Men’ season five premiere draws 3.5 million viewers

Even killing off one of its most beloved regular characters — as well as a sensational real-life trial — can’t bring viewers back to ABC’s “Desperate Housewives.” On Sunday, the killing off of James Denton’s character, Mike Delfino, only enabled the show to remain flat, week to week, among the 18- 49-year-old viewers who are ABC’s lifeblood. Among viewers of all ages, the episode logged 8.3 million viewers — a tick above the previous week’s 8.2 million. And a far cry from the 15 million people who tuned in to see trampy neighbor Edie Britt, played by Nicollette Sheridan, get bumped off in 2009. Read full article > >

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Big death and juicy real-life trial can’t bring ratings to ‘Desperate Housewives’

About 39.3 million people watched Sunday’s mesmerizing “84th Annual Academy Awards,” in which Octavia Spencer got a standing ovation as she became one of just a half-dozen black actresses to have won an Oscar in the show’s history — and host Billy Crystal appeared in blackface. Read full article > >

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Oscars get plenty of post-show buzz, and decent ratings, too

For the third time in as many years, Sunday’s Super Bowl has been crowned the most-watched television broadcast ever. An estimated 111.3 million people watched the New York Giants defeat the New England Patriots, 21-17, Nielsen said Monday. Read full article > >

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NBC’s mixed Super Bowl news: Numbers were up. So was bad behavior.

TAIPEI, TAIWAN: Taiwan’s incumbent president Ma Ying-jeou won re-election Saturday, a result that will delight China and calm worries in Washington that this island of 23 million people might veer away from a policy of rapprochement with its giant neighbor. Read full article > >

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Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan’s pro-China president, wins reelection

Last Thanksgiving Day, when 31.9 million people watched the New Orleans Saints play the Dallas Cowboys, 10.75 million of them were women. Overall, 44 percent of the National Football League’s fans are women. If you follow the sport, this is no revelation. The football widow is an anachronism; girls and women populate stadiums and sports bars, and have for years. In a recent Washington Post survey of D.C. sports fans , 53 percent of this area’s women said they care about the NFL, and 25 percent said they care “a great deal.” Read full article > >

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Flag football: It’s the girls’ turn to play

The online game’s makers reveal that almost a million people have stopped playing World of Warcraft over the last three months.

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Warcraft suffers subscriber slump

There are now more wireless devices being used in the United States than there are people, and Americans have doubled the amount of Internet data traffic they generate on smartphones, according to the trade group CTIA. The number of mobile devices rose 9 percent in the first six months of 2011, to 327.6 million — more than the 315 million people living in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Wireless network data traffic rose 111 percent, to 341.2 billion megabytes, during the same period. Read full article > >

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Number of cell phones exceeds U.S. population: CTIA trade group

The International Red Cross begins a huge distribution of aid to a million people in Somalia famine zones controlled by the Islamist militants.

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Somali aid push in famine zones

A stunning 29 million people tuned in to watch Chuck Lorre kill off Charlie Sheen on CBS’s “Two and a Half Men” Monday night — about 40 percent more people than CBS had been expecting. And, Ashton Kutcher didn’t fail as Sheen’s replacement! It’s a role Kutcher seems best at — playing pretty but pretty naive. The 29 million is a series best for the long-running sitcom. CBS suits erupt in happy dancing. Read full article > >

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‘Person of Interest,’ Ashton Kutcher’s ‘Two and a Half Men,’ ‘The New Girl’ and more TV premiere week highlights

An average of 12.5 million people caught Wednesday night’s unveiling of Simon Cowell’s “The X Factor.” That’s only about 700,000 more viewers than watched the unveiling of NBC’s singing competition, “The Voice,” back in April. True, “The Voice” — which featured mentor-judges Christina Aguilera, Blake Shelton, Gnarls Barkley’s Cee Lo Green and Maroon 5 ’s Adam Levine — did not launch during the ultra-competitive Premiere Week. Read full article > >

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TV column: ‘X Factor’ debut can’t steal spotlight from ‘Modern Family’

“Glee” — so over? Fox’s formerly red-hot series lost about one-third of its audience in its season debut, compared with last year’s. Only about 9.2 million people checked out the episode — compared with nearly 13 million who tuned in last fall to see the season’s first episode ASAP so they could tweet, blog and otherwise hyperventilate as it was airing. Read full article > >

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TV Column: ‘Glee’ and ‘Dancing’ both see an audience dip

Record crowds turned out Monday night to watch Charlie Sheen be killed off on one television network and resurrected on another. Nearly 29 million people caught Monday night’s expunging of Sheen from the CBS sitcom “Two and a Half Men.” That’s the long-running show’s largest audience — ever. It’s also the biggest season-debut audience for any scripted program on television since 2005. Read full article > >

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Charlie Sheen-less ‘Two and a Half Men’ season debut draws record audience

Nearly 28 million people caught the expunging of Charlie Sheen from CBS sitcom “Two and a Half Men” Monday night. That’s the long-running sitcom’s largest audience — ever. The episode — in which Sheen’s Charlie Harper is described as having been killed when he slipped on a platform at a Metro in Paris, fell in front of an oncoming train and his body exploded like a meat balloon — also clocked its biggest ever audience among viewers advertisers pay a premium to reach – 18-49 year olds. Read full article > >

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‘Bye-bye Charlie!’ say 28 million ‘Two and a Half Men’ viewers