The evidence seems clear that those business which actively serve their many constitutencies in creative, morally thoughtful ways also, over the long run, serve their shareholders best. Companies do, infact, do well by doing good.

It crossed our minds early on that the more an audience cared - we were working before, on average, 240, live people. If you could get them caring - the more they cared, the harder they laughed.

We are a country of excess. So it's not the violence, per se, but the exacerbation and constant repetition.

So we gravitated to shows and issues and causes that made people care.

I think somehow I got a sense of the foolishness of the human - my favorite phrase, the foolishness of the human condition.

Originally, with all the shows, we went looking for belly laughs.

I looked at enough of American Idol in the first weeks, and they're all about humiliation. I listen to Rush Limbaugh because I find it so repulsive. There are people with a little less sophistication who watch a lot of it, because we allow things to appeal to our baser instincts. But at the same moment, give me a little choice, and I'll make a better decision, because I have that ability too. And so does everybody else.