What Was NBC's Big Secret About George Clooney?

(MoneyWatch)  Has NBC forgotten that it's no longer must-see TV? That would be one conclusion to draw from the fact that the network promoted its "ER" episode featuring ex-"ER"-er George Clooney by not telling people he would be on the show.

Huh? According to a story in Mediapost:

NBC did tease viewers with on-air marketing pitches that some past doctors would be returning to the famous "ER." And while there were images of many previous physicians in the promo spots, Clooney was not among them.

As a result of a batch of cameo appearances, the show saw an increase -- but not as much as expected -- in the preliminary Nielsen ratings for Thursday night's show, which were 11 percent higher than normal for the key 18 to 49 demographic.

Though it's been well-known that Clooney, who played Dr. Doug Ross on the show back in the last century, would make an appearance on "ER" in this, its final season, it might have been helpful to tell people when he would show up. There are only two explanations for this, neither of them all that reasonable.

1. That George Clooney only agreed to make an appearance if it wouldn't be overly-hyped, but one would think that hyping his appearance was much of the point.
2. That NBC still thinks it has the juice to get people to watch just by "teasing" them about upcoming shows, even though those techniques are dead. Now, just to be aware of what's going on out there, most of us require being bludgeoned within an inch of our lives; media fragmentation has that effect.

Sorry I missed it, but I much more intrigued with other things that I actually knew were happening, like the Jim Cramer/Jon Stewart smackdown. Did find a few clips on the Huffpo this morning, though. Apparently Susan Sarandon was on "ER" last week too. Who knew?