Ian Schwartz writes, "This looks like a case of awful timing more than awful taste; nevertheless, it’s going to be a night to remember for NBC, the Emmys and Conan O’Brien."

Not sure if that's the disaster movie reference I'd make, but there's no doubt that NBC has definitely hit an iceberg's worth of bad PR tonight.

Update: To borrow one of the left's favorite cliches, I question the timing of this, as well.

More: Todd of Deadline Hollywood Daily adds:

The very idea that tonight's Emmy showcast on NBC was so heavily scripted that neither the network nor host Conan O'Brien could change a word of the broadcast opener is absurd. After all, isn't that the reason they invented writers? C'mon, couldn't one television academy director, or NBC executive, or show producer, much less Conan, pipe up and say, "Uh, maybe starting with a plane crash comedy skit on the same day there was an actual plane crash might be in poor taste? Let's rewrite." But, noooooooooo. Host Conan O'Brien riffed off the ABC's series Lost which was all-but-ignored by the Emmies by starting the ceremony with a filmed comedy bit in which O'Brien was seen sipping champagne aboard a jetliner. "What could possibly go wrong tonight?" he says — before the plane crashes onto an island resembling the one in ABC's drama. Today, in Kentucky, a commuter jet mistakenly trying to take off on a runway that was too short crashed into a field Sunday and burst into flames, according to media reports, killing 49 people and leaving the lone survivor -- a co-pilot -- in critical condition. Really, is there even one person at NBC with a brain left in his head?

He's right--and as Greg Tinti noted in his above-linked post, that same point can also be made about Conan's "Faux News" jokes on a day when two Fox journalists were returned after two weeks in captivity.

Update: Welcome to those clicking in via Hot Air and its Drudge Report link--please look around; there's much here you may enjoy.

A Thought: Mary Katharine Ham writes:

The Kentucky plane crash happened at 6 a.m. There was plenty of time to alter the intro of the Emmys to something more respectful. It wouldn't have been polished and post-produced, but it would have been polite.

But it occurs to me that there's actually an innocent explanation. In Diamonds Are Forever, Blofeld quipped to Bond that if he destroyed Kansas, "the world may not hear about it for years", grimly foreshadowing the famous New Yorker cover depicting how its readers on imagined the heartland (a flat, depopulated void). Show business on both coasts is an astonishingly insular and myopic world; 9/11 was an event large enough to crack its bubble; a plane crash in the middle of America American killing 50 people just isn't enough to make a ripple.

And besides--since Johnny Carson's retirement, it's not like one really expects a talk show host or his writers to have their fingers on the pulse of the world outside of the taping studio, anyhow.