And as usual in these tight calls, television tried to freeze frame the action from every angle, each one failing to determine conclusively whether the whole of the ball had crossed that white goal line.
The small work areas were jammed tight with television camera crews, dressers, hairdressers, makeup artists, manicurists, personal assistants, publicists, friends, caterers, children, dogs and fantastically beautiful women wearing nothing but underpants.
Three people in the tight-knit television business, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the outreach was considered confidential, confirmed that the call was made this month.
Act II opens after the wedding of Anna and Marshall, and in a surreal staging touch we see the couple waking up on a humongous mattress, watched by the first of what will be many prying demons: dancers in black tights with television cameras for heads.
In recent years, Twitter has developed a tight relationship with television networks, pushing people on the service to engage with Twitter during live television events and integrating hashtags into TV advertisements.
Security was tight around the television studio where Mr. Zaidi spoke, with dozens of police officers and other armed escorts cordoning off much of the neighborhood.
Tight regulation of television news in Britain obliges Sky News to be impartial, but journalists at another of his British news organizations, The Times of London, who are not (yet) subject to that sort of legal obligation, also made no effort to conceal what their owner might see as very bad news.
In a tight financial environment, television will most likely continue on in the direction it's going, only more so: more product placement, more overt sponsorship, more television about the making of commercials for products that can be bought on the network's Web sites.
But the program was more about hitting all the right buttons and mentioning most of the important people than it was about trying to be an all-time great finale — or even a tight hour of television.
Brody sees a much tighter linkage between television advertising and the web.
