In reality, 'Top Model' looks pretty good

Well, you can't blame the writers' strike for "America's Next Top Model."

Tyra Banks' enduring strut-and-pose competition returns for its 10th installment at 7 p.m. Wednesday on WGN Channel 9, and as with "American Idol" if you can name even one of the previous winners you're probably watching too much TV.

Even so, it's hard to do anything over and over and not learn anything by the 10th time, and the new competition settles in comfortably as brainless if eye-catching TV.

Like "Idol," "Model" has learned that it can be too cruel and harsh at times, and Wednesday's season premiere finds Banks and her two J sidekicks, Jay Manuel and J. Alexander, striking a more playful pose of their own as they winnow down 35 contestants at "Top Model Prep" -- yes, complete with Playboy-photo-shoot uniforms -- to a couple dozen aspirants and then 13 (or so) finalists who will be eliminated one by one until we find out just who will be "America's Next Top Model" consigned to the ash heap of TV and fashion history.

Yet don't worry about the show giving up its snarkiness altogether. You know Miss Tyra will be cracking the whip at some point, and the program will also add former supermodel Paulina Porizkova to the judges' panel this season. The early word is she'll kick up the Simon Cowell quotient.

Hey, going from being one of the world's great beauties to spending your life with Ric Ocasek of the Cars would be enough to make anyone grumpy.

Anyway, mixing caring consideration with cutting cruelty appears to be a running theme in the 10th "Model" competition. After Fatima makes a painful revelation, our own Shaya, from South suburban Country Club Hills, is the first to offer her a hug. Yet only moments later Marvita is dropping the rhymes-with-witch bomb and warning a fellow contestant, "If you touch me, you're gonna die."

Lighten up, Marvita.

Then, of course, there are the just plain whimsical oddball moments, as when new mom Claire admits she's drinking her own milk to keep her breasts active for when she gets back from the show to baby.

Oh Momma, that's a little too much information.

Remember, you read it here first: Amis will win. Although perhaps I'm dating myself in revealing my tastes, as she's later dismissed as looking "too '80s." Then again, what better decade to, ahem, model yourself after when one of the panelists is Porizkova, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover model of the '80s?

The statuesque Dominique figures to be there at the end as well, longer anyway than the token plus model or the awkward ugly duckling taken along for the ride.

So, again, don't blame the writers for "Top Model." As one of the most popular shows on the perpetually underperforming CW network, it was going to be back in any case. You can blame the writers, however, for other reality shows across the dial on the major networks at 7 on Wednesday: "Big Brother" and "Deal or No Deal" and, ack, "Wife Swap," in addition, of course, to "Idol." I have to admit, compared with that competition, "Top Model" looks pretty good.

In the air

Remotely interesting: CBS has committed to two more "Survivor" competitions, through next season, which will bring it to 18 installments. … NBC has picked up another run of "The Celebrity Apprentice," as well as renewing "Chuck," "Life" and "Heroes" for next season.

ABC has renewed "Brothers & Sisters," "Desperate Housewives," "Dirty Sexy Money," "Grey's Anatomy," "Private Practice," "Pushing Daisies" (yay!), "Ugly Betty," "Samantha Who?" and "Lost" for next season. TV Guide is reporting "Lost" will move to 9 p.m. Thursdays when new episodes of "Betty" and "Grey's" return in late April.

End of the dial: General manager Michael Damsky and sales manager Sue Werley are out at WXRT 93.1-FM, which will now move to NBC Tower under CBS Radio sibling WSCR 670-AM general manager Paul Agase. Similarly, WBBM 780-AM general manager Rod Zimmerman will also replace Peter Bowen in running WBBM 96.3-FM and WJMK 104.3-FM.

Mike LeBaron is the new morning host at adult-contemporary WCFS 105.9-FM, and Lisa Greene will take middays, effective next week.