Mr. Nies is a likeable guy, and he would probably be the first to tell you that he isn't Dan Rather. But it's safe to say that Mr. Rather is no Eric Nies, either. Like, how many abdominal exercise machines has Dan Rather invented?

"I'm not really sure if I want to be a news reporter," the 29-year-old Mr. Nies admitted the other day over lunch at Spring Street Natural in Soho. "I don't know if that's what my gig is, but I'm testing it out."

Mr. Nies' face was scruffy, and he wore a faded olive T-shirt with a white long-sleeved shirt underneath. As he talked, he picked at a plate of mixed vegetables with seitan, which is some kind of tofu-like protein product. Mr. Nies is a health and fitness fanatic. In fact, he said he was approached about the Fox 5 job one day while he was working out at his gym.

"Two producers who work for Fox news were also in the gym, and as I was walking out one day, one of them said to me, 'Hey, I'm so-and-so and this is what we do, and we've seen you before and we know you have done this and would you be interested in coming in and doing it?'" Mr. Nies recalled. "I was like, 'I'll check it out.' Why not?"

So far, Mr. Nies has done four stories for Fox 5. Three of them have been about The Street , a new TV show that the Fox broadcasting network airs on Wednesday nights. The other story was about the recreational use of Viagra. During that segment, Mr. Nies talked to drug users and drug dealers and those kinds of people. He was also identified on the screen as "Eric Nise."

Mr. Nies said that being a TV reporter has been fun. So far, he hasn't had to do much of the research for his stories. "See, what happens is this," Mr. Nies began. "If you're like, Ted Koppel or Dan Rather, you do your own research on your own stories. Those [guys] are like, monsters. But if you are just a regular news reporter, there are producers who go out and research these stories and they attach you to them, because you can feed that information to the public better than they can, or you look better doing it, or whatever the case is."

Mr. Nies isn't sure what his next story will be. He said he pitched a story about ocean dumping, and his bosses at Fox were into that. He wants to do his own research for that one. But Mr. Nies said they also wanted him to do a story about a company that does advertising on the sides of cars. He wasn't so into that idea. "The whole city is a billboard," he said. "If they were advertising health and fitness and good food and stuff like that, then maybe I would do it."

Even though his background is in the entertainment industry, Mr. Nies said he hasn't had a lot of trouble adjusting to the television news business. He credited this to the fact that he's "real."

"I don't try to be anything else other than who I am," Mr. Nies said. "Fortunately, I'm a Gemini, and I have multiple personalities inside of me, so it's not hard for me to adapt to a different situation. I can sit in a room with a bunch of news reporters and fit right in. Or I can sit in a room with a whole bunch of athletes and fit right into their conversation. I feel like I can do that with just life in general. I feel like I can walk into Africa and sit down with a tribe of Africans and be able to relate to their way of living. And, for the same part, Indians-for anybody."

Mr. Nies said he has gained this kind of perspective through his ups and downs in showbiz. He was just a 20-year-old kid from Long Island when The Real World made him an overnight star. Then he got to host The Grind , which was kind of like MTV's version of Soul Train . Mr. Nies also did a series of Grind workout videos, one of which sold over a million copies, he said. For a brief time, Mr. Nies was huge, like Carson Daly. Life was good.

Then life wasn't so good. After three seasons of The Grind , MTV and Mr. Nies parted ways. Mr. Nies thought about quitting showbiz altogether. He went snowboarding for a month. But then he moved to L.A. and tried his hand at acting. He got a couple of cameo roles in movies; one in The Brady Bunch Movie and the other in Above the Rim . He got that Starburst ad. But Mr. Nies didn't really dig acting or L.A. So he moved back to New York.

Since then, Mr. Nies has done all sorts of stuff. He's co-hosting a weird boxing show called Thunderbox , which is kind of like boxing meets W.W.F. wrestling. There are plans for him to host a talk show on the Web site Eyada.com. And now, of course, he works for Fox 5 news, too.

But Mr. Nies' biggest passion remains health and fitness. "The most serious thing that I have ever been involved with are my workout videos," Mr. Nies said. "Because that changes people's lives." Mr. Nies was on the Queen Latifah Show recently with a bunch of obese children. He said he is now working with an 11-year-old girl who weighs 220 pounds, trying to help her get into better shape.

Mr. Nies now believes his main purpose in life is to help people lead healthier, happier lives. "Did you see Patch Adams ?" he asked. "That movie really, really touched me. When he went in there and he was talking about how everybody is a doctor, because we all are capable of healing each other. It doesn't mean that I can cut into you and fix your muscle and your bone, but I can emotionally say things to you and guide you in a certain direction to make your life more pleasant."

To help achieve these results, Mr. Nies also sells the Abaratus, a contraption with elastic straps that can be fastened to a door. It costs $39.99. "You can take it on the road with you, use it at home, there's no excuse," Mr. Nies said. "It weighs a pound, you can put it in your briefcase, you can take it to work, you can do upper body, lower body, abdominals. All kinds of stuff. It's great."

The hardest thing about the Abaratus, Mr. Nies said, is getting people to buy it. "My sales aren't great," he said. "I did Donny & Marie , and when I did that show, we sold over 800 pieces, which was great. But there are like five or seven million people that watch it, so it's not that great. But seven million people saw it, so, you know, the more awareness you get…."

Mr. Nies is confident that sales will pick up after his new Abaratus infomercial premieres this Friday, Dec. 1. He also has a new line of "freestyle jump-roping" videos coming out. "It's just jumping rope, adding all different kinds of variations of jumps and twists and crosses in and out of the rope," Mr. Nies said. "I jumped this morning for about 50 minutes. Incredible. Great workout."

Even at his relatively young age, Mr. Nies sounded fairly contemplative about the ebb and flow of fame and the entertainment business. He's not the first MTV star to have to re-adjust after leaving the network, he noted. And he's been able to deal with it. "It's my understanding of the universe," Mr. Nies explained. "The ocean changes. The weather changes. The cloud patterns change. We're constantly changing. And you just have to accept that that exists. If you're not O.K. with change, then you have a big problem."

Mr. Nies was asked if he had any idols.

"Nobody," he said. He seemed kind of sad. "Not really. It used to be athletes. But now, I look at guys like … who's that guy with no hair and the beard … Andrew …?"

Dr. Andrew Weil?

"Yeah, that guy's great! I love that guy."

Mr. Nies said he also respected Oprah Winfrey, Montel Williams and his Mom. He also looks up to a meditation and martial- arts instructor in San Jose, Calif., whom he referred to as his "Grand Master." "He's like my guru, I guess," Mr. Nies said.

Mr. Nies also mentioned that he and his older brother, John-a former punter in the National Football League-are developing their own TV show, though he was circumspect about the details. Mr. Nies did reveal that the TV show was part of a multifaceted philosophy for healthy living that he and his brother have developed. The name of the philosophy: "Living Nice." The name is a play on their last name, Nies, he said.

And for now, there is Fox 5. Mr. Nies said his turn into TV news has been a positive experience thus far. When he went home for Thanksgiving, his old buddies from high school teased him about being on the news. The first night he was on the air, the phone at his apartment in Little Italy rang off the hook.

But Mr. Nies isn't sure if TV news is a destination, or another stop on his personal showbiz odyssey.

"I kind of just sit back and wait to see what comes," Mr. Nies said. "Walking through the gym, I'm on Fox. Hanging out, somebody calls with a great idea for a workout video, we do a jump rope video. I've never been someone to plan my career, and I've never really been in control of it. The Real World and MTV and all that stuff kind of happened . I didn't plan it."

Tonight, the Fox 5 News at Ten . [FOX, 5, 10 p.m.]

Thursday, Nov. 30

"Rose!"

"Jack!"

"Rose!"

"Jack!"

"Katherine! Where's Katherine?"

"Dubya? Someone find Dubya!"

New York viewers who tuned into Titanic on NBC on Sunday night, Nov. 26, may have been surprised that the network didn't break in for live coverage when Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified the Presidential vote in her state. Nor did NBC break from its sinking epic later, when Governor George W. Bush delivered his Madame Tussaud–style pseudo-victory speech.

NBC apparently did provide live coverage of both events, giving its affiliates the option of going to Florida or sticking with Titanic and waiting for Tom Brokaw to deliver updates during breaks in the film. Here on the East Coast, most stations chose not to abandon ship.

That decision was striking, because every other major broadcast network did provide live coverage of the events from Florida. ABC, CBS and even Fox covered Ms. Harris' surreal certification announcement. Fox's coverage was particularly notable, in that earlier this year the network had blown off coverage of the first Presidential debate to show the premiere episode of Dark Angel , and also because Sunday night is a big prime-time territory ( Simpsons, X-Files ) for Fox. (Fox did cave to its schedule later in the night; only ABC and CBS carried Dubya's speech live.)

But NBC seemed comfortable with its decision. "NBC updated our movie audience throughout the night by breaking in with special reports with both Secretary Harris and Senator [Joe] Lieberman, and again for Gov. Bush, while keeping the movie intact," a network spokesperson said.

Hear, hear. You wouldn't want something like the potential resolution of the closest Presidential election in history to spoil the dramatic arc of a movie about a ship that everyone over the age of 3 knows sinks in the end.

By the way, Titanic kicked butt in the ratings. What? You thought this story had a happy ending? Tonight on NBC, more vapid postmodern musings from the pleasingly apolitical Friends . [WNBC, 4, 8 p.m.]

Friday, Dec. 1

More grumbling from filmmaker and author Lawrence Schiller about the marketing of his CBS O.J. Simpson miniseries, American Tragedy : Mr. Schiller was bummed to see that a national magazine advertisement for American Tragedy featured not one, but two major spelling errors.

The American Tragedy ad, which ran in the November 2000 edition of George magazine, read: "THE TRIAL OF THE CENTURY. THE DREAM TEAM. THE BEHIND-THE-SCENES STORY O.J. SIMPSON DOESN'T WANT YOU TO SEE." (As NYTV told you last week, that last line ticked off Mr. Schiller and American Tragedy script writer Norman Mailer, too.) Then the ad refers to defense attorney Johnnie Cochran as "Johnny," his lawyer colleague Barry Scheck as "Barry Sheck."

Yeesh. In the advertising business, such mistakes are not dismissed as technicalities. Tonight on CBS, Elton John sings his greatest hits live for one night only, in a special entitled, Elton John: Greatest Hits Live! One Night Only . [WCBS, 2, 10 p.m.]

Saturday, Dec. 2

Here's how the Dec. 2-8 edition of TV Guide describes tonight's airing of Frosty the Snowman : "The story of the man of snow." Oh, you pithy TV Guide , you. [WCBS, 2, 8 p.m.]

Sunday, Dec. 3

The transmogrification of Christina Aguilera into Celine Dion is complete. Tonight, the waifish belter hosts her very own holiday prime-time television special, entitled Christina Aguilera: My Reflection. [WABC, 7, 8 p.m.]

Monday, Dec. 4

Ally McBeal . The show that made Palm Springs' Merv Griffin Resort hip again. [FOX, 5, 9 p.m.]

Tuesday, Dec. 5

Creepy New York magician David Blaine spent two days last week surrounded by a thick block of ice. You spend your night surrounded by a thick block of The Facts of Life . [NICK, 6, 10 p.m.]

When you think of Sutton Place, what immediately comes to mind? High-priced hookers, of course! At least that's what Showtime thinks, as it mulls red, er, green-lighting Extreme Behavior , a 22-episode series about the lives of high-priced Upper East Side call girls created by Coyote Ugly screenwriter (yes, there was a screenplay for Coyote Ugly ) Gina Wendkos and Hollywood cheese whiz ( Top Gun , Armageddon , Flashdance ) Jerry Bruckheimer.

On a recent morning, Ms. Wendkos met with a reporter inside the plush, velvety confines of the W Hotel at 39th Street and Lexington Avenue. A petite, blue-eyed woman in her early 40's, Ms. Wendkos sat in a clamshell-shaped sofa, and with a trickle of soft jazz playing in the background, she spoke about her efforts to bring television life to the world's oldest profession and its Upper East Side practitioners.

"They frequent the St. Regis, they go to the Peninsula, they go to the Plaza," Ms. Wendkos said. "These are the hotels where the men get rooms. And they go to Elizabeth Arden; they go to the best of the best on Fifth Avenue. They shop at Prada, and Bergdorf's next door is their little commissary. These are girls who have very expensive maintenance."

Indeed. Ms. Wendkos' hookers are not the Andrew-Jackson-for-a-Lewinsky type you find around 14th Street and Ninth Avenue. "These are $5,000-an-hour girls," she said. "They are huge, expensive girls."

Ms. Wendkos said she has long been fascinated with call girls, ever since she was in her early 20's and struggling to make it as a writer in Manhattan. One of her first jobs was writing little scripts for the women who answered 976 phone lines ("I just had to write my imagination. You know, like 'Put your hand there.'") Ms. Wendkos also worked extensively in theater and performance art, where, she said, she encountered a number of women who were professionally hustling on the side.

"It was interesting to see their lives and the different belief systems they had from civilians," Ms. Wendkos said. "You know–the different rationales some of them used, and the different attitudes they had about sex and men and money."

Ms. Wendkos said Extreme Behavior , originally titled Sutton Place , does not attempt to condemn or even moralize on the issue of prostitution. If that ruffles feathers, so be it. "I think [people] will be uncomfortable with the notion that I'm saying it's not only okay to be a hooker, but it's a viable job, it's a good job," Ms. Wendkos said. "It's like being a nurse with a twist."

Yeah … exactly ! Extreme Behavior revolves around the lives of three main characters, call girls all, as well as a host of recurring characters, some of whom are johns, Ms. Wendkos said. "It's really a character study of three women," she continued. "It just so happens that this is their profession." Of course, it helps things out that their profession calls on them to get naked a lot. "It's very sexual," Ms. Wendkos acknowledged. "A lot of sex is in the show, because it's Showtime. You can show anything. And there's a lot there."

Yes, indeedy. You can start to see why Mr. Bruckheimer, the maestro behind everything from Con Air to Remember the Titans , would be drawn to something like Extreme Behavior when Ms. Wendkos pitched it. "I thought it was a cool show, and I had already done a movie with Jerry Bruckheimer, so when he said he wanted to do TV, I said, 'All right, let's do this,'" Ms. Wendkos said. "And he said 'Cool,' and Showtime said 'Yeah.'"

Actually, Showtime won't officially decide on Extreme Behavior for at least a couple of weeks, after Ms. Wendkos submits her script for the show's pilot. If they like it, they'll move for 22 episodes–with some scenes shot on location in New York, Ms. Wendkos said. Ms. Wendkos also said she intends to bring Permanent Midnight author Jerry Stahl, her ex-boyfriend, aboard as a co-writer for the show. Ms. Wendkos called Mr. Stahl a "brilliant, brilliant writer."

And Ms. Wendkos isn't doing so badly herself. Currently, she has two more screenplays under production. One, The Princess Diaries , is being directed by Garry Marshall, and another, Maggie's Men , is in the works with Mr. Bruckheimer. "This is a great time," she said. "I'm afraid to say it. It's as good as it's gotten for me, I can say that." And Coyote Ugly earned more than $60 million at the box office, even if it got clobbered by the critics. "You get used to it," Ms. Wendkos said of the bad reviews of the film. "I've been writing for 15 years, and every year I get reviewed for something. And the good ones feel good, but they don't last, and the bad ones feel bad, and they don't last, either."

And hey, it sure beats turning tricks for a living. Not that there's anything wrong with that. "They say that anything you do that you don't like doing, you're whoring yourself for the money," Ms. Wendkos said. "It's just that it's more acceptable if you are in a 9-to-5 grind."

Speaking of which, tonight, from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., it's the second of the 2000 Presidential Debates . Both Al Gore and George W. Bush are confident that they will be able to reach out and connect with voters, since it's a Wednesday and, unlike Oct. 3, they won't be up against an episode of Dark Angel . That Jessica Alba could run as a third-party candidate and smoke everybody! [WABC, WCBS, MSNBC, CNN, FNC, WNET et al., 9 p.m.]

Thursday, Oct. 12

Were you wondering whatever happened to Eric Nies, the abdominal-six-packed male model from New Jersey who was a popular cast member of the inaugural, New York-taped edition of The Real World ? Neither were we–until Mr. Nies' rep phoned up to say the former MTV hunk was now on some new, weird boxing show on MSG called Thunderbox . Perplexed, we arranged to talk to Mr. Nies on the phone from his hotel room in Las Vegas.

" Thunderbox is a new professional heavyweight boxing league," Mr. Nies said. The deal, he explained, is that some 16 boxers go into the ring in pairs for six-round skirmishes, try to knock the stuffing out of each other and earn points not only for wins and knockouts, but also for style, flair and trash-talking. Apparently Thunderbox 's operating conceit is that regular old-fashioned professional boxing is dull and unappealing to the coveted 18-to-35-year-old demographic. Mr. Nies called Thunderbox "not your father's boxing" and "the W.W.F. meets professional boxing"–turns of phrase that ought to warm the cockles of an advertiser's heart.

Mr. Nies serves as one of Thunderbox 's hosts, alongside surname-challenged comedian Godfrey. If that's not enough to hook you, there's also the Thunderbox Thundergirls. "The Thundergirl is there for support for her man," Mr. Nies said. "She comes to the ring looking sexy and talking trash for her boxer and just being in the corner and looking fabulous."

Thunderbox episodes are being taped in Vegas and in New York at the Hammerstein Ballroom. So far everyone's having a swell time, Mr. Nies said: "It's just exciting. There's girls dancing, there's a performance–Wyclef Jean opened up the first show, and he rocked it–and the crowd is up. It's like a concert with a boxing match, with a D.J. in a club, and then you got your guys down there smoking cigars ringside along with your, like, 21-year-old supermodel, you know what I'm saying? It's pretty hot, man!"

It was time to change the subject. NYTV asked Mr. Nies–he's a reality-TV pioneer, after all–how he would have fared on that Survivor show. "I don't think I would have won Survivor ," he said. "I think they would have kicked me off because I would have been able to last. I think I would have been a threat to everybody … I could last months, a year, on an island with just fruit, water and rice, you know?"

We know. Incidentally, NYTV caught some old Real World New York episodes running on repeats recently and, in retrospect, that was a pretty mature, together bunch: They had, like, jobs and stuff and some of them even had consciences and points of view. In fact, today's whiny, insipid Real World casts make Mr. Nies and his colleagues look like a regular Algonquin roundtable.

Tonight on MTV, Britney's MTV Moments . When Eric Nies was on The Real World , Britney Spears was, like, 2. [MTV, 20, 8 p.m.]

Friday, Oct. 13

Nash Bridges . C'mon! You can't live your entire life without ever watching this show. [WCBS, 2, 10 p.m.]

Saturday, Oct. 14

Tonight on Saturday Night Live , Kate Hudson and Radiohead. Keep that grouchy art rocker Thom Yorke away from Ms. Hudson's beau, Chris Robinson of the Black Crows. [WNBC, 4, 11:30 p.m.]

Sunday, Oct. 15

On HBO tonight, the premiere of Seinfeld creator Larry David's new series, Curb Your Enthusiasm . Insert your hearty, knowing praise here. [HBO, 32, 9:30 p.m.]

Monday, Oct. 16

On tonight's Channel 2 News at 11 , ace TV journo and Clinton-Lazio debate moderator Marcia ("Five-Cent E-mails") Kramer brings you the shocking story of a man who woke up on a block of ice only to discover that … his … kidneys … had been … removed! [WCBS, 2, 11 p.m.]

Tuesday, Oct. 17

Tonight is the third and final round of the 2000 Presidential Debates , and it's also a Tuesday, so you know what that means: Dark Angel time!

One guy who won't be sneaking off to watch Dark Angel (at least we think) is CBS News' Washington correspondent and Face the Nation host, Bob Schieffer. Mr. Schieffer has to watch the debates because it's part of his job. But it's not such a bad deal, he said–at least the dang Presidential race is close this year. "When you have a good race, I think it's just like in baseball or any other sport–it brings out the best in everybody," Mr. Schieffer said. "I think we do our best reporting and analysis when you have something that is interesting and close and fun to report on."

Indeed, say what you will about Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush, but it's certainly more competitive than the dreary 1996 campaign, when President Clinton had already left Bob Dole in the dust by debate season and, according to Mr. Schieffer, the press was just hoping the Senator could get a few licks in. "It was one of those things where nobody thought Dole was going to win–he was such an underdog that I think people let themselves sort of get into the mode of 'I really hope he does well, because I like him personally and I'd like to see him zing Clinton a couple of times,' or something like that," Mr. Schieffer said. "It was not so much that they [reporters] were Dole partisans, but they liked Dole and they wanted to see him do well, and I think a lot of them were maybe secretly rooting for him."

Well, a lot of good that did for poor old Bob Dole. Tonight, catch Mr. Schieffer, his fellow Texan Dan Rather and the rest of the CBS News gang try to make sense of Mr. Gore, Mr. Bush and their subliminal messages. [WCBS, 2, 9 p.m.]