"The View," "Rachael Ray" and "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" were among the Daytime Emmy Award nominees announced yesterday.

The programs will compete for best talk show, while the new category of best informative talk show pits nominees "Dr. Phil," "The Tyra Banks Show" and "A Place of Our Own" against each other.

Nominations for best daytime serial went to "General Hospital," "Guiding Light," "One Life to Live" and "The Young and the Restless."

Winners will be announced June 20 in Los Angeles.

"The View" hosts Barbara Walters, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd are among the nominees for best talk show host -- and get another a chance to break their 10-time losing streak in the category.

The series itself has been honored, although DeGeneres' show has dominated the best talk show category in recent years. (The Associated Press)

Paula Abdul must be hearing double.

On a night when "American Idol" switched up the judges' format by making them hold their appraisals until every contestant had a turn, Abdul offered feedback Tuesday for two songs by Jason Castro -- except that he'd only sung one.

Unlike the usual format, in which each "Idol" performance is judged immediately, Abdul, Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell were made to take notes, then offer individual critiques in rapid succession at the end of each round. The reason, Seacrest explained, was because "this show is so tight."

So after each of the final five contestants sang one Neil Diamond song, Jackson zipped through his appraisals, offering a few terse words for each before kicking it to a visibly flustered Abdul.

"Oh gosh, we've never had to write these things down ... fast enough," she began, shuffling through her notecards. "Jason, first song, I loved hearing your lower register, which we never really hear, um ... ."

And that's where it started going off the rails.

"The second song, I felt like your usual charm wasn't -- it was missing for me. It kind of left me a little empty."

Indeed.

All six people on stage, including Seacrest, stared blankly (except Syesha Mercado, who wore the furrowed brow of mystification).

"The two songs," she continued, "made me feel like you're not fighting hard enough to get into the top four."

After a smattering of nervous crowd laughter, Jackson finally broke the tension.

"That was just on the first song," he said sheepishly, pointing up to Castro. "Just on the first one."

Simon Cowell closed his eyes and shook his head, and began to guffaw as Abdul's confusion mounted.

"Oh my god, I thought you -- I thought you sang twice!" she said.

She explained that she got confused by looking ahead at the notes for David Cook.

At that point Seacrest, who makes his money by smoothing over situations just such as these, pointed to Abdul, saying: "You're seeing the future, baby!" before cutting her off and throwing to Cowell.

Even Cowell gathered himself to help patch up the moment, patting Abdul on the shoulder and asking, as if to speed things along, "Paula, who was your favorite?"

Her reply: Cook (the same contestant whose performance she supposedly noted as having left her "empty").

Pressed for time, Cowell then put an end to the awkward-fest by bursting into his own rapid-fire evaluation: "Jason, forgettable; David Cook, just above average; Brooke [White] a nightmare; David Archuleta, I thought it was amateurish; and Syesha, I thought it was old-fashioned.

"So guys ... I want to see the performance of a lifetime coming up," he said, as if to ensure absolute clarity, "the second time around."

Abdul told "Entertainment Tonight" after the show that she was thrown for a loop when producers apprised the judges of the change "in the dark" at the last minute.

"This was officially the strangest show we've ever done," Cowell said at the conclusion of the telecast, "but I like that. It's kind of a bit chaotic tonight." (Josh L. Dickey, Associated Press)

Warner Bros. is launching two Web sites to capture new ad revenue and a younger generation of viewers, the company said Monday.

KidsWB.com, geared for children, debuted Monday, featuring animated characters from the Warner Bros. library, which includes Bugs Bunny, Scooby Doo and DC Comics heroes like Batman.

TheWB.com -- with full episodes of shows such as "Friends" and "Smallville" and made-for-online shows -- is to launch in a beta test format next month, according to Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. Television Group.

Both sites will be supported by ad revenue, with deals already in place with Mattel Inc., McDonald's Corp. and Johnson & Johnson, the company said.

Group president Bruce Rosenblum said via Webcast from New York that the digital push was intended to make the television studio's content available to viewers such as his 20-year-old daughter and her friends, "who are watching on laptops and cell phones."

"To them, that is television," Rosenblum said.

The executives were in New York to pitch the digital strategy to advertising agencies.

Warner Bros.' move to make its content available on its own branded Web site comes well after other industry steps in that direction.

Last month, Hulu.com, a joint online venture between General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal and News Corp., launched to the public after a monthslong test period. And The Walt Disney Co.'s ABC.com has been streaming hit shows since September 2006.

But Warner Bros. lacks a major broadcast network, and it has sold distribution rights for shows it produces to other companies. "Chuck," for example, was sold to NBC, while "Pushing Daisies" airs on ABC.

Those networks have the rights to rebroadcast episodes on their own Web sites in the current season, leaving TheWB.com at least a season behind on offering the shows, Rosenblum said.

Even episodes of "Gossip Girl," which first air on Warner Bros.' joint venture channel with CBS Corp., The CW, will go online on CWTV.com before it appears at TheWB.com. (Ryan Nakashima, AP)