I'm on TV, but probably not enough to hurt anything

For the benefit of dozens who've asked (technically, 0.25 dozen), my schedule on KOLO TV has been set: I'll be doing taped commentary, a couple of minutes or so, on the 6:30 News on alternate Wednesdays, then make a fleeting appearance live on Daybreak, the morning show, the next day. This is final until it changes, and I'll try to give notice here.
I say "fleeting" because Television Time, it turns out, is different from other time. While I was waiting for my first morning gig a couple of weeks ago, host Anne Cutler glanced up and said, "You've got a lot of time. What are you going to talk about?"
This was a dual surprise. I didn't know I had any time--I thought she'd ask questions and I'd say things like, "That's an interesting point, Anne" and "I hadn't considered that angle, but you may be right." And because I'd figured she'd steer the ship, I didn't have anything in mind to say.
Not a novelty, actually. I often started columns with no idea where they'd end.
In writing a column, though, you have a keyboard, a BACKSPACE key and a couple of hours. In this case, the camera was rolling in 3, 2, 1 ....
Well, OK: I said something (I have almost no recollection of what), and nothing bad happened, and after awhile I began to develop a notion of what I was talking about and where I was headed. I figured I'd wrap it up in a couple of minutes, nod at Cutler and let her figure out what to do with the rest of my "lot of time."
About then, though--I think this may have been a minute or so into my warm-up--she scribbled something on a piece of paper and turned it so I could see it.
"30 seconds," it said.
Thirty seconds? Thirty seconds? When she said "a lot of time," I was thinking along the lines of 10 minutes. Not that I wanted that long, but that's what "a lot of time" means outside of television.
Half an hour; that's a lot of time. The only place I knew of where 30 seconds was a lot of time is in the dentist's chair.
Shutting up in 30 seconds required not just a change of plan, but a change of topic: I realized I wouldn't have time to make whatever my final point was on whatever I was talking about (I'm telling the truth when I say I can't remember it), so I pretty much just . . . stopped. Rush Limbaugh's gotten away with that for years: Ramble on until the second hand gets to the 12, put some stress on your last two words as though they were clinched your argument, then just stop talking.
Cutler blinked, and I may have detected a half-second pause while she registered the fact that I'd fallen silent. Then she picked up wherever she'd left off, the camera shifted away from me and I got up and went to breakfast.
It may be harder than it looks, this "television."