Just twelve hours after NBC started offering its shows on iTunes

… NBC Universal Television Group president Jeff Zucker tells me that their top NBC download is a Borscht Belt canine sock puppet — “Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.”

Clearly, an excellent indicator that Our Republic is healthy.

Zucker also hints that TiVo‘s plans to offer free TV downloads to iPods is a recipe for a nasty lawsuit from NBC Uni parent General Electric.

You can hear my entire interview with Zucker next Monday on NPR’s “The Business” – and not for $1.99, I might add, but for free. (Probably the chief reason public radio seems not to produce so many millionaires.) Free downloads of “The Business” are available on Apple’s iTunes or (so last century) actually tuning in your radio here in L.A. at 2:30 pm to KCRW.

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.