“Grand Theft Auto IV” this month blew away, er, broke the record for sales of a video game in its first week in stores.

The gangland game grossed $500 million. That’s awfully good news, isn’t it? Kinda like hearing that they’ve added a night shift down at the bulletproof vest factory.

Incidentally, while Grand Theft Auto IV is rated M, for mature – 17 and up – ask any 13-year-old video gamers what they know about it. They know all about it.

That M rating, by the way, is because the game contains, “intense violence, blood, strong language, strong sexual content, partial nudity and use if drugs and alcohol.”

Yeah, we know, it’s just a game.

Then again, cops, security guards and weapon detectors once weren’t needed at school entrances, but now are. Of course, there are reasons for that. Many reasons.

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With “American Idol” finished for another season, Fox 5 News, at least until next season, prefers not to be called “The American Idol Pre and Post-Game Show.” . . . It took her a while, but in the end Barbara Walters did everything she possibly could to prove her critics correct: She’s a professional yenta.

Why is it big news that Ellen DeGeneres is engaged to marry her girlfriend? Who else would she marry, someone else’s girlfriend? . . . As for an engagement gift, Jewelry Television, a home shopping network, last week sold earrings with an “estimated retail value of $900” for $199. That’s right, $701 off a $900 item. Is there an attorney general in the audience?

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Note to ABC’s “America’s Funniest Home Videos” producers: Okay, already, it hurts to get hit in the crotch with a kick, a punch, a soccer ball, a football, a baseball or a baseball bat. We get it.

We can tell by those quick cuts to the studio audience making “Ooo!” And it must be funny, too, why else insert a laugh track.

Oh, and people skiing or snowboarding head-first into trees, and horses throwing their riders over fences, and kids wiping out on skateboards and trampolines. That’s “Ooo!” and funny stuff, too.

But what else ya got?

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Still not sure why concocted reality shows and crime dramas are so popular when the real stuff – real good stuff, too – appears in relative obscurity.

For example, what CBS provides in “Survivor” isn’t nearly as compelling as National Geographic Channel’s one-hour “Locked Up Abroad,” a genuine reality show about genuine people trying to survive in genuinely outrageous circumstances. Smartly edited and scored, it appear Mondays at 9 p.m. and is repeated throughout the week.

Same with “CSI” and dramas of that genre. You want murder investigations, the real things? A&E’s “The First 48 Hours” makes the scripted kind seem goofy.

Why mess with fabricated tales when you can ride with bona fide urban homicide detectives, men and women you get to know, as they track bona fide bad guys?

There are four consecutive, one-hour episodes on tonight, starting at eight.

With “The First 48” now in its seventh season, it seems a crime that the show hasn’t generated a following that rivals the most popular crime dramas.

Get out of that rut, people, swap the fake for the real.

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TV news speak: Just as we hear about “senseless murders” and “robberies gone bad,” when’s the last time the discovery of a dead body was simply reported as such – instead of “a grisly discovery”? And with the economy in a slide, we’re hearing terms such as “affordable housing” and “affordable lending.” Hmmm.

A CNN graphic last week repeatedly reported that aid to Mynamar/Burma is “slowly trickling in.” Another CNN graphic told of a “forecast of future economic activity.”

Then again, the future is always a bit trickier to forecast than the past.