“The Prom” is what Washington media call Saturday’s White House Correspondents Association Dinner.

I’m baffled by all the surprise over Donald Trump’s announcement that Silicon Barbie -- I mean Carrie Prejean -- will keep her Miss California USA crown.

Trump is all about the publicity. And this was a flat-out move to score some for an anachronism.

His decision gave the wheezy Miss USA pageant a perky set of PR implants. Just when the story would’ve wound down, Trump added several news cycles of visibility. Plus, he gave needed attention for the subsequent Miss Universe pageant, airing during the dead TV month of August.

The quote that “There is no such thing as bad publicity” didn’t come from Groucho. Or David Geffen. It was Irish playwright Brendan Behan, who actually said, “There is no such thing as bad publicity, except your own obituary.”

But then there’s “Jon & Kate Plus 8.”

The TLC series is starting its fifth season with a PR mess that only the most naïve will consider beneficial. And it’s putting the first nails in the coffin of a peculiar reality TV genre: the feel-good supersized family show.

And so it’s ended.

Last Friday, Jay Leno made his last joke, welcomed his successor and signed off from latenight television.

And so it begins.

Come September, Leno hosts the first broadcast network primetime show in recent memory to air every weeknight at 10 -- “stripped” scheduling in TV-speak. NBC’s hinted about what the show will be and given the requisite contradictory spin on projected ratings: huge potential, modest expectations.