In a sad but interesting case of life imitating art, CBS was to have broadcast the excellent 2005 drama “Good Night and Good Luck” this evening but has decided instead to air a professional football game that will also air on at least two other networks (NBC and the NFL network, and in some markets, an additional local network airing an NFL network feed).

This is interesting because “Good Night” is a history of CBS news and a drama about the tensions between broadcasters with principles and ratings-craving networks that cater to the lowest common denominator.

It’s also interesting to note that George Clooney, who directed “Good Night and Good Luck,” plays legendary CBS producer Fred Friendly. More than a decade after the events depicted in “Good Night,” Friendly finally quit CBS because the network chose to air repeats of “I Love Lucy” and “The Real McCoys” rather than broadcast a hearing on the Vietnam War, a subject Friendly thought CBS had an obligation to cover.

While this case of football triple coverage is hardly of the same magnitude, one wonders what Friendly would make of this latest example of CBS behavior.

¢ Sundance invites viewers to spend the last Saturday night of 2007 with four films directed by Alfred Hitchcock: “Marnie” (5 p.m.), “Shadow of a Doubt” (7:10 p.m.), “Rope” (9 p.m.) and “Saboteur” (10:30 p.m.).

¢ What working person hasn’t chafed under a clueless superior or felt constrained by the 9 to 5? The new series “I’m the Boss” (9 p.m. today, Fine Living) profiles people who have set up their own businesses. The entrepreneurs range from a designer who works out of her house to a banker-turned-baker to the founder of Craigslist.

¢ The regular season concludes on “Sunday Night Football” (7 p.m. Sunday, NBC) as Indianapolis hosts Tennessee. The Titans can enter the playoffs with a victory over the Colts. The originally scheduled game between the Chiefs (4-11) and the Jets (3-12) was considered too pointless for prime time.

¢ Filmmakers follow counselors and children as young as 6 in the documentary “Jesus Camp” (9 p.m. Sunday, A&E). Directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (“The Boys of Baraka”), “Camp” shows how children barely old enough to read are being raised to be soldiers in God’s Army, a cultural and religious force out to reshape American society and politics. The film revolves around the ardent teachings and always slightly flustered style of Pastor Becky Fischer, who runs the Kids on Fire summer camp in Devil’s Lake, N.D. While Fischer and her young charges aim most of their invective at the usual suspects of sinners and secularists, they reserve a great deal of contempt for fellow Christians whom they consider too tame and unwarlike.

Film critics were divided on “Jesus Camp.” The Baltimore Sun thought it successfully “opens a subculture without programming our response to it.” But the Chicago Reader called it “hamstrung by its polemics,” and the Wall Street Journal dismissed it as a “snapshot” and “scattershot” to boot.

Tonight’s highlights

¢ “Britney Spears’ Fall from Grace” (5 p.m., E!) gets the “dumbest title of the week” award. From what great heights did she descend? Her career seems more like a languid wallow than a decline and fall.

¢ The New England Patriots attempt to finish their season with an unbeated record in a game with the playoff-bound New York Giants (7 p.m., CBS, NBC, NFL).

Sunday’s highlights

¢ Scheduled on “60 Minutes” (6 p.m., CBS): the increasing size of forest fires; medical marijuana; our dependency on computer nerds for technical survival.

¢ The globe-trotting continues on “Amazing Race” (7 p.m., CBS).