I guess video of someone calmly looking at a monitor wouldn't make for compelling Black Friday news

Confusing numbers. The "average shopper spent $365.34 -- up more than 6 percent from a year ago," but the increase seems to be overwhelmingly in online purchasing: "Online sales surged 9 percent to $648 million on Black Friday....At the malls, however, another survey by research firm ShopperTrak found that Black Friday sales rose a disappointing 0.3 percent to $10.69 billion." I don't know how that averages out to 6% but it's interesting that TV news cameras still camp out at stores for the fights and stampedes.

All the hype, all the loss-leaders, all those sleep-deprived clerks and no real uptick in business.

UPDATE: Every Black Friday detail you could ever wish for here. Two highlights: "the number of people who began their Black Friday shopping at midnight tripled this year from 3.3 percent last year to 9.5 percent in 2010. In fact, by 4 a.m. nearly one-fourth (24.0%) of Black Friday shoppers were already at the stores" and retailers drove "'traffic early in November and in doing so some might have thinned Black Friday spending a bit.'"