CNN prexy says network wasn't star struck for Angelina interview

Jonathan Klein, CNN's president is defending his networks decision to jump on the Angelina Jolie bandwagon. Klein says the interview conducted by Anderson Cooper was well within the CNN brand. Yeah but we are sure the end goal was ratings though!! CNN attracted 1.33 million viewers for Anderson Cooper's interview last week with the U.N. goodwill ambassador and new mother of Brad Pitt's baby, more than doubling the audience Cooper typically gets for his nightly newscast. Since the news network doesn't usually traffic in the game of celebrity "gets," it also drew its share of criticism for journalistic stargazing. Throughout the day before the interview aired, CNN telecast several reports on the humanitarian crisis in Africa. That's the issue Jolie has focused on in her humanitarian work and during most of her interview with Cooper. Yeah but again we are sure Klein was waiting on hand for early ratings reports. read...

Mo Money Mo Problems: Investors get green light to sue the pants off Sumner Redstone and company

A judge gave a group of pissed off investors the all clear to take it to the courts over the high pay given to Viacom's top brass. The suit claims that the company overpaid Chairman Sumner Redstone and other executives even as the company suffered a record loss. Naming names we are going to say Tom Freston and MTV bosswoman Judy McGrath are also probably named in the suit though we could be wrong. And we thought Sumner gave up his CEO title to Tommy Boy? Anyway corporate greed is the norm these days, and it's the little people who suffer.

Wayne Pace, the madam, her husband and her mother

Any minute now we should see a press release from TimeWarner announcing the sudden resignation of CFO Wayne Pace. This story just keeps getting bigger and better. Now the alleged husband of the "Midtown Madam" is coming to her defense saying that his wife is innocent. Her mom is also coming to her defense....Naturally. We are sure mommy got some perks from her daughter's big bucks sex ring though. From today's Daily News: The devoted young husband of a Brazilian bombshell accused of running a million-dollar call-girl ring from her midtown apartment declared yesterday: "I love my wife, and I'm standing by her." Love-struck Forrest Cannon, 28, said he believes Andreia Schwartz is innocent - and wants to get her out of jail so she can join him in Hong Kong, where he has a high-powered job as associate with an international finance company. read...

Andrea Schwartz could be the answer to TimeWarner's stock woes

After hours of research we came to the conclusion that in order for Time Warner to see a huge jump in their current stock price, they should consider putting CFO's Wayne Pace's hooker on TW's payroll. Why you ask? Just think about it. If she is on TW payroll with an office at TW HQ she would be on call for any TW exec who feels the need to let off stress. By letting off this stress TW execs can think clearer and come up with ways to one-up competitors. More importantly they will be able to see clearer on what to do with the AOL division. We know we know brilliant............Yeah we thought so too.

If TimeWarner CFO Wayne Pace has any dignity, he should step down

We are sure Time Warner CFO Wayne Pace isn't the only fat cat media exec paying for expensive sex, but so far he the only one who got caught spoiling Manhattan madam Andrea Schwartz . Yeah Time Warner may have cleared him of using company funds to pay for sex but that doesn't mean things will just go back to normal. He is now an embarrassing thorn in the company's corporate suite and that's the last thing they need because they are still trying to get over the embarrassment of allowing an internet company to buy them. "I wouldn't have kept having sex with [Pace] or any of these guys if they weren't paying me," Schwartz said in a statement unveiled yesterday during her arraignment in Manhattan Supreme Court. "I don't do guys for money anymore," she told cops. "I only do girls." Schwartz, 31, who pleaded not guilty to prostitution, selling drugs and money laundering, told cops shortly after her arrest that Pace and Voccola were helping pay her bills. "I got up to $200,000 ... from just one guy, who worked for AOL, in cash, mortgage payments, checks and other things," Schwartz said in an apparent reference to Pace. read...

Hard to kill: The only way to kill Radar Magazine is to nuke it

Radar Magazine is the only magazine on earth made of Teflon. After two failed attempts to capture our hearts and money, the mag is looking to take another go at it. This is the third incarnation for Radar in three years, and this time all the sass will come in increments. First, there will be Radar the Web site, which is to begin by mid-August. Then, early next year the editors plan to start publishing a print edition, most likely 6 to 10 times a year. This time, Radar is being financed without any help from Mortimer B. Zuckerman, the real estate mogul who owns The Daily News and U. S. News & World Report. Mr. Zuckerman initially backed Radar with $25 million but eventually cut the magazine off, explaining that finding advertisers was too difficult. Wow some body other than Maer Roshan loves Radar. read...

Disney puts some pep in it's step....With incoming Chairman John Pepper

Ok so we were thinking someone more along the lines of Frank Biondi, or even Geri Levine, but Disney settled on naming a current member of their board of directors to the post of Chairman. John Pepper Jr. is the former head of Proctor & Gamble and will now be the cloud hanging over Bob Iger's head. This means that current chairman, former U.S. Senate Majority leader George Mitchell can go do whatever it is that former U.S. Senate Majority leaders do. And the Analysts weigh in on Pepper: Ken Harris, an analyst for marketing and sales consulting firm Cannondale Associates, said Pepper is "very qualified" to lead Disney through the dynamic moves it has made under Iger, including the purchase of Pixar and growth into Asia. "He is the right person to take an opinionated group of leaders and get consensus," Harris said. "I think that he is obviously an independent thinker and he provides an external point of view." Sanders Morris Harris analyst David Miller, who covers Disney, said Pepper "should be seen as nothing but an asset." "He is very much like Bob Iger -- a consensus builder, not a divisive guy, a great leader," Miller said. "He obviously knows something about consumer products ... and Disney is essentially a consumer-driven media company." read...

Time Warner Pacing Wayne.........for now

TimeWarner has cleared Wayne Pace, it's CFO of spending TW money on whores. Pace who we thought was married and probably is, was accused of showering a whore boss with gifts and money. "We conducted a review assisted by outside advisors and found no evidence of illegal conduct by Mr. Pace or any misuse of corporate assets," Time Warner said in a statement. Wonder if Mr. Pace had late night romps with prostitutes on Dick Parsons' desk just for the thrill of it? Anyway he should be gone before the end of the year. Its just not good for the company. read...

Paramount's Brad Grey to get even more headaches

Paramount Pictures head honcho Brad Grey may get his hands on some even cooler operations from boss Tom Freston. Freston and company are planning to hand off the film business of MTV and Nickelodeon to Grey to add to his roster. The reorganization plan - which is still being discussed between Grey and Viacom chief Tom Freston - was first reported in yesterday's Los Angeles Times. Read...

Univision auction fit for movie of the week

Univision's board of directors apparently would rather take less than be bought out by rival Grupo Televisa, well at least that's what the Televisa folks are claiming and they are crying over it too. "Notwithstanding our repeated offers to discuss all aspects of our proposal including price, Univision and its advisers refused to enter into any discussions with us after we submitted our initial bid," Televisa said. "Given this action by Univision's board, Televisa has a number of alternatives it is considering." What Televisa will do next is unclear, but inside the company the anger is boiling. Televisa, the Mexican media giant that provides most of Univision's most popular programming, has had a decade-long public feud with Univision's chairman, A. Jerrold Perenchio. Among the possible steps Televisa discussed yesterday was suing Univision, arguing that the board breached its fiduciary duty to shareholders by not engaging in further negotiations. Clearly this is going to be one of the most controversial deals ever. Expect lawsuits to block the actual takeover by the winning bidders. Televisa knows that such moves won't change anything but they are going to spend some money to fuck with the process as best as they can. read....

Analyzing Eisner's Team Baby buy...........kinda

We always knew former Disney-an Mike Eisner would muscle his way back into the media/entertainment industry but we never thought he would use kids to do so. Clearly Eisner is getting on path to building his own family oriented entertainment company. No one knows how much Eisner dished out for the Team Baby purchase or if he has partners in the deal but one things for sure, nobody is talking. We thought his first purchase would have been an internet company. Guess he still doesn't have faith in the new media gods.

Morning Wire: Wow! BIG news, just the way we like it

Sirius boss Mel Karmazin is said to have a hard on for rival XM It was only a matter of time until one of them wanted the other and we are shocked that its the smaller party who wants the bigger party. Regarding XM - would we like to buy them? Sure. We'd love to buy them. Price would matter, so that would be an issue ... (and) there would definitely be the regulatory issue," he said. Mike Eisner loves the babies former Disney dictator Mike Eisner has reportedly bought a producer of sports videos for infants and toddlers called Team Baby Entertainments. We feel sorry for the poor bastards who will get a taste of classic Eisner. Univision is bad for it's own health Univision's stock is suffering because the board wants to hold out for more money. Shares of Univision Communications Inc., the No. 1 Spanish language broadcaster in the United States that put itself up for sale earlier this year, fell another 3 percent on Monday amid doubts about the success of its auction.

Morning Wire: And now the day's top media business news according to us

Best Buy wants Blender magazine's Editors to school you The folks at best Buy want to make sure you buy the best music available in their stores. So they've called on the musical know of Blender magazine's editors to guide you to greatness. However your musical tastes may differ. New Dreamworks CEO Stacy Snider is fitting nicely But how long until rumors start to circulate that she will be taking over Paramount period? Many have speculated that Paramount chairman Brad Grey, who hired a relatively inexperienced production team, eventually could turn to DreamWorks to supply even more pictures. Trader Monthly makes traders look like rockstars Trying to tap into that rich market is a magazine called Trader Monthly. Since 2004, it has been blending a bit of Institutional Investor with GQ and dashes of Maxim to give its readers sage market articles to help them profit on, say, emerging markets, alongside articles about luxuries like $20 million jets and helicopters.

The Matters that Matter

Business 2.0 tells us who matters in media and we are so not shocked that we.........The consumer comes out on top. Afterall we are creating content for these big media bastards. Some included on the list is our friend in our head, Gawker Media's Nick Denton at #47, Rupert Murdoch in at #4 and Barry Diller at #16. However we are shocked that our man Tom Freston didnt make the cut being that he runs the coolest media company in the world. We can understand Les Moonves not making the cut but come on, where is Tommy? 50 who matter

Morning Wire: And now the mornings top media business news according to us

Truck of money, not enough for Univision Univision rejected an offer from a group of investors yesterday saying that the offer was too low. That bid was at about $35.50 a share, or less that $11 billion. Univision asked the consortium to raise its offer, people involved said, but the group indicated early today that it was not prepared to do so. It did not, however, withdraw its initial offer. Canada's Senate can do neat tricks, like solve problems that don't exist The Canadian Senate must have a lot of time on their hands. After decades of mergers and acquisitions in the Canadian media industry some in the senate are calling for broader reviews of these mergers and how they affect the consumer. Canadian law does not specifically limit cross-ownership of newspapers and radio and television stations in a single market. The federal Competition Bureau has reviewed news media mergers, but only for their impact on advertising prices.

Live Wire: Les Moonves wants some glitz too

CBS CEO Les "Love Boat" Moonves is making it clear that Tom Freston can't have all the fun. He wants to add some glitz to the boring CBS empire by going into the movie business. Its no secret the Les was pissed when he didn't end up with Paramount Pictures under his umbrella so this is his way of entering the biz. We just hope he has the balls for it. "We are exploring it," Moonves said at a New York media event. "We're not looking to do "Superman." Moonves did not provide details on how CBS would set up a movie venture, whether through acquisition or building up its own properties. read...

Morning Wire: And now the mornings top media business headlines according to us

Cold water can also cause shock The never ending Univision bidding may actually come to an end today if the coldwater some TV execs are planning to throw on the deal gets warm by the time it hits the target. Univision is expected to announce the winning bid today. Conrad Black please go away Now this is the real never ending story. Conrad Black is still a liar and will still sit pretty when the dust settles. Dan Rather comes to an agreement to be fired by CBS The move was widely expected in the past few weeks after Rather, 74, had said that he would be leaving CBS after negotiations on a new contract hadn't guaranteed him anything but an office at the network and it wasn't even on the same floor as Les Moonves' office.

Mel Karmazin will forever have Janet Jackson's nipple in his mind

Former Viacom number 2 Mel Karmazin is no stranger to conflict. However Mr. Karmazin isn't afraid to take on challenges he and/or his company Sirius faces. He doesn't apologize for the major money deals he's done since becoming CEO of Sirius but he seems to still be traumatized about the whole Janet Jackson nipple thing. Mel sat down with Broadcasting & Cable for a Q&A: Has the government gone too far? Yes. I think the government is causing more harm to America than a view of Janet Jackson's top for two-tenths of a second. Anything you want to say about Janet Jackson? Yes. She should not have done it, and I certainly wish she hadn't done it. It was terribly inappropriate that she did it. Our investigation indicated that nobody from our company [CBS] knew anything about it; we were blindsided. I apologized to Congress, and I apologized to our audience. But that said, the government should not be fining for anything. I've been looking at any studies that may have been done on the youth of America since they were exposed to that two-tenths of a second, and it's hard for me to find any harm that has been caused. I think there'll be a lot of harm caused by this new indecency law, because it is, in fact, going to censor people.These fines are so big that small broadcasters just can't risk paying them, and, therefore, they'll just totally stay away from this type of content. As I understand it, the government isn't saying you can't cover any kind of content, but, if you're going to set fines that are so great, people are just going to shy away from it.I think the industry did a horrible job in using its political capital. In walking the halls of Congress, I know that, when broadcasters want something to happen, they do a pretty good of lobbying. On this subject of decency, I guess people just don't care that much about it. And now there's lip service talking about, yeah, we're going fight it in the courts and things like that. But I don't think there is as great an effort speaking out for free speech as there once was on the part of broadcasters. read...(B&C)

Michael's New York is the media industry's Ivy

In LA when stars want to make sure that the paparazzi doesn't forget about them, they go to paparazzi infested "The Ivy" At Ivy they know they will be snapped and within 24 hours something will be written about them somewhere. Well here in NYC Michaels seems to be the hot spot to see or be seen. Media heavies like Viacom boss Tom Freston and Newscorp's Peter Chernin are regulars and they don't mind the media hounding gossipers. In this case, you can also go to Michaels show everyone that u do truly like someone. When anchor Bob Schieffer wanted to make it clear that he was tickled about his replacement on the "CBS Evening News," he invited Katie Couric to lunch at an understated Midtown restaurant where he knew they would be noticed. "I wanted everyone to know that I really like Katie," he said recently. "And if you want to get the word out, the easiest place to spread it is Michael's." read...

Morning Wire: Tribune's TimeWarner esque visions

TimeWarner wasn't the only media company promising boat loads of synergies after their merger with AOL. Tribune Co, also promised to be the "the multimedia company of the future." However today Tribune has yet to even show a hint of what was promised. So on that note, a note, to all media CEO's who like to talk big in the moment: "Just shut up". While the entire media landscape is in turmoil, the Tribune properties in Los Angeles and New York have fared particularly poorly. Circulation is down, below the industry standards at both The Los Angeles Times and Newsday; at KTLA and WPIX, viewers have declined and audience share has plummeted. Nor has a synergistic bump in ad revenue materialized. "There is less true cross-selling between newspapers and television because the advertising markets are different," said Scott C. Smith, president of Tribune publishing, responsible for both the newspapers and the company's interactive businesses. The Tribune company, which is today valued at $9.6 billion, is more than Los Angeles and New York. It owns 11 newspapers and 26 broadcast outlets and several Internet properties. But the two coasts hold disproportionate sway within the company, with The Times, KTLA, Newsday and WPIX contributing what analysts said was roughly one-third of the company's $5.6 billion in annual revenues. read...

Les Today: Separated by Networks and Bob Iger

CBS honcho Les "Love Boat" Moonves and Channel 7 news man Bill Ritter may not be telling us something or may be in the dark themselves about possibly being long lost brothers. The two look hauntingly alike that sometimes we think its Les behind that news desk at night.

David Pecker losing his muscle

AMI CEO David Pecker is in a pile of shit and may not have the shoes for it. The company announced that they will be putting the muscle titles on the block. Mr. Pecker has not been in good standing with investors who reportedly were secretly looking at potential replacements outside the company. However they may be giving Mr. Pecker another peer of shoes for a chance at getting into good standing. "It looks like a major-league collapse of the Pecker empire," said one industry executive. At the very least, the dream of a major expansion and eventually going public with an IPO appear to be over for the foreseeable future. In fact, sources tell The Post, in recent months some board members from the Thomas H. Lee investment team have been so worried by the deteriorating financial picture at AMI that they had quietly been sounding out publishing executives to replace Pecker as CEO. read..

Morning Wire: Chopping Tribune

Tempers ran wild yesterday during a Tribune board meeting. The Chandler family, Tribune's second-largest investor, called for a breakup of the company in a new example of pressure being applied to a struggling newspaper business. We can only imagine the show that went on in that boardroom. From The New York Times: In a letter sent to the company's board, trustees representing the Chandler family — the billionaire former owners of The Los Angeles Times — accused Tribune management of pursuing a failed strategy for melding local TV stations and newspapers and failing to keep pace with industry rivals. The rest of the board rejected the Chandler's arguments. "It's the beginning of the end game," said Edward Atorino, an analyst at the Benchmark Company. read...

Wire Rewind: Les Moonves does have the voice of a drunk

Ok so yeah it wasn't a news filled day for us but hey it is what it is. And now the Wire Rewind: The Chandler family is going to have to learn how to see eye to eye with the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation and vice versa. Its for the better of Tribune and its employees. read... Rupert Murdoch finally knows how he can make his money back. read... poor Dan Abrams. Not even 3 full days into his new gig and already he is faced with the task of getting two divas to work together. read... We listened, we post blogged, we still don't get it. Maybe Julie Chen does. read... Note to Time Warner Shareholders: Superman can't and will not put more cash in your greedy little pockets. read...

Not even Superman can lift this stock

Time Warner hasn't had a real hit film since the "Lord of the rings". The movie with the ugly name "Poseidon" fell on its face and now TW's greedy shareholders are hoping the man of steel can bring them more green. From CNNmoney.com: With that in mind, there is going to be a lot of pressure on The Man of Steel to generate big ticket sales in theaters. "Superman Returns" will be released on June 28. "Time Warner is hoping 'Superman' will turn things around for them. That's the big event picture of the summer," said Joe Bonner, a media analyst with Argus Research. "Superman Returns" has a lot of buzz since it has been nearly 20 years since moviegoers have seen someone don the blue and red tights on the silver screen. It also comes with high hopes since Bryan Singer, the widely respected director of the first two "X-Men" movies, abandoned the third installment of that series in order to take over "Superman." Plus, Kevin Spacey as the follicly challenged villain Lex Luthor is a bit of brilliant casting. read...

Les Today: Post blogging the Q&A with Les Moonves @ Deutsche Bank's 14th Annual Media & Telecommunications Conference

In his usual drinker's drawl Les "Love Boat" Moonves sat down for a Q&A like many of his media industry peers yesterday at Deutsche Bank's 14th Annual Media & Telecommunications Conference in NYC. Les praises his team of execs for a job well done so far but admits that he is very hands on and that’s just is management style. But in the same breath says that he lets his managers be managers. Les also tried to show a funny side by saying he gets along great with his news team and said: ”Hey I married one”. When asked if he thinks he has a clear digital strategy for CBS, Moonves clearly throws a silent punch at companies like Newscorp and NBC Universal saying that: “Other companies have spent a fortune to help get their digital strategy in the fast lane but we grew and improved our digital properties”. Les then ordered the sound guy to run a new media tape for some kind of presentation of CBS’s internet strategy. He then threw in a little Tom Freston lingo saying: “We are one of the best content companies around”. He admits that they (CBS) make’s money off the same content but through different distribution vehicles which means that we are all stupid for purchasing the same shit packaged differently. When asked about a possible Univision deal, Les said flat out: “Its great company, but we’re not buying it” However he said that they are constantly looking for potential acquisitions that fit with their current internet strategy. He spared no feelings in saying David Lee Roth’s show sucked, but: “We have real talented radio guys now, they’re smart” We bet a Q&A with Tom Freston would have been more exciting!!

Rupe to recoup on Myspace buy

Rupert Murdoch and company had it planned out all along before they spend nearly $600 million on social networking superstar Myspace.com. The company says it will auction off the site's search function to the highest bid which could come from Google, Microsoft or Yahoo! But then again Barry Diller's Ask.com may jump in with a bid for the hell of it too. They always seem to forget Barry is in the search biz too. Anyway Newscorp Prexy Peter Chernin let the cat out of the bag yesterday during a Q&A at the Deutsche Bank Media & Telecom Conference here in New York: "We will auction off our search business to Google, Yahoo or MSN, we have only scratched the surface of how to monetise MySpace. The site claims 80m members" Myspace' users were right, the corporate paint is being applied slowly but surely. read...

Dan Abrams first move as cable news exec, playing mediator

Newly minted MSNBC boss man Dan Abrams already has one problem he has to knock out ASAP. It's the usual bickering between overpaid news show hosts, this time between Keith Olbermann and Rita Cosby. The two have not been playing nice and Mr. Abrams may have to throw his weight as cable exec for the first time. Olbermann, whose "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" airs weeknights at 8, apparently has precious little respect for Cosby, whose "Rita Cosby: Live & Direct" airs at 10 p.m. "Rita's nice," Olbermann wrote to a fan from his MSNBC E-mail account, "but dumber than a suitcase of rocks." Yesterday Cosby retorted: "Keith got it wrong. I'm not that nice." Danny boy, this is just the beginning. Read…

Morning Wire: Newspaper dynasties go head to head

When money is involved anything goes. For the Chandler family and the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation, this seems to be the case though they may say different. The two families have been at it over the direction and stock of the Tribune Company. Each family thinks they know what's best for the company as long as they benefit from it. This sounds like a made for lifetime movie but maybe with a dash of murder and mystery. At stake in the dispute is not just money, but possibly control over the company's direction. The Chandlers fear that management's buyback plan could limit Tribune's strategic options and the value of their stake. And management, which also controls the McCormick trusts, is wary that the Chandlers want a financial structure that could benefit them while saddling the company with a big tax bill. These conflicting approaches reflect the clash of cultures and other challenges at Tribune since it acquired the Times Mirror Company in 2000, a sale endorsed by the Chandlers. After Otis Chandler, the grandson of Harry Chandler who had led The Los Angeles Times as publisher for two decades, left the company's leadership, the Chandler family's active involvement in Times Mirror had declined. read...

Keeping John Malone out of Takeoverville

Rupert Murdoch is close to a deal to finally get his company out of harms way otherwise known as John Malone. Murdoch is hoping to finalize a deal that will allow him to buy back the 18% voting rights currently in Mr. Malone's pockets. For some reason we would have love to see John Malone and Rupert go at it to see who would end up controlling Newscorp. The US regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, is set to approve a long-standing request by News Corp to take control of 35 US television stations currently licensed to Mr Murdoch. The stations could become a key bargaining chip, with the possibility of some of them being handed tax-free to Liberty in exchange for part of its stake in News. The television stations were licensed to Mr Murdoch when News was still domiciled in Australia because the media baron has US citizenship. "We have had discussions with News Corp about them selling an asset to Liberty (in exchange for News Corp shares), which is more attractive for Liberty following the recent rise in News Corp's share price," Greg Maffei, chief executive of Liberty Media, said. News's share price has risen more than 20 per cent this year, closing on Friday at $26.72. read...

Taking a step back with Olaf Olafsson

The saying goes "Sometimes you have to take a step backwards to move forward" But we really never took it too serious until we came across Olaf Olafsson. Mr. Olafsson is the Executive Vice President of TimeWarner and with a name like Olaf Olafsson we couldn't help but look over his background. In doing so we realized that Olaf is living proof that sometimes you do have to take a step backwards to moves forward. In this case it's only his title that took a step back but his reach may be greater than lets say when he was president of Advanta Corporation. But then again the man held a high post at Sony. So why is Mr. Olaf sitting in TW's senior executive suite when he could probably be sitting pretty as CEO of his own domain? Previously, he was founder, president and chief executive officer of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Inc., a unit of Sony Corporation established in 1991, Olafsson built and managed its businesses in the United States and Europe. During his six-year tenure, he directed the worldwide operations of Sony entertainment software and hardware divisions and was responsible for the introduction of the acclaimed PlayStation. He held several other positions at Sony, having begun his career at the company in 1985. Olafsson is the author of several novels, including Absolution (Pantheon, 1994), The Journey Home (Pantheon, 2000), and Walking Into The Night (Pantheon, 2003). He was born in Reykjavik, Iceland and studied as a Wien Scholar at Brandeis University, where he received his degrees in physics. Olafsson's TW bio

Dan Abrams Is the Jay Z of cable news

MSNBC has put it's ratings future in the hand of one of it's hosts. Dan Abrams will take over as General Manager of the number 3 cable new network, give up The Abrams Report but keep his NBC News' chief legal correspondent, providing analysis and commentary for Matt Lauer and company over at "Today" and other programs. Though this upping can be taken as a sign of confidence from the office of Jeff Zucker, the confidence isn't 100%. Abrams was not given the Presidential title of the network which means someone could be coming in to take the spot or they could be tossing it out the window. Will Dan Abrams eventually go the exec route leaving journalism behind or will he still keep a big toe in. read...

Les Today: They will ask, and Les Moonves will answer......... Honestly

CBS boss Les "Love Boat" Moonves will participate in a question and answer session as the keynote luncheon speaker tomorrow at Deutsche Bank's 14th Annual Media & Telecommunications Conference and Mediawire Daily will be listening. We are curious to hear what Les has to say in response to some questions we are sure will be asked like his feud with former employee Howard Stern. We don't expect to hear anything about Julie Chen's cooking or habits just strictly work related. We are sure Sumner will be listening in. cbs corporation

Media Quicky: CBS hopes for a buzz

The folks over at CBS Digital Media came up with what they think is their greatest idea ever........Theshowbuzz.com but for some reason we think we may have heard and seen this before. In doing so, CBS enters an already competitive Internet arena that feeds the public's near-insatiable hunger for showbiz and celeb news. The 24-hour-a-day multimedia site will be constantly updated and include on-demand video, interactive features, archives, photos, maps and blogs. By spinning out a new site devoted to entertainment news, CBS hopes to "create an environment where people who are interested in those things will go," CBS Digital chief Larry Kramer says. "The future of media companies, the future of the Web is about finding additional revenue streams for content you already have or to support the people who create that content," Kramer says. In CBS News' case, that amounts to about 1,500 employees who are involving in reporting news, much of it entertainment and pop culture features. read....

Morning Wire: News about the news and more

And now the top Media Business News according to us: New York Daily news continues to be full of itself publishing business news about its business moves. more... It doesn't matter if you're Sumner's cousin more... Les and company to give us showbuzz. more.... Gossip mags hate gossip blogs and we say too bad. more... Google is not a media company? more....

Huffington Post gets into gossip but with a little more style

We never thought we would see it but TheHuffingtonpost.com couldn't hold it in anymore. They launched a gossip blog called "Eat The Press" but funny enough the domain name seems to be owned and is being used by someone else. We have to say however, the blog is very entertaining. EATTHEPRESS

No wonder Rupe's crew is tightening the space on Myspace. They're looking for dumb teenagers and the Pedophiles who stalk them

Going a little out of our circle, what in the world was this kid thinking? A 16-year-old girl who flew to the Middle East to see a man she met on MySpace.com was detained in Jordan and was headed home Friday, an FBI spokesman said. U.S. officials persuaded Katherine Lester to take the return flight from Amman, FBI Special Agent Robert Beeckman said from the agency's Detroit office. Katherine had disappeared from her home in Gilford, in eastern Michigan, on Monday and apparently planned to visit a man whose MySpace account describes him as a 25-year-old from Jericho, said Tuscola County Undersheriff James Jashinske. FBI: Mich. girl held in Jordan on way home