While he feels no sorrow over firing Tom Freston, Viacom chieftan Sumner Redstone is picking out friendship bracelets for Les Moonves, who he's said to be very happy with how he's running things at CBS.

"I could not be any more pleased with everything that Les and his team have achieved," Redstone, who is chairman and controlling shareholder of both Viacom and CBS, gushed to Wall Street analysts yesterday on a conference call to discuss CBS' quarterly results. "In Les we have the best executive in the media industry."

Ah hah! So that's how one fawns over their top underlings at CBS. Because for a minute there, we thought throwing them under a moving bus, driven by a drunk Mel Gibson, was the way things were done.