The item we thought we were running was about about how Barry Diller and John Malone are having settlement talks while suing each other in Delaware.

And then we found ourselves unable to ignore this expanding General Electric ad on Bloomberg.com, which displays a live interview with GE chief Jeff Immelt. After watching a minute or two of it, you’ll be directed to this site, where you can continue watching what’s essentially a shareholder conference call disguised as a “conversation about GE’s performance and the outlook for 2008.” The ad unit comes from rich media company Eye Wonder and, for us at least, is the first live streaming video we’ve seen in an ad. It’s quite captivating, and almost makes us forget about Immelt’s denials that he wants to sell off NBC.

The ad also lets you submit questions to Immelt. We asked, “Who makes your tie?” because all the other crap they were talking about was filled with too much financial jargon.

It was GE chief Jeff Immelt, with an assist from Brian Williams, that got Paris Hilton’s Today interview pulled, says the Post. Though NBC still stands by its word that it never paid, nor planned to pay, for Hilton’s chat, the top dog decision was handed down as a means to beef up the lackluster rep of the Peacock. Remember Don Imus? And Seung-Hui Cho’s media manifesto? Yeah, that made NBC look bad, and they don’t have any more eyes to make black.

But hey, at least they’re putting up a fight against CBS — at one time the only real candidate for Biggest PR Blunders From a National TV Network of the Year Award.