After an exhaustive and mostly trivial court battle, IAC chief Barry Diller has won the right to split up his company into five separate units as he sees fit. Liberty Media’s John Malone, who tried to wrest power from Diller, won the right to issue a carefully worded press release. [Fortune]

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.

Yesterday’s trial between IAC chief Barry Diller and Liberty Media’s John Malone was never even supposed to happen. Weren’t these two supposed to everything out – choosing whether to split IAC into five units, and how that would affect Malone’s voting capacity – on their own without ever seeing the inside of a courtroom? No matter, though, because the testimony is providing great fodder for onlookers like us, like when Malone went after Diller’s leadership methods: “He frequently refers to it as his business. [… He is] extremely well compensated [… and made a] fine art [of using the corporate jet].” Meanwhile, IAC shares continue to slide; they’re down 20 percent from January, which will make the theoretical pie pieces of IAC that much more attractive to potential buyers. Firesale on Ticketmaster!

“Please do your best to ignore it. I will try as well but probably fail.” That’s IAC chief Barry Diller in a memo to staffers about what to do about the coming onslaught of press interest as he battles Liberty Media’s John Malone in court over the future of the company. Though, um, the media blitz is sorta kinda absolutely indeed already here. But today, as the trial begins in Delaware, is when the fun starts. That’s when company documents and sniping testimony will be on the table for all to gawk at.

Continues Diller: “At the end of the day, it’s purely a business dispute. We are highly confident in our legal position and are looking forward to proving our case to the judge. But, whatever the outcome, you have much to be proud of. And no one, including those seeking to dramatize this dispute with generic and often wrongheaded characterizations of our Company, can or should take that away from you.”

And he’s right: Nobody can take that away from IAC staffers. Except Diller himself. Which he did to 40 Ask.com employees alst week when he fired them.

FILED: OBVIOUS DEPARTMENT “A closer examination of the financial performance of the operations controlled by IAC and Liberty would be a fair way to determine who is better at managing shareholder value, rather than asset flipping.” MediaPost’s Diane Mermigas is genius! [MP]

Might Liberty Media’s John Malone be willing to give up its super-voting shares in IAC – and let both parties drop their lawsuits – if the scream queen just hands over HSN?

The TV shopping network is among the few bright spots in IAC’s latest earnings report. A year ago and a few times in recent months, a similar deal to exchange assets was on the table, but was squashed because of concerns about HSN’s future; the unit’s 8 percent gain this quarter, under Nike import Mindy Grossman, might have calmed those fears.

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IT’S NOT THAT DIAMONIQUE ISN’T SELLING WELL ANYMORE Giving Liberty Media chief John Malone more ammo in his move to oust Barry Diller, HSN and Ticketmaster.com parent IAC reports a fourth-quarter loss, surprising investors, even though revenue increased 8.1 percent. Damn that LendingTree.com and this mortgage crisis. [Bloomberg]

DILLER’S PICKLE “Insane,” “hogwash,” and “sideshow” are just some of the choice adjectives Barry Diller has used, over the past two days, to describe Liberty Media’s John Malone and his lawsuit that aims to oust Diller as chief of IAC. In this article from Forbes.com’s Lisa LaMotta, you’ll learn that and more, like how these two found themselves in this situation after being best buds during their Paramount era. You’ll also learn at least one analyst thinks there could be compromise found in this duel, with Liberty forgoing their super-voting shares.

The battle over IAC rages on, with Liberty Media chief and IAC shareholder John Malone refusing to let Barry Diller split the company into five units, and effectively stripping Malone of power.

Malone sued last week to stop Diller’s canceling of Malone’s super “B” shares; Diller counter-sued to keep the ball rolling into divesting the company. And now Malone is back in court, accusing Diller of “breaching his fiduciary responsibility” and looking to have him ousted as chief executive.

Naturally, both parties find themselves in the right, though sticking to character, Diller is getting more boisterous about it. Queen.