Matt Lauer is making the press rounds to plug Sunday's Princess Diana concert, which NBC paid $2.5 million for broadcast rights. That deal, of course, did not include an arrangement to have Prince William and Harry sit down for a Dateline chat. "When the concert deal was signed they hadn't even decided they were even going to do an interview," says Lauer. "There was no 'We'll do the concert and we get the boys.'" Mmhmm. Just like when they were going to pay Paris Hilton $1 million for video rights (that they could've likely bought from Splash News) and, lucky them, the just-freed heiress wanted to sit down for an interview … just 'cause.

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.

One million dollars is what Paris Hilton is expected to pocket when she sits down with the Today show for her first post-prison interview. (What a difference the real thing makes.)

She'll chat with Meredith Vieira almost as soon as she gets out, says the Post, spurning the good graces of ABC which has seen Barbara Walters spewing incessantly about the jailbird's positive attributes.

Meanwhile, as Brian Montopoli notes, this was NBC News VP Bill Wheatley talking to the NYT in 2003: "We don't want there to be confusion on this overall policy: that we don't pay for interviews."

And neither do the tabloids, natch.

Hey, William and Harry? Did you know you were famous? Like, even people on this side of the Atlantic know who you are? Tumultuous news, we know. Thank god Matt Lauer is there to walk you through it.

You know Matt Lauer, don't you? He's the serious journalist who would never stoop so low as to conduct a cheap celebrity interview. Except here. Oh, and in the above.

Epilepsy sufferers, as we all know, are great at involuntarily shaking around when they're in the midst of an epileptic fit. But the rest of the time, they could sure stand to loosen up!

At least that's what Al Roker has learned, after his "haha, you've got epilepsy!" jokes last week inspired a wholly unexpected backlash.

"Remember that controversial Olympic logo for the 2012 Olympics in London? Some folks have complained that the campaign actually sent them into epileptic seizures," Roker said on Thursday's show.

"Well, we asked you to weigh in on our Web site in an informal poll; those of you who could get up off the floor after shaking around were able to actually log in . . . "

The next day, Roker apologized on the air, saying, "We were joking about the logo - not about epilepsy. If anybody was offended, I heartily and really humbly apologize."

Roker then clarified that he was laughing with epilepsy, and not at epilepsy, adding, "And, if you don't like it, why don't you suddenly—and without warning—lose consciousness, fall to the floor, froth at the mouth, and rhythmically jerk your extremities about it?"

After some 50 years in the TV business, Bob Barker is done wittit. Sure, that CBS special last month may have made you think he retired his The Price Is Right gig, but no: yesterday, in fact, was his last day. Which meant today it was time to make the press rounds, which included Ann Curry's overzealous expressions while listening to him on speaker phone.

• Verbal grudge-match heats up between staffers at the Today show and Good Morning America, yielding doozies such as "Gay-MA" and "Today? More like 'Yesterday.'" Zing!

• Scooter Libby might actually go to prison. Fortunately for him, Paris has made it "all the rage."

• Did Departures magazine play too prominent a role in the episode leading up to The Sopranos' departure?

• 'Eric Alterman is the aging-lefty Lindsay Lohan!' proclaims Lloyd Grove in New York magazine. And here we thought Lloyd was an aging-lefty unemployed gossip gossip columnist.

• Boston Globe rips Conservapedia a new one.

• Hillary Clinton stops by Skadden Arps. Relax, it was nothing litigious—she was probably just picking up her latest truckload of campaign donations.

Yesterday, Matt Lauer committed a car-interview faux pas when he neglected to wear a seatbelt while interviewing Mitt Romney during Today's "On The Trail" segment. In fact, neither men buckled up, possibly because the SUV in which the interview took place was not outfitted with one of those annoying celebrity infomercials ("We're ready to rummmmmmmmble….for safety!") Giuliani implemented to protect the citizens of New York piss the hell out of New York cab drivers.

And, as TVNewswer points out, Lauer's oversight was particularly noteworthy given that he'd interviewed fellow seatbelt-hater Governor Corzine only a few weeks back.

The website reports:

"After the piece aired this morning, Lauer told his audience that even though New Hampshire doesn't have a mandatory seat belt law, he set the wrong example by not wearing one," the AP notes. "The Romney campaign issued a statement with a similar apology…"

Meanwhile, after being reminded that he was a role model for America's youth,* Lauer was also censured for his prematurely thinning hair, his early-stage love handles and his penchant for telling poop stories.

*Who never miss an episode of Today!

• A jury of Peter Braunstein's peers rejected his mental insanity plea and convicted him on charges stemming from the 2005 Halloween attack. Jurors cited Braunstein's meticulous premeditation and overpowering urge to kill Vogue editrix Anna Wintour as evidence that he was, in fact, fit to stand trial.

• Meanwhile, attractive CNN wannabes are lining up in hopes of nabbing Paula Zahn's coveted anchor spot. But we're not ready to say goodbye to Paula yet. After all, who could predicted this?

• One year and 25 operations after being injured in Iraq, CBS news correspondent Kim Dozier is finally ready to tell her story. Which is both amazingly empowering and exceedingly difficult to turn into a punchline.

• The Today show's new "Today On The Trail" feature is remarkably similar to This Week with George Stephanopoulos' award-winning "On The Trail" feature. Then again, it's probably just an unfortunate coincidence.

• Scarlett Johansson channels Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe in the new Louis Vuitton campaign, reminds us that "curvy physique" is apparently synonymous to "Size two."

Arguably, if it weren't for the Today show, we might not know all that much about KT Tunstall. The NBC morning show, which reaches nearly 6 million people everyday, has the power to launch and sustain music careers, argues Billboard's Michael Paoletta. That's why you see everyone from Keith Urban to the American Idol kids on there. And if god hates you enough, you're gonna see Halle Berry booked on there, too.

"But there is a difference between who's watching these shows and what kind of artists have the most impact," Warner Bros. Records Executive Vice President Diarmuid Quinn says. "When artists like Michael Buble and Josh Groban appear, we see tangible and readable results, with an immediate impact on sales. The female audience is more reactive than the male demo."

Also, dudes aren't that into Michael Buble or Josh Groban. Unless they're the type of dudes reading Queerty. Which also explains tomorrow's performance by the cast of Broadway's Legally Blonde.

We don't always read Page Six because we want to. Sometimes, we read it because we have to. And today, the Sixers went ahead and told us something about Katie Couric we really would have preferred not to know.

Couric tells More magazine, "At 'Today,' I seemed to be enjoying myself, I seemed to be fun-loving. 'We really liked her in the morning' - that's what the old viewers say. But now - well, they seem to think it's like I've had a lobotomy or a personality change." Hey, Katie's still fun-loving - More reports her cellphone rings to the tune of the Pussycat Dolls' sexually charged hit with the lyrics, "Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me."

Oh, no! Unfortunately, Katie just missed the deadline for Search for the Next Pussycat Doll! In fact, the show picked a winner this very week. And for those of you who missed it, the newest Doll is…Katie Couric Asia, the (former) Knicks City Dancer and (current) 18 year-old mom.

But that notwithstanding, don't you wish your aging, disconcertingly perky tv news anchor of a girlfriend was a "freak" like Katie Couric?

Today, as he is most days, Matt Lauer was NBC's whipping boy.

This morning's Today show was supposed to welcome the families of Virginia Tech victims, but after last night's "multimedia manifesto" (see how with it 30 Rock is?!) – where Brian Williams and his MSNBC cohorts aired photos, video, and documents mailed to them by VT gunman Cho Seung-Hui – the families pulled out, and left the Today show sans guests.

Cue Lauer's reading of a prepared statement defending the network's decision to air the material. But, as one NBC insider tells us, it's likely Lauer didn't want to go along for the ride.

"That's not something he would've chose to do," says a former Lauer colleague. "Especially at the risk of losing such a big story [having the victims on the Today show]."

Forget that Portfolio launch — today is a bigger day in television. With Kiran Chetry and John Roberts taking over at CNN's American Morning and Tiki Barber making his Today show debut, it's a bit hard to get us to focus on some glossy new book when John is donning suspenders in honor of Larry King Day and that beautiful bald man is dotting NBC's broadcast.

And also, lower third scrolls are a much better distraction for all things Don Imus than a new table of contents.

After a recent PR blip regarding Meredith Vieria being the only Today show anchor doing anything online comes the launch of FollowMatt.com, a giant Flash site that's sort of a Where's Waldo for the Web 2.0 set (or at least those bent on taking part). Times ad man Stuart Elliot appears gung ho about the project, if only because Hyundai paid some $2.5 million to sponsor the online offshoot of "Where in the World Is Matt Lauer?"

But after clicking on Matt's mug for the second time, palling around a virtual Angkor Wat looking for the six-packed morning man lost most of its appeal. Especially when he talks down to us from his $13 million salary about only flying private.

You know Don Imus has gone and done some shit when the Today show is revamping their schedule because of it. We hear Jim Bell's team has canceled all of their guests in the 9-10am hour tomorrow for a still-being-worked-on special segment on race, hosted by, of course, Al Roker. For the sake of things, let's hope Ann Curry gets a voice too. And Jasper.