Viacom honcho Sumner Redstone is scheduled to speak at Boston University tomorrow afternoon. If there's a Q&A portion, we sure hope someone asks him about his awesome new web platform Flux, which is sure to be the hottest social networking site this Yom Kippur.
Tired of illegally downloading South Park episodes off of YouTube, creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker finally bring their lewd, crude and generally amazing cartoon to the internets.
To make up for BET's degradation of black culture. [Stereohyped]
Google wants Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (of Viacom's Comedy Central) and Viacom chief Sumner Redstone to give depositions. Viacom, meanwhile, wants Google heads Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt. [Reuters]
Aww, have Sumner Redstone and daughter Shari patched things up? Well, likely not. After the Viacom chief's comments last month – that Shari was contributing nearly nothing to the company – the twosome did meet up on Wednesday night at Il Postino to celebrate Viacom's successful quarter (where successful = profit declined from last year). But they arrived separately and dined at opposite ends of the table. Which pretty much means daddy still wants Shari's 20 percent stake in the CBS- and Viacom-controlling National Amusements.
Remember that cheesy CNN Money article we made fun of told you about last week? The one that was over-the-top effusive, and this-close to saying "I am madly in love with Les Moonves and want to have, like, 10,000 of his babies" and, um, conservatively titled "Everybody Loves Les?"
Well, we just found another person who really loves Les! It's mogul (and consummate family man) Sumner Redstone, an otherwise grumpy old miser who was nonetheless dancing on the ceiling during the conference call announcing CBS' second-quarter results.
A giddy Sumner Redstone, CBS’s chairman, gushed about the performance of CBS and raved about the company’s CEO Leslie Moonves. Redstone called Moonves “the best executive in the media industry” and raved about the “smart strategic moves” that CBS made to “position itself in the digital landscape,” referring to several notable acquisitions as well as the establishment of an online network to syndicate CBS content.
Redstone then celebrated CBS' incredible second-quarter gains by toasting to Moonves' performance, raising a glass for continued success, and trying to get his daughter (and presumed successor) forcibly evicted from the boards of both CBS and Viacom because he's a crazy, megalomaniacal control freak.
Sumner Redstone boots daughter Shari from the possibility of taking over when he's gone. If Sum keeps going this route, his legacy will end up in the hands of … Murdoch.
• Kirsten Dunst quits "stroking" Fab Moretti, starts stroking Razorlight's Johnny Borrell.
• Paris Hilton and Jenna Jameson join
forces to create a new, super-powerful STD.
• We're not falling for Melinda Doolittle's humble big-headed dwarf act…anymore!
• The Onion challenges AMNY to a competitive eating duel!
• Slate takes a gamble, launches political futures market. We're betting it'll be a huge success!
• Legal experts cleverly find a way to make the Viacom/YouTube lawsuit even more boring.
• Dita Von Teese with no makeup on is actually, surprisingly, pretty.
• Anna Nicole Smith judge Lawrence Korda gets busted for smoking the reefer. Police apparently didn't believe his plea that he was "just trying to get a better understanding of the victim."
• A Sopranos spinoff? Fuhgeddaboudit.
• Conrad Black is accused of lifting cash from a company in Chicago. So how come he's never even heard of Abe Froman?
• Who will replace Paul Steiger as WSJ's managing editor? We smell a reality show!
• 30 Rock continues to be that show you DVR, but never actually watch.
• Is Vicom's $1 billion suit against Google shortsighted? Experts say, "hello! Have you been to the Googleplex?"
• Time Warner could spin off AOL this year, despite what Time Warner spokesman Ed Adler has to say.
• Carol Burnett sues Family Guy for parodying her parody show.
• Conrad Black celebrates the start of his fraud trial by holing up at the Ritz Carlton.
• Two LA Times Pulitzer finalists nominated themselves. When questioned about it, they haughtily remarked, "well somebody had to do it!"
• With the Viacom/YouTube lawsuit heating up, Google suddenly needs to hook up with one of the "popular" media kids.
• Not just anyone can emulate The Economist's overly expensive and "aggressively boring" style!
• Will the publisher of Cookie join the leagues of Conde Nasters jumping to Reader's Digest? Who cares, you only read Teen Vogue, anyway.
• Stuff for sale! No, seriously, Stuff. As well as Maxim, Blender…
VH1 Classic will live on, at least according to an internal memo sent out yesterday by VH1 general manager Tom Calderone. Forget the fact that there's nary a PA to run tapes around, but that channel that's now in 45 million homes? Yeah, it'll still be on that channel you can't find.
It's been a tough week, and I'll be coming around to talk to all of you over the next few weeks about how we're moving forward. But before the dust settles, I want to dispel any rumors or speculation that we're shutting down VH1 Classic. That's just not true. [...]
The painful staff reductions we had to make will ensure that the channel continues to grow exponentially as we invest even more in VH1 Classic's programming. VH1 Classic is an even bigger priority now, and I will make sure that the channel continues its upward trajectory.
To recap: Nearly the entire staff of VH1 Classic has been fired, but the channel will continue to operate … you know, as per usual.
Calerdone's full staff memo, after the jump.
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Goodbye Kendrick Reid. We hear as part of Viacom's job cuts, Comedy Central's chief graphic designer is among the casualties. He was the man in charge of branding efforts for all of CC. He joined the company in 2000 to help spearhead the network's reshaping. And, naturally, he's repaid with a firing squad.* Cheers.
* Update: We hear Ken was let go in person by boss-slash-friend Peter Risafi, according to a well-placed source.
Update 2: Comedy Central's PR department checks in with this statement: "Please note that your item today on Kendrick Reid is inaccurate. Kendrick’s leaving the company has nothing to do with the recent layoffs at MTVN. Months ago he started a transition to work with Comedy Central as a consultant in order to have the flexibility to work on the launch of Comedy Central International channels and on other outside projects." Spin makes you dizzy, doesn't it?
Earlier, we told you how Viacom planned to swing the big ol' ax around at MTV headquarters today, and now reports are already trickling in about the collateral damage.
According to a couple of Gawker tipsters, VH1 Classics is now (ironically?) history, and "all the staff producers at MTV2 have been given the heave-ho."
Supposedly, the firings will be intermittently taking place throughout the day, so be sure to let us know if you have any inside info on the bloodbath.
Big thinker Jeff Jarvis takes to his blog for a wrap up of his Davos trip:
Perhaps the most important ‘ding’ moment I had at Davos was that the powerful are, no surprise, one step behind in their understanding of the true significance of the internet [...]
In media terms, I said at Davos and here on the blog that we have seen a small-scale version of this progression:
1. First, big media let us interact with them, about their stuff.
2. Then big media beg us to give them our stuff.
3. Now we realize that our stuff is ours — not user-generated content for the big guys — and we expect them to come to us.
In unrelated news: "Viacom demands Google, YouTube to pull 100,000 clips."
• Jewish newspaper is okay with Judith Regan hating on Jews, so long as she hates on other ethnic groups too.
• Rupert Murdoch gets feet wet in National Geographic Channel.
• CBS moves things around to finally get rid of a nine-year run of Fat Guy, Skinny Wife.
• The dude from Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle is the new weather guy?
• Viacom no longer interested in being Person of the Year.
• In Fox vs. FCC, we'll have a good laugh no matter who reigns supreme.
Some of the nation's top media outfits – including NBC, CBS, Viacom, and Fox – have met to discuss a possible partnership to create their own YouTube rival and battle Google against web video dominance.
Some of the media companies have been discussing creating a YouTube competitor since the beginning of the year. Fox, CBS, NBC and Viacom, for instance, discussed a proposal from News Corp. that video content be hosted on Fox's MySpace Web site, a popular social-networking site. But CBS, NBC and Viacom weren't willing to put their content on a News Corp.-owned outlet.
And then the networks realized their egos were larger and far more important than the possibility of earning gobs of online video ad revenue.
• News Corp. gets in to bed with Conde Nast. In Australia.
• Daily Show and Colbert Report exec producer Ben Karlin steps down (resigns?) after seven years with Jon Stewart. His legacy? Ruining Jon Stewart's set.
• Hearst doesn't know who to give the Seventeen job, but they're hopeful!
• On the Internet, nobody knows you've got a paper product.
• Treehugger.com is so in demand, every glossy home magazine editor wants 'em.
• Those closed-door discussions about MSNBC's The Most? Perhaps just a time slot switch.
• Viacom's new chief Philippe Dauman knows how to run a company: keep a beautiful woman by his side.
• Jack Shafer says the newspaper industries woes began 30 years ago — before there even was an Internet to blame.
What better way for YouTube enthusiasts to get their message across about copyright infringerment than by a Star Wars-esque video posted on YouTube? That'll teach those bullies at Viacom.
• "Paris is a cunt." Said often, but not by Lindsay Lohan.
• Unable to give her a win, Fox gives American Idol contestant Kellie Pickler her own show.
• The networks still don't really "get" bloggers. Not that there's anything to get.
• Courtney Love stripping down for a magazine spread is actually something we're less interested in seeing than Anna Nicole stripping down for a magazine spread.
• CNN gets scaredy-fraid about letting Bill Maher out politicos on Larry King Live.
• News Corp. profits surge, Viacom not so much — giving new chief Philippe Dauman an excuse to dismiss CFO and Tom Freston hanger-on Mike Dolan.
Magazines aren't the only place where top-level shifts go down. Today, Viacom (owner of much-in-the-news Paramount) announced Tom Freston, its chief of 26 years, has stepped down and will be replaced Philippe Dauman. Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone's memo to staffers, after the jump. The real reason for Freston's departure, soon to come.
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