· Despite optimistic New Viacom CEO Tom Freston's intimation that chairman/skeletal executive presence Sumner Redstone wouldn't be as "actively involved in the day-to-day business" of his company, Redstone assures us that his bony fingers are still clamped around the throats of both Freston and CBS Corp head Les Moonves. He also says he encourages the two companies to compete—not for any business reasons, just because the bloodsport gives him pleasure. [Variety]
· Pilotmania 06 begins with the announced orders of TV series hopefuls: ABC: Six Degrees from JJ Abrams; CBS: Jericho from Jon Turteltaub and Orpheus from Ridley and Tony Scott; Fox: Faceless; NBC: Heroes from Crossing Jordan producers; UPN: Untitled drama loosely based on the life of Alicia Keys. [THR]
· DGA makes their primetime TV series awards nominations, with Grey's Anatomy and Curb Your Enthusiasm each earning two. Meanwhile, the Producer's Guild revokes their nomination of Curb Your Enthusiasm as the series did not air any original episodes within the awards deadlines. Scrubs is now the happy recipient of their nomination. This little hiccup in the awards process should be tempered by the fact that no one outside of the PGA could possibly care. [Variety, Variety ]
· Starbucks will partner with Lionsgate to market and distribute the movie Akeelah and the Bee; no word on if the partnership will expand to include baristas handing out awards screeners of Crash to anyone claiming to have a SAG membership. [THR]
· Charlize Theron is teaming up with Picturehouse and New Line to produce and star in the drama The Ice at the Bottom of the World. Perhaps disillusioned with the results of looking too hot in spandex in the bomb Aeon Flux, Theron will rough herself up again to portray a heroin addict. [Variety ]

Like a father suddenly freed from the obligations of grudging parenthood by a negative paternity test, New Viacom CEO Tom Freston continues to withdraw the last vestiges of his love from his former CBS children. An operative on the Paramount lot relates the latest slight to the Untouchables of CBS:

· Michael Eisner finally finds some meaning for his post-Disney existence, signing up to host a bi-monthly CNBC talk show, the aptly named Conversations with Michael Eisner. The network says the show "will focus on the importance of creativity and innovation in all pursuits, from business to politics to entertainment," but with an eye toward "wistfully reminiscing about Eisner's days as the most powerful man in Hollywood, which I—excuse us—he totally was." [Variety]
· Rosie O'Donnell is producing a sketch comedy show for MTV network Logo. Think Saturday Night Live, but you know, gay. And probably funnier. OK, maybe not. [THR]
· Relieved to have big bully Monday Night Football out of the way, Two and a Half Men beats up on the premiere of Emily's Reasons Why Not, which we predict (as we must) will be gone by early February. [Variety]
· EuroSlump '05: European movie ticket sales were down in 2005, though revenue still increased a bit. Who can we invade to halt the slide? [THR]
· The TV Academy may change its rules to define its comedy category to include only traditional sitcoms, leaving "dramedies" (and please, for the love of God, don't use the term "comerama") like Boston Legal and Desperate Housewives to get hammered in the drama contest by Lost at the Emmys. [Variety]

This morning's post about the rapidly widening gap on the Paramount lot between New Viacom employees and the red-headed stepchildren of CBS Corp. prompted several e-mails from the frontline of the escalating class war. A couple of people noted The Christmas iPod Incident, in which those who landed on the wrong side of the corporate split (CBS) watched as their Paramount/NV officemates played with their shiny new toys while they got this seemed to foreshadow future problems. The divisive fun's not over yet, however, as a lucky NV'er details another slight:

The official separation of Viacom church and CBS Corp state on Tuesday was celebrated with much bell-ringing, exuberant manifesto-penning, and snack gobbling—at least by the New Viacom employees. While Tom Freston's corporate family is enjoying coffee, ice cream, and free movies, Les Moonves' Kids are finding themselves marginalized citizens of the Paramount lot. Writes an operative:

• James Risen's State of War — the impending publication of which forced the Times to finally publish the domestic-spying story — also makes Judy Miller's WMD excuses fall apart. [NYO]
• Still, the domestic-spying articles were better than the book is, says Jack Shafer. [Slate]
• Lunatic talking head Bill O'Reilly promises to "get into the lives" of Bill Keller and Frank Rich if (perhaps imagined) Times attacks on him continue. We really hope he does, because Keller would be so much sexier if he were a little less earnest. [Media Matters]
• Yesterday was CBS's first day as its own company. Well, except for all those all days as its own company. [WP]
• New Oxygen show features middle-aged women partying with college guys. We're pretty sure we saw that same show on Cinemax once. [NYT]
• Not-quite-victorious — but still really good — GMA staffers get cheesy commemorative trinkets. [NYO]
• Jon Friedman is clearly smoking crack, as proved by (among other things) his prediction that MSNBC will beat CNN and Fox News in 2006. [MW]
• Latest Q-ratings study shows Katie Couric isn't as popular as she used to be. Clearly not in the polling sample: Les Moonves. [WWD]

Dave Letterman was in fine form last night, as he adorably served a spanking to Fox News shoutytwat Bill O'Reilly:

This morning, newly minted CEOs Tom Freston and Les Moonves helped chairman/skeletal executive presence Sumner Redstone ring the New York Stock Exchange's opening bell (gently, of course, lest Redstone's fragile bones splinter from the force of the resulting sound waves) to commemorate the official split of Viacom into the New Viacom and CBS Corp. The always exuberant Freston was so excited by the creation of his new media kingdom that he rushed back to the office and dashed off a manifesto defining it for all of his subjects, whose stated "key values" of Creative Excellence, Reinvention, Global, Diversity and Inclusion, and Social Commitment and Ethics should ease the paranoia about DreamWorks-related layoffs at Paramount and soothe the sting of rival Moonves's instant five-percent stock price jump. Said Freston in a company-wide e-mail:

· Munich opens on 532 screens, grossing a respectable $5.7 million in four days. Jews kicking ass: We saw it, we loved it. No kidding. [Variety]
· Further details emerge about the yawn-inducing riveting Microsoft pullout of MSNBC: NBC Universal will own 82% and acquire full management control, MSNBC.com continues at a 50-50 split, and the public's interest level remains unchanged at a steady 0%. [Variety]
· CBS offers free video streaming of Two And A Half Men and How I Met Your Mother on Yahoo! this week. Finally, with the addition of Jon Cryer, the internet has become a vital and viable medium. [Variety]
· 25 films are added to the National Film Registry by the librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, including The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which leads us to believe the librarian of Congress could be hiding in those stacks, stoned and pulling on a pair of fishnets as we speak. [THR]
· The richest man in Australia, media mogul Kerry Packer (bet your heart skipped a Rupert Murdoch-length beat there for a second) has gone on to a better place. We'd make a sensitive joke, but we wouldn't want to see it splashed across tomorrow's Australian headlines as fact. [THR]

· ABC's Steve McPherson and CBS's Nina Tassler cram into their diving bells and explore the strange depths of the summertime alternative-programming ocean, a murky place which previously yielded creepy, luminescent creatures like Dancing with the Stars, and return with the same idea to run English-language "telenovelas" multiple times a week next summer. [Variety]
· The large picture of Tom Freston front-and-center on THR's homepage is seriously freaking us out. Make it stop! He's supposed to be the laid back Viacom president, not the creepy, intense one! [THR]
· The Writers Guild has fallen in love with NBC's soon-to-be new Thursday night comedy lineup, giving The Office and My Name Is Earl three nominations apiece for the WGA Awards. [Variety]
· MPAA head pirate hunter Dan Glickman is "encouraged" by the Chinese government's raid of black market DVD shops in Beijing, but urges them to continue their anti-piracy progress by "running over the fuckers with a tank next time." [THR]
· Fox signs a three-year first-look production deal with the producers of Wedding Crashers, Tapestry Films. Fun fact we didn't know: They also produced 15 Olsen twin movies. [Variety]

• The Bad Santa display on East 18th Street is exactly why Christmas in New York is so fantastic and special. Now give us a bucket of Rudolph's blood! [FishbowlNY]
• It's a female face's worst nightmare, and a lonely vagina's dream come true: the mustache is making a comeback. [NYSun]
• CBS is in the midst of casting a reality-show pilot based around the Upper West Side's York Prep school. Think Laguna Beach, but too close for comfort. [NYM]
• A gay man is arrested for punching a cop. In a pot-kettle twist, the officer's name was Fagley. [Good as You]
• Having a substitute teacher was always a free day, but it's a definite party when the sub starts cutting rails. [USAT]
• Britney Spears fans, having a bit too much time on their hands, launch DivorceKevin.com. Next, her fans will teach the popster how to use the internet. [AdRants]
• LEOTARD! FANTASTIC! The Barbie! [Social Cavity]

Three reports from last night's Media Christmas celebrations.

· The following is not a joke: CBS is developing a family sitcom for Rev. Al Sharpton. Better: It's called Al in the Family, but will likely not incorporate the wacky hijinks of the infamous Tawana Brawley case. [Variety]
· The November sweeps results are in, and CBS and ABC end the ratings-whoring period in a deeply unsatisfying tie in the 18-49 demographic. Unsurprisingly, ultracompetive CBS is touting its razor-thin 16,000 viewer edge in the demo, as well as a victory in total viewers. NBC, it should be noted, did not finish last, and Fox holds its breath, absorbing its loss knowing that soon it will release its American Idol Kracken and rise from the depths of Nielsen failure. [THR]
· Director Peter Berg has compromising pictures of Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx, "persuades" him to join the cast of his The Kingdom for Universal. [Variety]
· As noted yesterday, NBC blows up its Thursday night for January, moving Earl and The Office from Tuesday to new Must See spots. To make room on the schedule, they're knocking Joey on the head with a rolling pin, leaving him somewhere in the desert, and dealing with the problem only if he somehow finds his way home. [THR]
· Major cable companies announce rate hikes for 2006. Fuck you, major cable companies, we already pay too much as it is for 25 channels of Law & Order reruns. [THR]

· As previously discussed, now that American Idol is definitely staying on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the other networks scrub clean their soiled underthings and scramble to rearrange their schedules. [Variety]
· Amy Brenneman will join Al Pacino in the thriller 88 Minutes, in which Pacino learns that he's got only 88 minutes to sleepwalk through another performance before his character is killed. [THR]
· 20th Century Fox TV signs Nicole Richie to a talent holding deal, with the studio holding onto Richie until they can identify a talent that doesn't involve distressing weight-loss or hating Paris Hilton, then jam her into an appropriate, ill-fated project. [Variety]
· CBS rides Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to a Wednesday night win in total viewers, but ABC ekes out a 18-49 demo victory thanks to Lost. [THR]
· Senators Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman turn their political attention to the very serious problem of 15 year-olds being able to buy violent videogames without an annoyed parent present. [Variety]

· Selected cosmopolitan audiences love Fat Clooney! Syriana pulls down over half a million bucks on only five screens spread across LA, NY, and Toronto. Personal anecdote loosely illustrating Syriana's big city popularity: We were among those lining up for a sold-out showing at the Grove (do we live there now?), and enjoyed a satisfied laugh when the theater's crack crowd-control personnel punished evil line-jumpers by loudly yanking them aside and making them wait to enter the lobby. [Variety]
· "There was a time when Howard Stern fans could hear — but not see — a naked porn star giving a hot-oil massage on TV uncensored." God bless the brave new world of VOD. [THR]
· CBS seems likely to repeat as November sweeps champs in the coveted 18-49 demographic, as well as in the merely AARP-lusted-after 25-54 demo. NBC, it seems, is still valiantly refusing to cease its primetime broadcast operations, even in the face of unspeakable Nielsen horror. [Variety]
· Harry Potter dominates the foreign box office, bringing its international treasure chest up to $207 million, an amount that will almost certainly be written off as "offshore piracy" when figuring out profit participation. [Variety]
· Mad About You writer Danny Jacobson will pen the suddenly, officially single Nick Lachey's comedy pilot for The WB. Lachey will play a baseball player trying to navigate a new marriage, but who quickly fades into obscurity once the wife discovers how many movie stars are willing to sleep with her. [THR]

· Viacom names the board members of its post-split companies. While "new" Viacom head Tom Freston endeavored to populate his new board with solid, qualified businesspeople, CBS Corp. despot Les Moonves selected only directors bloodthirsty enough to help him rise up and slay skeletal corporate overlord Sumner Redstone when the time is right. [Variety]
· Sylvester Stallone recasts his own real-life son (whose heartbreaking turn as Rocky Jr. in the last movie haunts us to this day) with Gilmore Girls' Milo Ventimiglia for the sixth Rocky installment. What can we believe in when even nepotism fails us in this time of need? [THR]
· CBS midseason schedule unfolds before our eyes: Out of Practice gets a January "breather" (read: tied up in Les Moonves's trunk) while Tom Cavanaugh project Love Monkey and The Jenna Elfman Show find time slots. In March, when (read: if) )Out of Practice returns, it will be joined by the Julia Louis Dreyfus show The New Adventures of Old Christine and the David Mamet drama The Unit. Got it? Nope, neither do we. [Variety]
· Kevin Reilly celebrates the pre-Thanksgiving miracle of an NBC ratings win by giving turkeys to all of his employees. Unfortunately, the birds were already half-baked and will likely have to be abandoned midway through Thursday's meals. [THR]
· Single track downloads more than doubled from last year, but album sales are down 7%, prompting the MPAA to sue each individual downloaded track for destroying the industry's business model. [Variety]

· ABC climbs quickly back in bed with recently ousted Commander in Chief creator/showrunner Rod Lurie, who will get to write and direct the second installment of his planned "Improbable Office-Holders" trilogy with Triumph, the story of an 18 year old mayor. Should the pilot get a series order, ABC and the strong-willed Lurie plan on parting bitterly after the third episode, in which the manchild mayor loses his virginity to an entire brothelful of prostitutes. [Variety]
· Jessica Simpson is in negotiations to star with Dane Cook in Lions Gate's Employee of the Month. Simpson's father/manager is getting a producing credit, and a healthy bonus awaits if he can maintain the illusion that his daughter's marriage is still intact while simultaneously feeding rumors of an affair with her co-star to US Weekly. [THR]
· Ashton Kutcher's Katalyst sets up the reincarnation pilot For Pete's Sake at NBC. Producing partner Jason Goldberg notes Kutcher's personal stamp on the project: in their world, celebrities automatically get into heaven. Indeed, no one could possibly doubt Kutcher's involvement now that he's turning the afterlife into the Spider Club. [Variety]
· Not even NBC's potent Poseidon Adventure triumvirate of Adam Baldwin, Rutger Hauer, and Steve Guttenberg could get within spitting distance of the ABC Sunday night Nielsen wrecking ball, making the Guttenberg/Patrick Dempsey Police Academy/Loverboy face-off somewhat anticlimactic. [THR]
· CBS will pit underemployed, fading celebrities against each other in classic gameshows for an American version of British hit Gameshow Marathon. The public will certainly clamor to watch a third season Survivor loser and Brad Garrett match wits in a heated Card Sharks contest. [Variety]

· Paramount rewards South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone for ridiculing their biggest movie star with a three-year production deal. The team has also formed their own company, Trunity, a Mediar company, a division of True Mediar, a Unity Corpbopoly. OK, we get it, you're wacky! [Variety]
· The OC continues to throw new characters at its third season story problems, this time signing up thirteen's Nikki Reed for a four episode arc. Still, should be a better addition than the Preppy Psychotic Statutory Rapist Dean. [THR]
· The ratings sweeps race is looking like a two-horse affair, with ABC and CBS battling for position "down the stretch." To further belabor the metaphor: NBC is still stuck at the gate, humping its dead steed with eyes squeezed shut, thinking of the Friends cast. [Variety]
· "Self-described hot-rod enthusiast" Jon Favreau will write and direct hot-rod drama Johnny Zero for Columbia. We hate to be so cynical, but why do we get the feeling that his assistant was printing out every Google result for "history of hot-rodding" the night before the studio meeting? [THR]
· Bernie Mac is developing an "All in the Family-like" sitcom for Fox. But this time, of course, the Archie Bunker character will be black instead of Michael Rappaport. [Variety]

Actor Jon Voight recently spoke candidly about his role in CBS's sure-to-be controversial take on the life of the recently deceased Pope John Paul II:

We don't get the Victoria's Secret fashion show. On a very basic, carnal level we understand: Beautiful, half-naked women. Hell, even we're slightly mesmerized by the cellulite-less perfection of Karolina Kurkova's ass (bitch). But you can get that sort of eye candy anywhere, really — hello, internets! When you tout beautiful, half-naked women as part of a big ol' fashion show, however, it gains enough cred to be broadcast on primetime CBS.