· At the upfronts, Les Moonves refers to trophy wife Julie Chen as his "peacock." Given his legendarily sadistic relationship with NBC, we think this gives us a pretty disturbing window into their marital relations.
· Lesser Baldwin brother Daniel could face 18 months in prison if convicted on cocaine charges. Adding insult to injury, his attorney told him that if he were Alec, he could get it down to 15 hours of community service and a "The More You Know" PSA on NBC.
· Once Heather Locklear finally snapped out of her divorce-induced haze and realized she was dating David Spade, the relationship was over just as quickly as she could order her assistant to text him and break the bad news.
· Reporter sets his phaser to lazy.

When NBC's Kevin Reilly made a bold move in the chess match that is this week's fall schedule announcements at the upfronts by advancing his most beloved pawn, Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, into the 9 p.m. Thursday night slot, ABC's Steve McPherson responded by picking up his queen, Grey's Anatomy, and tossing it into Reilly's face. NBC hasn't officially retreated, but the LAT's Scott Collins blogs that some think that Reilly may ultimately concede the position to the competition:

During yesterday's upfronts presentation from CBS, the advertisers and press got an interesting treat: Les Moonves brought out his incoming news anchor, Katie Couric. On her Times blog, Virginia Heffernan writes of Couric's brief appearance:

There was a time when generously betoothed CBS despot Les Moonves would invite the media to an informal chat over breakfast on the morning of his network's upfront, where he granted journalists an intimate opportunity to watch gape-mouthed as he slathered his bagels with a schmear made from the steaming entrails of his enemies (namely, NBC's Jeff Zucker). Today, however, the NY Times' Virginia Heffernan blogs that Moonves may have finally lost his edge:

NBC might be inspiring poetry in some of its underlings, but at the top of the executive food chain, there still seems to be a touch of post-traumatic stress disorder following their cellar-dwelling season. At NBC's upfront presentation earlier today, president Kevin Reilly explained how too many shakedowns for his Nielsen milk money by the other network bullies informed his decision to go with just two sitcoms on their traditionally comedy-heavy Thursday night. Reports the LAT:

According to Page Six, skeletal Viacom executive presence Sumner Redstone was so displeased by rumors that corporate lieutenants Les Moonves and Tom Freston are leaking stories about each other to the press that he leaned back in his throne (upholstered, of course, in the tanned flesh of a former board member who once disappointed him), breathed a world-weary sigh that rattled his frail rib cage in a most unpleasant way, and finally gave two exasperated tugs on the velvet cord dangling behind him, summoning his bickering minions for a sit-down in which he could personally administer a punitive spoonful of castor oil to each chairman:

Pondering Tom Cruise's current standing with the American moviegoer makes us sad and tired. But do you know what makes us very, very happy? That's right: a gigantic image of Les Moonves in an innertube (which copyranter so generously scanned for us from a recent issue of Broadcasting & Cable) which remind us that a fresh round of colorful, Jeff Zucker-pummeling Moonves quotes from next week's network upfronts is just around the proverbial corner. Maybe this time the CBS folks will give us the punch line to that "a priest, a rabbi and Jeff Zucker go into a bar" joke and finally end a year of crippling suspense.

· The LA Weekly's Nikki Finke says that Les Moonves has kidnapped The CW. How could anyone in Hollywood have seen such a power play from network television's beloved future galactic dictator coming?
· The Most Beautiful Person in the World hates discussing her relationship, but loves KFC!
· This just in: One of Aaron Sorkin's fictional characters has a drug problem!
· If the Britney Spears statue made you queasy, please don't look at this cartoon involving Katie Holmes in the same pose.
· Does Francis Ford Coppola ride the Metro? Metroblogging LA uses highly scientifical image-enhancimifying tools to investigate.
· What if celebrities had their own MySpace profiles? They do? OK, what if celebrities had their own parody MySpace profiles?

Broadcasting & Cable previews some of NY Times reporter Bill Carter's behind-the-scenes book on the last five years in the TV business, Desperate Networks, which we're hoping will bear the somewhat unwieldy subtitle The Amazing Adventures of Scratchy Les, Purple Steve, and Zippy the Golden Boy:

The LAT's Channel Island TV blog has a preview of what you'll see if you tune in to tonight's Late Show, where Howard Stern escalates his public pissing match with generously betoothed CBS CEO Les Moonves by lighting a flaming bag of excrement right on Moonves' network doorstep:

Fans of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report not satisfied by the fifteen times a day the shows are played on Comedy Central can now download episodes through iTunes, either on an a la carte basis or through a monthly subscription of $9.99 for a month's worth of episodes. [Variety]
The success of My Name is Earl and The Office fill trendfucking networks execs wild with single-camera lust, as nearly half of all comedy pilots ordered will eschew the laugh track. [THR]
Despite the fact that CBS is trying to sue him back to the telegraph era, Howard Stern will appear on Letterman on Monday to battle Les Moonves on his turf. [Variety]
More pilot casting madness: Dennis Miller and Joe Mantegna join the cast Bonnie Hunt's untitled detective comedy (detectives are the new psychics) for ABC, Chris Elliott signs up for a semi-autobiographical comedy with CBS, and The CW risks comedy crib death by talking with Nick Lachey about starring in its first sitcom pilot. [THR]
John Cusack will star in the adaptation of the Stephen King short story 1408 for Dimension, granting him a temporary stay of romantic comedy career execution. [Variety]

It's a battle for the ages: Future Galactic Dictator Les Moonves of CBS Corp. is suing the King of All Media, Howard Stern, claiming that Stern turned his FCC-plagued terrestrial radio show into an extended infomercial for his new Sirius satellite free-for-all in an attempt to reach a stock option incentive clause in his Sirius contract. According to the NY Times, Stern has returned fire by calling the suit a "personal vendetta" intended to be a smokescreen for CBS Radio losses. But the question seems obvious: If Moonves was so worried about Stern's on-air talk about his move, why not use the very same dump button that so frequently deprived the public of porn stars describing their first double-penetration scenes to shut him up? Reports the Times:

Anyone who's ever sacrificed three hours of their lives to the Grammys show know that no one actually cares who wins, only who plays; five minutes after the show, that year's Best New Artist disappears into obscurity, but the unholy noises created by the centerpiece mash-up performance of Bono, Tim McGraw, any former boy-bander with a new solo album, and the ghost of George Harrison will induce uncomfortable auditory hallucinations for months (and now, abetted by iTunes, potentially forever). According to the LAT, nobody knows this better than music executives and managers, who'll move heaven and earth to insure their clients get to lip-sync in front of an audience of millions:

Sunday's LAT conducted a forensic investigation into the cause of the death of The WB, determining that the network never really recovered from losing Buffy the Vampire Slayer to UPN in 2001. With UPN's foot temporarily in place on The WB's throat, parent company Viacom then brought in its closer to try and finally deliver the death blow:

The NY Post reports that there is still hope that the new network Frankenstein that will be stitched together from the rotting parts of UPN and The WB might be spared from its unfortunate name:

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Paramount lot found itself suddenly divided by the official corporate split of Viacom into two new—and competing—companies, with employees of the just-created CBS Corp. instantly demoted to second-class citizenship on the New Viacom-controlled campus. The gods of Viacom celebrated the split by toying with the CBSers, heaping Job-like trials upon them in an attempt to make them curse their Moonves for allowing their capricious suffering. But now, perhaps in an attempt to retract some former pettiness, Team Freston has made an ameliorating gesture: the reinstatement of the coveted DVD discount for everyone. Says an operative on the lot:

When you heard that the bastard child formed from the DNA of The WB and UPN would be called "The CW," a natural first assumption would be that the un-catchy, definite-article-dragging name was just a placeholder until CBS and Time Warner focus groups came up with something a little less clunky. No such luck, says The CW prime mover Les Moonves:

CBS Corp.'s Les Moonves wasn't the only executive pausing from calculating the value of his stock options long enough to send out a company-wide memo expressing a complex mix of excitement and sadness over the formation of The CW. Warner Bros. chairman/CEO Barry Meyer also issued an obligatory missive this morning, sealed with a kiss and a generous helping of execu-praise. Note his use of "bittersweet," an obvious code word for "you have probably lost your job by the time you finish reading this e-mail":

· 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: