$8 million. Does that seem like a lot of money for a company to pay to have mediocre models use their hair products on a mediocre cable show for a few seasons? It kind of does. But that's how much The Weinstein Company, run by entertainment mogul Harvey Weinstein, is trying to squeeze out of L'Oreal for three seasons of sponsorship of Project Runway. Of course, Weinstein has a long history of pimping out the fashion reality show to every company on earth willing to pay a dime to be on it, using it as a profit machine to support his company's less sure-thing ventures. And he's still milking it for every cent. How do we know? Because he left all the evidence in a public trash can:

It hit us last night while watching the season premiere of Shear Genius (yes, we watch it): is Bravo trying to drive Project Runway's stock down before it makes the leap to Lifetime in the fall? Though the cable channel is advertising its final season of the show (which premieres July 16), Runway's been unceremoniously bumped to a 9pm timeslot, while Shear Genius will claim Runway's traditional 10pm stomping grounds. In an even clearer sign that Bravo is loathe to give the lame-duck series more attention, the Season 5 ads are recycled clip jobs; though Bravo has always mounted a splashy new ad campaign for each iteration of its reality shows, it's apparently going to send Runway off into the sunset without shooting any new footage. Check out the half-hearted Season 5 clip after the jump.

Congratulations go out today (we think) to Harvey and Bob Weinstein, whose 2008 Mogul Comeback Tour finds them diversifying yet again en route to reclaiming some kind of surly, deep-pocketed mojo. It all starts on television, apparently, where the brothers plan to renew their old Miramax TV experiment with a full slate of new programming drawing on the success of Project Runway. One show, the late Anthony Minghella's No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, has already found traction at HBO; the rest, however, comprises a mixed bag ranging from retreads to stillbirths — and that's before we even get to their plans for Broadway:

Will cable network Lifetime ruin reality fashion television forever when it takes over Project Runway from Bravo later this year, de-snarking the show on behalf of overearnest spinsters and partnering with a third-tier fashion magazine? Bravo is working hard to make sure it doesn't have the chance. First it sued to stop the show from moving. Now Bravo owner NBC Universal has cut a deal with Runway's longtime executive producers for new shows. The deal would presumably enable Bravo to create something very similar to Runway if its lawsuit fails, assuming the poached producers never signed anything that would prevent a Runway copycat. In any case, the producers are definitely done with their old show. Reports the Wall Street Journal:

Hey, remember how Lifetime (Television for Women) went out and stole Project Runway from Bravo? That was fun! I mean who better to tuck a popular reality show into bed, kiss its forehead, and once and for all say good night than the only television network more stultifyingly boring than Animal Planet? Everyone knows that after the fashion design competition show leaves Bravo (after one more season, to air this summer), the show will just be weird and wrong and no one will watch. Would you like lady proof? Maire Claire might be taking over for Elle in the whole magazine tie-in racket. Ah, yes. Noted dictator of fashion Marie Claire magazine. I'm looking forward to such Lifetime/Marie Claire-centric challenges as "Stretch Pants, School Dance!", in which contestants design middle school dance chaperon outfits, and "Better Get Sweater Set!", in which contestants design sweater sets for Carol to bring on the cruise with Judy, Hal, and the kids. It might get cold at night. Way to go Lifetime!

Joshua David Stein is back briefly to talk about Bravo's Top Chef whose eighth episode aired last night. As has been much chewed over, Lifetime, a channel for femiladies recently bought Bravo's Project Runway, a show for gays and also anyone else who is fierce and worthwhile. Fears have been raised, as mentioned in an article by former Gawker Mama Rose Doree Shafrir, that the show's edginess will be transmuted into some life-affirming pastiche of pastel Hallmark aphorisms and dime-store candy. This is probably true. But, last we heard, Top Chef was still property of Bravo television which is why last night's episode didn't make any sense: it was cheap; it was cliché; it was precious; it was pap. Also, is Gail Simmons pregnant?

The migration of Project Runway from Bravo to Lifetime is getting ugly, and not Harvey Weinstein ugly — partition of India ugly. The fashion show won't actually move until November, but things are already bad, so bad, between the trendsetting supergays who TiVO Bravo and the spinster homebodies who drink white zinfandel until they pass out on their cats in front of Lifetime. Wrote a commenter on Dlisted: "Being on Lifetime ... automatically makes [Runway] not cool, trendy, or creative. Bravo is funny and gay. Lifetime is timid and stodgy." Doree Shafrir's mom at the Observer rounded up other examples of anti-Lifetime fearmongering by Runway fans, then quoted a Lifetime VP saying, "We care about women — we put them first." PUT WOMEN AHEAD OF GAY MEN, HUH?? Oh, it's on, and even the inevitable Chistian Siriano-mediated peace talks may not be able to turn it off. A bullet-point summary of each side's strategic strengths, distilled from the Observer piece by a party not directly involved in the dispute, after the jump.

Former BFFs Heather Locklear and Denise Richards have each enjoyed watching the other's respective star status fall farther with each passing year, but the good news is they both share something in common to smile about. While it's not exactly an Emmy, they both look hot in bikinis. Heather's gone from starring in a hit primetime drama and being the object of many a male fantasy to her current role in a Lifetime movie about women over 40 or something. And Denise? Well, after impressing nearly every male on the planet with her pouty lips and lesbian pool antics in Wild Things, she earned the title of Mrs. Charlie Sheen (quite an honor, indeed). Now? She's filming some kind of reality show that no one cares about. What do we care about? Who looks better in their red bikinis, and who's the better surfer! Judge for yourselves after the jump:

Remember when The Learning Channel was proudly cheesy? Back when they featured all those low-budget Baby Stories and Wedding Stories and any kind of Story that would set housewives' hearts aflutter? Well, it looks like those TLC-loving housewives are in store for something a bit more glamorous. According to the NY Daily News, diamond-drenched new mother of twins Jennifer Lopez is gearing up to invite us into her and vampire-like husband Marc Anthony's home to "deliver a slice of [Lopez's] life that audiences have never seen before, as she takes on her career and launches a new fragrance while trying to juggle her new responsibilities as a first-time mom." While we couldn't be more excited to watch Lopez cook enchiladas that Anthony will eventually purge, we're noticing a trend. Namely, that previously straight-laced networks like TLC and Lifetime have taken notice of Bravo's success and, thus, are beginning to follow their bold footsteps by greenlighting programs that strongly appeal to the gay and lesbian community.

Some days we're so full of love for Harvey Weinstein that our weak, arrhythmic blogger hearts nearly explode. It was one thing last week when he brazenly moved Project Runway to Lifetime, pulling the rug out from a supposedly unwitting NBC. It was another thing entirely on Monday when Harvey rolled the rug up and started whacking NBC boss Jeff Zucker over the head with it:

Spring 2008 hasn't been kind to Harvey Weinstein and his little production company. First, his close friend Anthony Minghella passed away (prompting a highly critical piece penned by New York Magazine film critic David Edelstein), then he butted heads with the Marley family over his planned biopic on the reggae singer, and now the portly producer finds himself at the center of NBC and Lifetime's battle for Project Runway. Moments after Lifetime announced their five-year $150 million deal with the Weinstein Co. to take over the helm of Bravo's signature show, Jeff Zucker and his peacocked lawyers immediately responded by suing Harvey and his goons for breach-of-contract. And insiders at NBC aren't keeping mum about their feelings towards the money-hungry Weinstein:

There are women on the Internet. Did you know? Madison Avenue is just figuring this out, desperately looking for websites to stuff with female-targeted ad dollars. Lifetime, the cable network, just launched its own social network, mylifetime.com, with a lot of help from Glam Media's stable of female-centric blogs. Similarly, Warner Bros. announced entertainment and advice destination Mom Logic. Martha Stewart has launched Martha's Circle, an online ad network which represents other websites, and NBC Universal's iVIllage has struck a similar deal with Sugar Publishing. "It's kind of boring to say, but we really think content's king in this category," said Starcom's Jeff Marshall to AdAge. Boring, and false. The rule these days is sell the ads first, and find a place to put them later.

"Joe Mode is seeking single gay professional males 25 - 50 years old to be participants at a tv show taping of the new Lifetime show, MATT TITUS- MATCHMAKER. If you are interested please send an email to wayoutworld@yahoo.com to confirm. You will be attending a mixer where Matt will be talking with an interview prospect dates for his client on this episode. Just show up by 7pm at the Stitch lounge. There will be hors d'oevours served." (Really, can no one spell hors d'oeuvres any more?) [Sponge Cell]

NBC Universal announced today that it has bought Oxygen Media, that home for the has-been (see: "Tori & Dean," "Breaking Up With Shannen Doherty," and "The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency,") for the bargain basement price of $925 million. The deal for the seven-year-old Lifetime-rival network will ensure that the founders of Oxygen will finally be able to feed their children and rest easy at night, knowing their financial worries are behind them. You know: Oxygen co-founder? Oprah Winfrey. Oxygen investor? Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. We're sure they're totally pissed that they didn't get to pocket that $3 billion "BET money" they were hoping for. Because now how will they buy more megayachts and/or Maui?

· No, sillies! His name is Gay! LOL! CMT would never hire a real Gay! [Variety]
· We thought that Disney could never top itself after casting John Travolta, Tim Allen, and Martin Lawrence together in Wild Hogs, but they've just officially blown our minds by getting Travolta and Robin Williams into Old Dogs, the story of "two best friends and business partners whose lives are turned upside down when they find themselves in the care of 7-year-old twins." This one could do $300 million, easy. [THR]
· With no more female-friendly MOW worlds to conquer after landing both Jennie Garth and Lacey Chabert for upcoming projects, Lifetime president/CEO Betty Cohen "steps down" barely 24 hours after the network's upfront presentations. [Variety]
· Following yesterday's (possibly premature) reports that Spiderman: 3 may have already been pirated in Beijing, enraged MPAA head Dan Glickman stops just short of announcing an immediate Hollywood-led nuclear strike against China. [THR]
· In happier MPAA news, pirate-hunter emeritus Jack Valenti is out of the hospital after a recent stroke, but could suffer a setback should he be updated on this troubling China/Spider-Man situation. [Variety]

· Realizing that he's only played a lawyer once (Fatal Attraction), Michael Douglas quickly signs on to fill the courtroom-drama-shaped hole in his career by starring in Tragic Indifference, based on a landmark case against Ford over its "indifference to flaws in its SUVs." Scene-chewing delivery of a stirring closing statement to follow. [Variety]
· Chinese Pirates 1, Sony 0: China's camcording brigade has already made pirated copies of Spider-Man 3 available on the streets of Beijing, nearly two weeks ahead of the movie's U.S. debut. Didn't that flashy Tokyo premiere teach the scofflaws anything about respecting copyrights? The MPAA's next step: dispatching piracy-hating stuntman Manny Perry to smash some black market DVD stalls with a Louisville slugger. [THR]
· The Coen Brothers will make the Fargoesque dark comedy A Serious Man for Working Title and Focus Features. Lantern-jawed muse George Clooney has yet to be attached. [Variety]
· Should ABC pick up the much-discussed Grey's Anatomy spin-off for the fall, creator Shonda Rhimes has selected Krista Vernoff to run the Grey's mothership and Marti Noxon for the satellite; Rhimes will oversee both, which will primarily involve ensuring that both shows' characters have properly overwrought speeches about their impossibly complicated love-lives to deliver and collecting enormous paychecks [THR]
· Lifetime proves its admirable commitment to keeping the female television drama stars of the 90's off the streets, signing up 90210's Jennie Garth and Party of Five's Lacey Chabert for made-for-TV movie gigs. [Variety]

Michael J. Fox has spoken out in response to Rush Limbaugh's recent accusations that he was exaggerating the symptoms of his Parkinson's disease in a political endorsement TV spot for a candidate who is in favor of stem cell research. Sitting down with Katie Couric—whom, we'd be remiss in failing to point out, would be the actor's mirror image were he to indulge his innermost businesswoman-drag fantasies—Fox explained that the problem was too much, not too little, medication:

· The best thing to come out of the Toronto International Film Festival so far, says Variety, is a transcendent documentary from a little known Eurasian filmmaker with a "chram thick like tube of Pringles." [Variety]
· We hope Nick Meyer, formerly of Lionsgate, likes hugs, because his new co-president at Paramount Vantage, John Lesher, prefers to celebrate every new acquisition with a big, bear embrace from behind. [Variety]
· Second-tier Rocky and Bullwinkle regulars Mr. Peabody and Sherman get their own CGI feature, in which Sherman finally shuts up the know-it-all, time-traveling mutt by threatening him with a one-way ticket to Dr. Kebarkian's Furry Friends Cat & Dog Clinic. [Variety]
· Rupert Murdoch is looking to dump his controlling interest in DirecTV, a company he has been dismissively referring to lately as his "turd bird." No joke. [Variety]
· "Lolita Davidovich has been cast opposite Lili Taylor in Lifetime's drama pilot State of Mind." Davidovich, fine. But Taylor? A Lifetime pilot? Things sure have taken a turn for the worse since Nate buried her in a burlap sack in the desert. [THR]
· Universal Music CEO Doug Morris tells shareholders YouTube and MySpace users are violating copyright laws, but that he has a great plan to catch them that involves a smoking hot 16-year-old chick with an online video diary. [THR]

Many saw similarities between American Idol's most recent contestant evictee, 17-year-old Paris Bennett, and the show's previous winner, Fantasia, but what really set the two cartoon-voiced, soulful songbirds apart was backstory. For while Paris was merely a nice kid from a good family (read: bo-ring), Fantasia's life unfolded like a charmed, inner-city fable: Unwed, teenage mother comes from dead-end poverty street (and, it later comes out, hides illiteracy) to win America's ultimate popularity contest. Just when you thought Fantasia's life couldn't be any more charmed, however, there's more: THR reports that she will star as herself in a Lifetime biopic.

· M. Night Shyamalan tells exhibitors at the ShowEast conference that collapsing traditional distribution windows is "the worst idea I have ever heard. Then, in a stunning coda that reversed everything his audience thought to be true, he revealed that they were in fact at ShoWest all along. [Variety]
· Sam Mendes acceptance speech for his director of the year award at the Hollywood Film Festival is the height of humility and graciousness: "I'm very fond of giving awards to movies you've never seen. To those of you who've seen the movie, thank you very much. To those of you who haven't it's perfect." [Variety]
· Sony slips into the red, largely in part to well-deservedly ignored crapola like Stealth. Amy Pascal stands soaked in the metaphorical rain, praying a Spidey-in-shining-spandex will lower himself to her upside-down and slip her the profitable tongue. [Variety]
· Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball sets up another drama at HBO based on Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire series of novels, about a world where vampires and humans co-exist. Gee, yet another entertainment industry related show on HBO. Quel surprise. [Variety]
· Lifetime's Strong Medicine kicks the bucket. Rick Schroder thinks about next steps, starting with further shortening his name to Ri.' [THR]