Two years after he left, the ghost of TV executive Lloyd Braun still haunts Yahoo. Which is why a report of lost perks in Yahoo's L.A. office turned into an evisceration of the ex-exec.

With 1,500 employees gone today, Yahoo has surely hit bottom. The company's third act begins today — either an amazing rebirth, a disappearance into Microsoft, or a slow grind into irrelevance. How did those become its options?

Hollywood's savvy hustlers have struck again, with Lloyd Braun and Gail Berman convincing Yahoo and Microsoft to hire BermanBraun to produce a content portal for MSN and a contentpole for Yahoo called "Lunacy Report," according to sources cited by All Things Digital. For the ADD-affected with long term memory issues, former Yahoo CEO and Tom Cruise BFF Terry Semel hired Braun to shepherd in Yahoo's reign as a media company, followed by Braun taking the fall for much of Semel's own lunacy before Semel himself was ousted.

Last we heard from Yahoo SVP Scott Moore, he announced that Yahoo would introduce a singing newsreader for Yahoo News. That plan, possibly a joke gone awry, eventually disappeared. Kinda like the career of his predecessor at Yahoo, Lloyd Braun. But luckily for him, and for Yahoo shareholders, Moore, who's now adding oversight of Yahoo's entertainment properties to his portfolio, is no Lloyd Braun.

Remember how Yahoo exec Brad Garlinghouse, in his now-famous "peanut butter manifesto," complained Yahoo, under former CEO Terry Semel, spread its resources too thin over too many projects and too many ideas? Turns out Semel doesn't just have trouble picking business projects to fund.. The man is just as unable to pick a presidential candidate to believe in. According to the Huffington Post's new FundRace 2008, Semel donated to three different Democratic candidates in 2007. He spent $4,600 each on Tom Vilsack and Hilary Clinton in the first quarter and then another $2,300 on Barack Obama in the second. The candidacy of Vilsack, Semel's first choice, proved as successful as, oh, say, Semel proégé Lloyd Braun's career at Yahoo. (Photo by AP)

· The Venice Film Festival opening film—a WWII drama starring Keira Knightley called Atonement—was screened to mostly positive word of mouth, a triumph capped by fest organizers allowing star James McAvoy to have full access to the controls of the Ceremonial Wrecking Ball. [Variety]
· Renee Zellweger and Harry Connick Jr. are circling Chilled in Miami, a romcom about "a Miami businesswoman who's transferred to the sticks of Minnesota." Why do we have a feeling we'll be forced to watch this on a five-inch screen trapped in American Airlines rat-class? [Variety]
· We honestly thought Singing Bee's title as absolute worst show on TV was safe, but now we're not so sure: Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann is a go as an ABC midseason replacement, hosted by Nick Lachey's twinkle-toed brother, Drew. [Variety]
· BermanBraun, the petri dish result of combining toppled Paramount tyrant Gail Berman with former Yahoo-square-peg Lloyd Braun into a production company that sounds like a hand-blender, has hired a Yahoo exec to join them on their march to total media domination. [THR]
· Rejoice, Xbox Live subscribers: Family Guy episodes are merely a click away, with the added feature of being able to vaporize the annoying Griffin family with a variety of Gears of War weaponry at the end of every episode. [THR]

Lloyd Braun, the famously inept media executive who flamed out of a gig at Yahoo, is back on the Internet. He's got a "first-look" interactive deal with Pepsi's entertainment arm, according to Kara Swisher at AllThingsD.com. That's Hollywood-speak for saying that Pepsi has the option to use any online-entertainment concepts Braun comes up with. The alliance, of course, just billboards Braun's tech cluelessness. When Steve Jobs recruited John Sculley to be CEO of Apple, he asked him, "Do you want to peddle sugar water for the rest of your life?" Braun doesn't seem to realize that the right answer to the Jobs question was "no."

Nestled between today's Page Six items concerning a Diddy goon's seizure of a digital camera memory card that may have contained unauthorized images of their boss dancing with Sienna Miller and a discarded Trump trophy wife's endorsement of Hillary Clinton's presidential ambitions is this bizarre mash-note about Monday's news that recent Paramount pinkslip victim Gail Berman and Lloyd "All Media Mentions Of Me Must Include A Reference To My Role In Shepherding ABC Megasuccess Lost" Braun were joining forces to seize back control of their Hollywood fates:

· Studios aren't as horny as usual to pimp their event movies during the Super Bowl, preferring to spend their ad dollars on hit primetime shows instead of the year's biggest advertising orgy. But for those who change their minds, there's plenty of available space towards the end of the broadcast, when drunken football fans are less likely to pay attention to commercials. [Variety]
· More on the announcement of Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun's BermanBraun, which will either produce multimedia content or high-end kitchen appliances: leaking news about their venture forced them to come clean about their plans a few weeks early. [THR]
· Kiss finds yet another thing upon which to slap its name, planning a Kiss 4k comic book in which the band transforms from aging, whiteface-loving entrepreneurs into "world-protecting warrior spirits." [Variety]
· For reasons we might never understand, Paul Rudd consents to co-star with Seann William Scott in a comedy for Universal. [THR]
· Var invites charges of institutional anti-Sorkinism by pointing out that Studio 60 "retained less than half of its demo lead-in" in last night's Nielsen race. [Variety]

The LAT reports that recently ousted Paramount lieutenant Gail Berman is joining forces with long-ago ousted ABC executive Lloyd "I Totally Came Up With 'Lost' And All I Got Was This Lousy, Short-Lived Gig At Yahoo!" Braun to form the creatively named multimedia (TV/internet/movies/short-wave radio plays, if that's what the kids are into) production entity BermanBraun (or the slightly jazzier Berman/Braun, if you listen to Variety; really, the jaunty little slash makes all the difference). But before you start placing bets on where their new company will make its home, there are at least two destinations you can scratch off the list for obvious reasons:

Sorting through the fallout of yesterday's announced reorganization at Yahoo! is a job best left to tech-dirt-shovelling sister site Valleywag (we could never hope to equal our boss's facility with neon green arrows), but we've seen corporate reshuffling victim and former ABC bigwig Lloyd "Ever Hear Of 'Desperate Housewives' And 'Lost'? Yeah, Those Were Mine Before They Fired Me'" Braun's headshot enough times this morning to seek out what he had to say about leaving the internet company that hired him in an ill-conceived attempt to make their operation more "Hollywoody." Reports the LAT:

Just like Christmas in July, New Year predictions deserve a mid-year refresher — especially since Valleywag wasn't here for New Year's. Valleywag predicts that by the end of 2006:

CEOs and founders may fight, but little guys have the best horror stories, whether they're sitting outside the VP's office for an hour or losing their fancy chairs. An alleged employee at Lloyd Braun's Yahoo Media Group sent this inside report. Make sure you read the whole story.

Let's bring TV to Yahoo" might not get laid off after all. Yahoo Media Group head Lloyd Braun must be cheering over the new Pepsi-branded show hosted by Yahoo, "The 9." This daily show features a pretty woman discussing popular news items from around the Internet. (This, of course, has never been done.)

Poking fun at Lloyd Braun's pointless job may be fun, but the Yahoo Media Group head is no dummy — his TV biz skills are just pointless at a company that doesn't want to make content. But a reader says that Lloyd's putting one classic skill to work.

A reader respins the Yahoo Media Group reorg, saying CNET exec Vince Broady (pictured) could be the upstart to unseat YMG head Lloyd Braun. (Broady was named in news reports today after Valleywag ran a less specific tip yesterday.)

Hot damn, Yahoo Media Group is on fire, according to this tipster. If the report is true, the new Yahoo Studios Group could be just what YMG head Lloyd Braun needs to reassert his value to the company.

Terry Semel, Yahoo CEO and boss of Lloyd Braun (pictured), this morning:

British media blogger "Guido Fawkes" reports from the We Media conference on his site:

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