family-feuds

Viacom PR Admits 'Public Crapping' May Not Bode Well For New Pay Network

STV · 04/25/08 12:25PM

The week that started with Les Moonves and Phillipe Dauman kickboxing in Sumner Redstone's corporate steel cage will apparently end with Dauman retreating to his corner of the Viacom boardroom for medical attention. Or at least that's the impression we glean from today's gloom-and-doom survey of the Great Pay-Cable Cockfight of 2008, during which Paramount broke off from cousin network Showtime after failing to renegotiate an output deal for its titles. On their own now with partners Lionsgate and MGM/UA, even Viacom/Paramount flacks acknowledge finding little comfort in the TV wild:

Paramount, Showtime, CBS Spend Weekend Fighting in Grandpa Sumner Redstone's Sandbox of Death

STV · 04/21/08 12:00PM

While most of us fled the office to enjoy early spring, Sumner Redstone spent another relaxing weekend watching his corporate children at Viacom gouge each others' eyes out. And this time around he got his money's worth, with Paramount finally breaking free from CBS/Showtime to start its own pay-cable and VOD service with MGM and Lionsgate. It's an untidy, somewhat shocking scenario that we (and seemingly the rest of the Web) can't yet make sense of, but join us after the jump to parse the winners and losers at a glance.

Britney Spears Serves Her Mother Trailerside With Scary Lawyer Letter

seth · 06/29/07 01:49PM

Realizing the same camera-equipped menaces tailing her every baby-fumbling, crotch-flashing, and head-shaving misstep might actually be of service to her, troubled pop icon Britney Spears enlisted the help of the paparazzi to locate Lynne Spears, in order to personally serve her estranged mother with a threatening legal letter. The elder Spears's crimes: "Gettin' all naggy n' stuff" about her daughter's hard-partying lifestyle, while cozying up to former pimp/dependent, K-Fed. The entire exchange—not at all staged by the public histrionics enthusiast for the benefit of the lurking video cameras—somewhat fittingly played out on the steps of a trailer. From the NY Post: