• David Carr: Times, Washington Post loyalty programs "cheesy." [WWD]
  

Two people have been arrested for stealing an Academy member's awards screeners and illegally posting them online. The DA has yet to file charges, but is expected to ultimately deny the MPAA's request that the pirates be summarily stabbed in the kidneys and left to bleed to death on the sidewalk in front of the Kodak Theatre. [Variety]
ABC shuffles its Wednesday schedule, sacrificing new comedies Knights of Prosperity and In Case of Emergency to the Nielsen gods by putting them up against the return of American Idol, hoping that better-loved hit Lost might be spared their wrath in its new 10 pm timeslot. [THR]
George Clooney's production company tries to help re-ignite Hollywood's stalled love affair with legal thriller typist John Grisham, buying the movie rights to produce the book The Innocent Man: Murder and Justice in a Small Town for Warner Independent. [Variety]
The IATSE/WGA feud over reality jobs heats up, as IATSE president Thomas Short accuses the WGA of "irresponsibility and incompetence" for delaying producer talks. Only nine more months left of bickering over accusations of Guild posturing and de facto studio work stoppages! Enjoy them while they last. [THR]
The week in ratings: NBC takes the weekly 18-49 demo victory, The CW posts its strongest numbers yet, ABC has the week's most watched show, CBS remains the overall most watched network, and Fox is just happy they're not being beaten by Telemundo. [Variety]

NBC demonstrates its ongoing commitment to struggling, behind-the-scenes- at-sketch-comedy-show programming, picking up 30 Rock for a full season after last night's ratings spike. [Variety]
The Office's John Krasinski join George Clooney in the romantic comedy Leatherheads, in which the two stars try to convince audiences that Renee Zellweger is sexually desirable enough to fight over. [THR]
Columbia and Scott Rudin acquire the screen rights to a still-unpublished "new take" on Cleopatra by biographer Stacy Schiff and producer Scott Rudin. Even though the book centers on Cleopatra as a "a firm ruler and military tactician" rather than as a sexbomb seductress, we wouldn't be surprised if the studio quickly determines that Angelina Jolie is "firm rulerish and tactician-y enough" to send out a big offer. [Variety]
Grey's Anatomy leads ABC to a Thursday night ratings win against the token resistance of CBS's CSI rerun. In other news, no one is watching The OC anymore. [THR]
· The Producers Guild will give Jerry Bruckheimer their Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television, celebrating the superproducer's unparalleled ability to land procedural after procedural on CBS's primetime schedule. [Variety]

The November ratings sweeps period is over, and, as expected, nearly every network is claiming their own share of victory: CBS in total viewership, ABC in the coveted™ 18-49 demographic, and NBC in maintaining Studio 60's level of 7.5 million or so incredibly affluent, upscale fans, a moral triumph much more satisfying than the hollow wins trumpeted by their better-rated rivals. Not exactly pleased with the results is Fox, which has resigned itself to waiting for Simon Cowell and Kiefer Sutherland to once again rescue them from the rest of their schedule. Reports the LAT:

Production has already begun on CBS's latest foray into the "marginal celebrities performing activities for which they're hilariously ill-suited" genre of reality TV, Armed and Famous, in which Erik "Hey, I Once Played A Motorcycle Cop!" Estrada, LaToya Jackson, Jack Osborne, and Wee Man will train to become gun-toting members of the Muncie, Indiana police force. We expect that reports of Muncie's first parking ticket-related fatal shooting will soon surface. [Variety]
House pulls in its best ratings since its season premiere, crushing the debut of ABC's new comedy, Big Day, which stars that guy from all those short-lived sitcoms whose name we can never remember. [THR]
Universal casts Martin Lawrence in the Malcolm Lee comedy The Better Man, a project that strips him of the acting crutch represented by the latex fat suits he's recently relied on to portray the titular character in Big Momma's House 2 and John Travolta in Wild Hogs. [Variety]
According to a USC study, parents think their kids are online too much, robbing them of the vital life experiences provided by the rainbow parties their internet usage is causing them to miss out on. [THR]
The Real World's ratings are off 53 percent from last season, indicating that basic cable audiences might finally be tired of watching drunk assholes scream at each other while living rent-free in lavishly decorated apartments. Even if these discouraging results makes MTV give up on the series, we hope they continue on with Real World/Road Rules Challenge, as drunk assholes screaming at each other while bungie jumping off hot air balloons floating over active volcanos still has some entertainment value. [Variety]

Nominations for the Independent Spirit Awards, the annual celebration of films largely released by the somewhat less corporate-seeming arms of huge multimedia conglomerates, have been announced, with Little Miss Sunshine and Half Nelson both receiving five nods. [Variety]
Anna Faris will take a break from being bopped in the head in Scary Movie sequels by starring in the "farcical sci-fi comedy" Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel. [THR]
Heroes and Deal or No Deal win the 18-49 demographic for NBC Monday night, while Studio 60's uplifting episode about how tragic murder-suicides can interfere with the production of a live sketch comedy show (which anonymous internet poster Dilbert27 called "a heavy-handed treatment of already ill-chosen subject matter") fails to draw the expected droves of new viewers to the series. [Variety]
The Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers lead negotiator is "shocked and dismayed" that the WGA refuses to surrender their strike leverage by entering negotiations on the studios' timetable. [THR]
The Hollywood Foreign Press puts Apocalypto and Letters From Iwo Jima on the Golden Globes shortlist for Best Foreign Language film, even though neither is eligible for an Oscar in that category. Oh, conflicting awards show rules, why must you be so confusing? [Variety]

The Kaiju Shakedown blog points us to this ad for a Fuzhou hospital that has seemingly engaged the unauthorized endorsement services of Prison Break star Wentworth Miller to advertise their ability to quickly cure the prostate problems of the local populace. The Fox marketing team's various promotional efforts on behalf of the show should make us all suspicious that the strange ad is part of a viral campaign preparing the Chinese people for the show's arrival in their country, and that once translated, its fine print warns viewers that if they don't tune in to The Glorious Escape of the Innocent Bald-Head, an ex-convict will arrive at their home to massage their prostates until their television-watching habits are properly adjusted.

Just in case you were wondering, Ad Age guesstimates the total cost for Fox's decision to shitcan the OJ Simpson If I Did It book and TV show at $10 million. That includes the $3.5 million book advance, mind you. Still no copies of said tome appearing (or staying for long) on eBay, but take heart — there's always Craigslist. A bargain at $2K.

In his first interview since Rupert Murdoch pulled the plug on his pseudoconfessional ratings stunt spectacular, O.J. Simpson told a Miami radio show this morning that the entire "Hey—how'd you like to make an easy couple mil by describing how you would have gone about the tidy disposal of the ex-wife you loved so much (despite beating her senseless and threatening her life for years), and whoever else might have been around her at the time?" idea wasn't his, and, furthermore, that the interview contained nary an admission of guilt. Among Simpson's claims:

The trades eulogize "iconoclastic, prolific, periodically brilliant director" Robert Altman, "one of cinema's great democratic spirits." [Variety, THR]
NBC is developing a TV version of Thank You For Smoking, in which the movie's former tobacco apologist's new PR firm will take on seemingly impossible image rehabilitation tasks, like trying to convince people that Lindsay Lohan is a hard-working, responsible adult committed to shutting out distractions and fully dedicating herself to her craft. [Variety]
NBC orders three more scripts from 30 Rock, momentarily showing support for the far better of their two low-rated, behind-the-scenes-at-a-sketch-comedy-show series. [THR]
Fox Atomic shuts down production on its update of Revenge of the Nerds, sparing us from a needless remake of a perfectly good nerdsploitation flick. [Variety]
Fox joins CBS in challenging the FCC, claiming that new rules that find "certain words so vile they are automatically actionable" will kill live broadcasting by hampering celebrities' ability to spontaneously say "shit" or "fuck" during awards shows. [THR]

If I Did It, Here's How It Happened, Fox's planned O.J. Simpson kinda-sorta confession special and lavishly illustrated, accompanying coffee table book, are both dead in the water, a hit ordered directly from the top by News Corp's corporate overlord, Rupert Murdoch:

Fox News Channel plans on supplementing its regular, round-the-clock fake news coverage with a still-untitled "Daily Show for conservatives," which the network hopes will finally provide them with a much-needed forum for taking shots at liberals. Next on the FNC development slate-of-mirrors: a Colbert Report knock-off starring a comically delusional blowhard. [Variety]
Nielsen studies iPod users' viewing habits, discovers that most people don't use their devices to watch video downloads, perhaps finding the experience of squinting through an episode of Lost on a three-inch screen not as desirable as Apple had once hoped. [THR]
· Var reports on how your favorite supermodels (Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Padma Lakshmi) have overcome their perfect genes and fabulous racks to find great success hosting popular television shows. [Variety]
Fox Searchlight picks up the dark comedy Bonzai Shadowhands, which Rainn Wilson is writing as a starring vehicle for himself in which he'll play "a once-great ninja living a life of mediocrity." Whatever they gave him, he deserves three million more. [THR]
Imprisoned P.I. Anthony Pellicano writes a "guest column" for Variety (if your definition of guest column is reprinting an excerpt from a book of essays) "stating his case." But unlike OJ Simpson, he seems unwilling to go the "If I wanted to conduct illegal wiretaps of various Hollywood figures, this is how I would have done it" route, seriously reducing the piece's news value. [Variety]

· Hot on the heels of the launch of NBC Universal's online humor site DotComedy (it's still around a week later, apparently—so far, so good), AOL and HBO announce plans to erect This Just In in January, a novel idea centered around the unprecedented use of blogging technology to explore current events in comedic fashion. [Variety]
The Academy announces the Oscar documentary shortlist, which includes Dixie Chicks film Shut Up and Sing and Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Among the snubbed: Wordplay, Who Killed the Electric Car?, and This Film Is Not Yet Rated. [THR]
Warner Bros. suddenly moves up the release of Clint Eastwood's other World War II drama, Letters from Iwo Jima, to late December to put it into awards contention, hoping to snag some of the nominations that may elude his floptastic DreamWorks effort, Flags of our Fathers. [Variety]
· 27.2 million viewers tune in to watch Emmitt Smith stiff-arm Mario Lopez on the way to the Dancing with the Stars championship, while temporary Lost timeslot-filler Daybreak's premiere was "trounced" by Criminal Minds. [THR]
Fox decides that since it might look bad to cancel all of their new shows, they might as well pick up additional episodes of Til Death and Standoff in hopes that they might eventually draw some viewers once American Idol and 24 return. [Variety]

While the headlines to this story blare O.J. Simpson: If I Did It, Here's How It Happened publisher Judith Regan's declaration that she considers the hypothetical double-murder how-to manual that Fox is gleefully adapting into two hours of stab-happy, civilization-eroding TV programming to be "his confession," we're more interested in the anecdote about the network that turned down a chance to air the special:

Yesterday afternoon, Fox announced that network Chief Exploitation Officer Mike Darnell is overseeing a two-part special in which accused double-murderer OJ Simpson will discuss the purely hypothetical ways in which Heisman-winning former rental car pitchmen might—theoretically!—go about the business of brutally slaying their ex-wives and their lovers. Our colleagues at Gawker have discovered that Fox has already jettisoned the unwieldy working title of O.J. Simpson: If I Did It, Here's How It Happened for something more apt to draw the kind of huge audience they're expecting for flipping the bird in the general direction of double-jeopardy laws. The new title is revealed in the leaked promo presented above.

Realizing that golf club memberships and real-murderer-trailing private investigator fees don't pay for themselves, free-moving sociopath O.J. Simpson has teamed with publisher Judith Regan for a book and accompanying two-part Fox reality special, tantalizingly titled, O.J. Simpson: If I Did It, Here's How It Happened.

The studios are jamming 65 releases down audiences' throats between Nov. 17th and the New Year, hoping to establish favorable awards season position and reap quick profits from a barrage of holiday-themed movies. [Variety]
For those who think Neil Patrick Harris and T.R. Knight's coming out announcements were progress, the THR cautions to wait and see what happens when a Rock Hudson-type steps out of the closet, instead of Doogie and a guy who's "practically one of the girls on Grey's." [THR]
Fox is shy about using the word "canceled" to describe Justice, instead preferring the gentler "pulled from the schedule, never to be seen again, except for possibly on tiny TV sets on budget-fare Eastern European airlines." Meanwhile, ABC gives What About Brian a full season pick-up. [Variety]
Heads have finally started to roll for NBCUni's "Layoffs 2.0" initiative, with about 15 Dateline NBC staffers sacrificing their paychecks to the company's bottom line. [THR]
Two best friends go batshit insane when they pick the same wedding date, starring Kate Hudson. That's pretty much all you need to know. [Variety]

It's one thing to be taunted by a mustachioed imbecile for a Kazakh public TV audience, but quite another when the mustachioed imbecile is set to become one of the richest and most powerful men in Hollywood, and the audience turns out to be every man, woman, and snuck-in child in America. A "not everyone loves Borat" round-up (and it's full of spoilers, for those die-hard Borat fans patiently waiting until the movie hits the discounted second-run theaters):
· The Sun reports that after the SNL taping of a few weeks ago, Sacha Baron Cohen, in character as Borat, and that week's host Hugh Laurie, popped into a New York bar for some interactive fun with the clientele. An unamused patron then responded to Borat's request to purchase and have sex with his clothing by punching him in the face several times. Witness reports claiming the assailant was a bitter and broke Yakov Smirnoff demanding his act back turned out to be erroneous. [The Sun]
· That village at the beginning of the movie wasn't a Fox backlot set—it was an actual village, called Glod, in Romania. Its inhabitants are now claiming they were lied to, having been paid roughly six dollars each and told they were being filmed as part of a documentary about poverty in the region. Particularly bitter is the one-armed man who has come to realize his floppy prosthetic may have once found its way up the anus of the film's unwitting star at the hand of a proud homosexual. [DailyMail.co.uk]
· As the world laughs, Borat's victims continue to weather the reverberations of their public humiliations and betrayals. Some of their stories are compiled by the AP, including the Jackson, Miss. morning show producer who let Borat on the air to wreak havoc on an interview segment and weather report, leading directly to her firing and a "downward spiral." We'd recommend adding the scene to her clip reel and immediately mailing an application package to Good Day L.A., where that kind of gonzo morning show programming vision is best appreciated. [ABCNews.com/AP]

[Warning: Further Borat movie spoilers lie ahead.] Some of those "How'd they do that?" tricks up the sleeves of the crafty team responsible for making the Borat movie have already been revealed, including, "How'd they get those Polaroids of our hero within spitting distance of his supposed teenage son's sprouting chram?" (Answer: Hire a dark, twinky-looking gay porn star), and "How'd they get Pamela Anderson to give a semi-convincing performance?" (Answer: Actually, we still have no idea). The small matter persists, however, of that RV full of wasted, University of South Carolina frat boys, and just how their loudly voiced philosophical alignments with the faux-Kazakh on subjects such as women, Jews, and the lamentable abolition of legal slavery managed to make their way into the final cut. Now, an anonymously filed lawsuit seems to reveal, at least in part, yet more behind-the-scenes Borat movie magic:

A tipster kindly sent over the "save the date" for the News Corp. holiday party, to be held next month with what seems to be an aviational theme. One might assume, after Bill O'Reilly's temper tantrums last year about companies that have taken the Christmas out of the Christmas season, that his employer would've gone to great lengths to make sure that the party was appropriately Christian-themed ... or at the very least, called a Christmas party. Can we even get a pine tree up in this piece?