Time Warner and Viacom video content will soon run on Hulu, the Web video joint venture from NBC Universal and News Corp. The Time Warner deal is done, while Viacom's is "not totally signed," a source tells us. Both deals are said to be nonexclusive. (A Hulu spokesbot autodialed us to relay the nitpick that the paperwork hasn't been signed yet. Whatever.) The news isn't a shock: Time Warner subsidiary AOL agreed to distribute Hulu at launch and before the site even had a name, Viacom executives have praised Hulu in concept. Just yesterday, MTV exec Van Toffler said, "We've been talking to [Hulu] since the beginning, and we like it a lot." Mostly because it's not YouTube, of course.

With the joyous news that the writers strike has unequivocally ended, an historic accord marked by Nick Counter and Patric Verrone appearing together on the balcony of the Warner Bros. water tower on Valentine's Day eve, as thousands below chant, "Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" until the reluctant peacemakers finally acquiesce to a deafening roar of approval, it would seem everything is right again in the magical realm of Hollywoodland. Which makes this rumor all the more disconcerting: Could the NBC Universal ruler, whose upward-failing rise to power was prophesied in lesser-known New Testament appendix The Book of Jeff, really be mulling a lawsuit with the HFPA against the WGA for robbing them of a Golden Globes ceremony? Deadline Hollywood Daily says it could be so:

A NewTeeVee report suggests Viacom and its subsidiaries may be moving closer to licensing content to Hulu, NBC Universal and News Corp.'s Web video joint venture. "We've been talking to them since the beginning, and we like it a lot," MTV exec Van Toffler told NewTeeVee. He described Hulu as "sleek and simple." We hear MTV is as likely to syndicate content on Hulu as it is on Amazon Unbox or anywhere else. Another MTV exec, Courtney Holt, said, "We're really bullish on syndicating our content." $1 billion says they're not thinking of YouTube. (Photo by L.x. Fringes)

Forty people (twice as many as originally thought)An iVillage spokesperson "can confirm for you that 13 employees were affected today" by layoffs at the NBC subsidiary, not the larger number we reported earlier based on employee accounts. "Nobody saw it coming," an insider told us. Editor-in-chief Jennie Baird, who was hired away from AOL in April to helm the women's content company is among the victims, according to a source. The sneakiest part we're hearing though, is how NBC may have enticed iVillage employees to move to the network's New Jersey location. "These people were good enough to agree to go to hell (aka Englewood Cliffs) and they got canned," we were told. "Many of them were promised bonuses to move...but they had to stay until Dec. 2008. Big bonuses. 20% of their salaries." If we could think of a less-offensive term than "indian-giver" for NBC, we'd use it, but we totally can't!

· In what could be a dream match of creative team and quirky literary material, Joel and Ethan Coen will adapt Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union for Columbia, a "noir-style murder mystery in which a rogue cop investigates the killing of a heroin-addicted chess prodigy who might be the messiah" set in a Jewish settlement in Alaska. (Are we allowed to get pre-excited about this one?) [Variety]
· Though Ugly Betty was among the nine series ABC picked up for next season on Monday, the network ruined executive producers Marco Pennette and James Hayman's back-to-work party by dropping them from the show. [THR]

We hear axes are falling at iVillage, the women's-oriented media company bought by NBC Universal two years ago for $600 million. According to a source, the company "just cut about 20 positions, some of them occupied. Maybe a dozen people got the axe." Adding insult to injury, the poor employees left standing are being relocated from Midtown to the CNBC campus in Englewood Cliffs by the end of the month. iVillage editorial director Tina Gaudoin left the UK's version of the site to join the Wall Street Journal in January. Let us know if you hear more.

· Network executives are trying to make sense of the brave, new, post-strike world they suddenly find themselves in, either taking this unprecedented opportunity to blow up their development system, or shrugging it off as a "blip" and going back to the old, comfortable ways of doing business (i.e., throwing a bunch of money at talent and pilots). Also, tough decisions need to be made about which series should be rushed back into production to finish up this abbreviated season, which should be put off until the fall, and which should be put out of their misery after losing their momentum. [Variety]
· Unsurprisingly, utterly fearless NBC perfect storm Ben Silverman (motto: "Let's do stuff!") is seizing the chance to shake things up inside the Peacock Family by shuffling around some executives and eliminating its largely vestigial current series department. [THR]

David Schuster, an NBC News correspondent whom no one on Earth had ever cared about before today, has just been suspended for announcing that it was "weird" how the Clintons "pimped out Chelsea" when they made her call all those superdelegates and those ladies from The View. Chris Matthews, Tucker Carlson, and even lovable old Pat Robertson will still appear on the network regularly. [Media Matters]

Harris Poll asked TV viewers, both Democrat and Republican, to name their favorite and least liked news personalities. The results of the survey, crunched and displayed on our chart, are fascinating.

In an unexpected development sure to rock the sentient-sportscar-voiceover world, Variety reports NBC has announced that it's had to make an 11th hour substitution in its casting of KITT for the network's soon-to-debut Knight Rider movie, rushing last-minute savior Val Kilmer (Val Kilmer!) into the studio to redo all of the dialogue already recorded by outgoing Mustang-inhabitor Will Arnett.

· In a move that "might" be related to the strike, Jon Stewart pulls out of a Paley Center fundraiser honoring unkillable Viacom overlord Sumner Redstone; presumably, the possibility of having to cross WGA protesters to host an event celebrating a man who's previously pledged to "live long enough to watch every last one of those greedy, scribbling serfs die on the picket line" suddenly made the gig seem less savory. [THR]
· On Super Tuesday, network TV audiences overwhelming chose Fox's American Idol and House to ABC's coverage of the primaries, which, despite occasional clips of Mitt Romney's hilariously inept audition for the Republican nomination, never stood a chance against the misadventures of dozens of equally delusional Idol hopefuls. [Variety]

MSNBC is offering a live Webcast of its Super Tuesday coverage online. Could this be the first time a cable channel has simulcast news coverage on the Web? I've asked MSNBC if that's the case, but the network has yet to get back to me. A live broadcast is significantly more expensive than serving up a cached video, as YouTube does. The only other major live Internet broadcast has been pay-only from Major League Baseball, and that's not a replica of a cable channel. Stuck at your computer? Hit the jump to watch some MSNBC, straight from your desk.

Come on, now. Honestly. "Ben Dover," real estate broker? Does fact checking not exist on network news shows? We couldn't believe NBC fell for such an obvious prank. Until we put in a call and... yea, he's real. So if you need a house in Jackson, Georgia, be sure to go with Dover Realty! It's really the least you can do.

· Encouraged by the good-enough numbers generated by viewers lured to Celebrity Apprentice by the depressing lack of programming alternatives, NBC greenlights a second season of Donald Trump's salvaged franchise. Calls are already flooding in from other lesser-Baldwins, starving reality-show alumni, and aging supermodels hoping to fill out the next installment's roster of semi-recognizable names. [Variety]
· Though Fox, powered by American Idol and The Moment of Truth, is rolling along during a strike-affected early 2008, this week the top five broadcasters are down 21% in the 18-49 demographic compared to the same period from last year. [Variety]

· Looking for inventive ways to develop scripted programming during the writers strike, CBS Paramount TV reaches across our northern border to partner with CTV to produce the police drama Flashpoint. which will be scripted and shot in Canada. "[The production values] will be as good as any American production," somewhat defensively notes a source, trying to alleviate fears that CBS is trying to save money by eventually airing some second-rate Mountie melodrama badly overdubbed to eliminate suspicious Canadian accents. [Variety]
· As expected, the WGA has reached an interim deal with the Grammys, saving the highly expendable awards show from suffering the same undignified fate as the Golden Globes. Reacts Recording Academy president Neil Portnow, revealing that he may never have watched a Grammys telecast: "Having our talented writers on the team further ensures the highest level of creativity and innovation, something our audience has come to expect every year." [THR]

· La Vie en Rose Oscar nominee Marion Cotillard tries to parlay some of her awards-season heat into a role alongside Christian Bale and Johnny Depp in Michael Mann's Public Enemies, playing gangster John Dillinger's "torch singer girlfriend." [Variety]
· Meanwhile, (rightly) Academy-ignored Charlie Wilson's War star Julia Roberts hunts for her next chance at awards glory, attaching herself to star in and produce an adaptation of soon-to-be published novel Hothouse Flowers, about a recently divorced NY ad exec who throws it all away to embark on a fabulous post-break-up adventure. [THR]
[After the jump: NBC sues Dick Wolf!; Oscar nominations translate to bigger weekend grosses; the fate of Mary-Kate and Ben Kingsley's Sundance film.]

LX.TV—formerly Code.tv and occasional target of Gawker mockery—is all growed up. The proudly idiotic web video lifestyle porn purveyors have been acquired by the good people at NBC. Specifically NBC's "Local Media Division" which seems like sort of a sad ghetto for such an ambitious group but LX.TV has been enriching viewers of New York's WNBC for some time now with their terrifying original content. Meet a new worst person in the world every week! It's seriously hypnotic. Anyway, New York is dead and now you can watch drunk i-bankers party on its corpse live on channel 4. [NBC Universal]

Oops. The mics on Al Roker and his trusty 'Today' team failed to cut away during this morning's weather segment! What were formerly fat Al & Co. dishing about when they thought they were off the air? Nastily enough, it involved Ann Curry, a massage, the phrase "oil all over me," and much giggling. Deep apologies to those of you who just ate. Unfortunately for NBC's morning trio, their little off-camera gaffe introduced a segment on Heath Ledger's maybe-masseuse-related death. Isn't that just hilarious?

· According to "an industry study conducted by informed sources" which Var was allowed to view on a "confidential basis" (we'll let you concoct your own theories about a trenchcoat-clad Nick Counter giving a sneak preview of the figures in a dark corner of the Beverly Center parking lot), the cost of the writers strike could reach $3 billion if it drags on for 60 to 90 more days. Also, in case you haven't heard: the national economy is headed down the shitter. [Variety]
· While NBC isn't canceling any of its current pilot scripts (unlike recent project-droppers CBS, Fox, and The CW), Jeff Zucker says that going forward, the company will cut back on traditional pilot development to focus its resources on ordering episodes of whatever Colombian telenovela or Dutch game-show Peacock programming-importation expert Ben Silverman thinks he can rush onto his primetime schedule without too much expensive tinkering. [Variety]
[After the jump: ast night's Idol numbers; CEOs and writers chatting; a Buffy reunion]