As we mentioned yesterday, the writers' strike may be coming to an end. Michael Eisner leaked that we'd be hearing news of it this weekend, and the former Disney CEO was right. Today Variety reports that "the WGA has finalized its tentative agreement with the majors and will present details of the pact to members today in meetings in Los Angeles and New York." The New York meeting is taking place at the Crowne Plaza......

MTV is getting all old school and reporting on relevant music! The channel traveled all the way to Brooklyn for a piece on bands closely associated with the Todd P scene. Best of all, they declare Manhattan's LES dead! Not a great way to promote their new vLES, we suppose. MTVMusic VideosMTV ShowsEntertainment News The network focuses on some great Brooklyn-based bands: Grizzly Bear, Dirty Projectors, The Muggabears...bands many music fans have been embracing for......

Last night Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert returned to their fake news desks, with picket lines outside of their studios and no strike beards in sight (however, a strike unibrow did appear). They were supportive as ever of the WGA though, in fact Stewart spent all 30 minutes discussing the strike, with only a lone joke or two about the primaries ("Cold white people have had their say"). He made it clear that "From now......

As The Daily Show and Colbert Report are just moments away from filming their first shows in quite some time, picket lines are standing strong outside of their studios. WGA spokeswoman Sherry Goldman tells us, "These pickets will be against the media conglomerates – NBC and Viacom - and not the specific hosts who we understand were forced to return to the air without their writers who remain on the picket lines." Just because the......

In some good news, the bigwigs at Viacom have heard the angry cries of their permanent freelancing employees, and today announced they were ready to concede. Just over one week ago the company Scrooged over a large portion of their workforce when they announced permalancers insurance benefits and their 401K plans would soon be a ghost of Christmas Past. Demanding equal treatment with full time employees (which the permalancers basically are), the group took......

MTV network freelancers took their beef to the streets yesterday in protest of changes to their benefits plan; about two hundred of the workers spent the afternoon picketing outside the Times Square headquarters of MTV's parent company Viacom. According to Gawker, an initial chant of “What the fuck?!” was revised into the catchier “We care about our 401(k)s!” after a reportedly winsome young rabble-rouser climbed atop a garbage can and helped brainstorm new chant......

Sumner Redstone, who as majority shareholder still calls the shots at Viacom, has arranged a special holiday treat for his already well-exploited “permalancers”. (The term refers to the practice favored by Viacom and other companies of employing workers full time but classifying them “freelance” to keep their sneaky hands out of the insurance jar.) Though Viacom permalancers had previously been eligible for healthcare benefits after a year, new rules dictate that insurance will only be......

British comedian John Oliver has become an indispensable fixture on The Daily Show, where he’s found a highly receptive audience for his particularly earnest style of fake reportage. But millions of viewers accustomed to their nightly laugh therapy have been going through heavy withdrawal since the Writers Guild strike put the kibosh on new episodes. At issue is the guild’s demand for a taste of the loot being raked in from new media outlets. The......

The Supreme Court essentially upheld an Appeals Court ruling that said New York City must pay the private education of disabled students. The twist is that the students and their parents don't even need to try to see if the public school programs are adequate for them. Actually, there's another twist: The lawsuit against the city was filed by former Viacom CEO and co-founder of MTV, multimillionaire Tom Freston. Freston's son Gilbert has learning disabilities,......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a police-involved shooting at 149th St. and 3rd Ave. in the Bronx, an attempted sexual assault on 55th St. in Brooklyn, and a bank robbery on West 52nd St. between 7th and 8th Aves. Kenneth Eng, noted earlier this year for his controversial essay "Why I Hate Blacks", was arrested again by the Feds shortly after pleading guilty to harrassing his neighbors and threatening them with a hammer. The......

Just last week Jeremy Blake's body was identified after being found off the coast of New Jersey. In July he and his girlfriend committed suicide one week apart from each other, and since then stories of their lives, fears and final days have surfaced. After the LA Times extensive piece, the NY Post recently published a lengthy article on the couple, who at the time were living in a converted rectory at St. Mark's Church......

Senator Barack Obama made the most of his NYC visit. He had three fund-raisers all over Manhattan, plus his appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman. Letterman brought up Obama's biggest rival, Senator Hillary Clinton, and asked if he'd join her on a presidential ticket, to which Obama said, "Which order are we talking about?" Obama also clarified that he was not running for second. He said, "I think all the candidates are......

There have been rumors about TRL ending its run this year (most likely by the summer) and now comes news that MTV will cut 250 jobs and invest in digital. By now we're all aware that the firing spree started yesterday. With viewers turning to the internet more and more, we suppose it only natural for the network to follow them. While we're happy this may mean the end of screaming teens standing outside of......

Long Island City may be losing MetLife, but now it seems like media conglomerate Viacom is considering a move to LIC. The Sun has a very interesting article about how the a move east would help reduce Viacom's cost (and improve its bottomline) if its various occupancy costs went down:The company currently leases 1.4 million square feet (or 78%) of the space in the building run by S.L. Green (which, incidentally, is also bullish on......

Gothamist is very grateful that we didn't have to witness Bloomberg's Hip Hop Press conference yesterday. OK, well, actually we kinda do wish that we'd been there, if only to see Bloomie chatting it up with Ice-T and Russell Simmons, but considering some of the soundbites that made it into today's papers we suspect that even that charm would have quickly worn off ("Welcome to City Hall, or my crib, as I like to......

Sometimes there are fun subway ads, like the Bronx Zoo ads. Sometimes there are bizarre ones that become a part of your brain's fabric, like the Dr. Zizmor ads. And then there are the unbearably lame ones, like the Mitchum Man ads that try to appeal to men's machismo or something, with phrases like, "If you're pretty sure you could kick out the window in the event of an emergency, you're a Mitchum Man." And......

Gothamist can appreciate a publicity stunt, and when it comes to the silly and bizarre, NYC doesn't disappoint. Really, who needs to hire birthday or bachelor party entertainment when you can just walk outside and catch a stormtrooper, cow, or scantily painted model? We wonder if anyone else saw those near-naked promoters, airbrushed with suits to resemble their favorite Reservoir Dog characters, running around Union Square yesterday. They were supposedly “spreading the PULP” in Lincoln......

Priscilla Grim, Membership & Advocacy Director AIVF...

As we suspected, Spike Lee and Viacom have settled the "Who does the name Spike belong to" issue. Viacom can rebrand TNN "Spike TV," Spike Lee gets some cash money. One of his lawyers says, "We have settled the case with Viacom. It's obviously good when parties settle." Yeah, it's good Spike didn't have to pony up the $2 million bond for pursuing his suit against Viacom. Let that be a lesson to anyone who......

Yesterday's Jim Rutenberg piece about CBS trying to land the Jessica Lynch interview by flexing its synergies with in the Viacom family (MTV, Simon & Schuster) was pretty disturbing, but not that surprising, given the incestuous nature of the media industries. The Times based much of its article on a letter that CBS sent Lynch's representatives, which, Rutenberg writes, causes "among critics about the independence of news divisions owned by media giants." The letter from......

When we last looked at this story, we wondered if Spike Lee had a legitimate reason to complain about TNN changing its name to Spike TV. Well, Lee was granted an injunction against Spike TV from using the name "Spike." The judge wrote, "Contrary to defendants' position, the court is of the opinion that in the age of mass communication, a celebrity can in fact establish a vested right in the use of only their......

Celebrity hubris or legitimate complaint? Formerly rabblerousing director Spike Lee has sued Viacom Inc. over TNN renaming itself to "Spike TV." Newsday reports that "Lee asked for an injunction against Viacom's use of the name Spike for TNN." "I was extremely upset to see my name connected with a network when I had never given my consent to use my name," Lee said. Lee's court papers say that TNN's president, Albie Hecht, told the news......