In what appeared to some analysts to be a remarkably cavalier comment from the head of the company that had paid $1.6 billion for the DreamWorks film company in 2005, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman said Tuesday that if Steven Spielberg decides to leave DreamWorks when his contract expires next year, "the financial impact to Paramount first and especially to Viacom overall would be completely immaterial." Dauman's dismissive comments came as rumors spread that Spielberg, a DreamWorks cofounder, was becoming increasingly unhappy over his relationship with Paramount chief Brad Grey since the acquisition. Nevertheless, most of Paramount's successful releases since the acquisition have been DreamWorks' productions, and it was assumed within the industry that Viacom would do whatever was necessary to allay Spielberg's concerns. On the contrary, Dauman told a Goldman Sachs conference in New York Tuesday, Paramount was already planning for Spielberg's departure. Reporting on Dauman's remarks, Daily Variety commented that they were especially "notable" given the fact that publicly Dauman "usually speaks in formal, restrained tones."

Disney CEO Robert Iger said Tuesday that his company has not taken any money from the Blu-ray high-definition video camp to continue releasing its movies in Blu-ray exclusively. Iger's comments came at an investors' conference in New York where News Corp's Rupert Murdoch charged earlier in the day that Viacom's Paramount unit had received $150 million to drop Blu-ray and go with HD DVD exclusively. "We haven't taken any money because we think it's far and away the best business. ... I think it's a foregone conclusion about which [format] will win," Iger said. Still later in the day Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons said that Warner Home Video will continue releasing films in both formats. "Our objective is not to take sides on the format but to do what we need to do to get maximum penetration."

On a day when Patric M. Verrone, who has worked as a writer on such animated TV shows as Pinky and the Brain, Rugrats, Futurama, and The Simpsons, was reelected president of the Writers Guild of America West, DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg conceded Tuesday that he was fearful that a WGA strike will take place after the current contract expires at the end of next month. "I don't think I've ever seen a wider gap in the bid and the ask on where we are today. A lot of it is emotional and rhetorical and a lot of it is substantive," he told a Merrill Lynch conference in Los Angeles Tuesday. Katzenberg said that his company would be able to function normally for about six months if a strike is called.

Two years after winning his battle with corporate raider Carl Icahn, who had called for the break-up of Time Warner into four separate companies -- cable, Internet, publishing and movies/TV -- Time Warner Chairman and CEO Richard Parsons said Tuesday that he may now be looking favorably on such a break-up himself. Speaking to a Goldman-Sachs investors' conference in New York, Parsons said that Icahn's argument "may have more resonance now, and we are evaluating that argument again. One reason we haven't jumped onto it is we're just now in a zone where we can take a serious look at it." Parsons also announced Tuesday that he was in the process of "passing the baton" to Time Warner president and COO Jeff Bewkes. Parsons' contract runs out on May 31.

In past years, a gentlemen's agreement by the networks removed heavy competition from whichever network was airing the Emmy awards. The result was that the awards ceremony was generally one of the highest-rated shows of the year. Not so these days as the Emmy telecast was forced to compete Sunday against an overrun of a CBS NFL telecast and later NBC's Sunday Night Football -- and was thrown for its biggest loss since 1990. Final weekly ratings figures from Nielsen Research showed that Sunday night's telecast drew 13 million viewers, down significantly from last year when it drew 16.1 million. Last year's telecast had already been designated the second-lowest-rated Emmy affair in history. In fact, Sunday's show beat the 1990 telecast by just 700,000 viewers. (Some analysts pointed out that the earlier telecast aired less than four years after Fox went on the air and that the network had far fewer affiliates then than it does today.)

The top ten shows of the week according to Nielsen Research: 1. NBC Sunday Night Football, NBC, 9.8/16; 2. 59th Primetime Emmy Awards, Fox, 8.4/14; 3. 60 Minutes, CBS, 7.6/12; 4. Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kickoff, NBC, 7.2/12; 5. Without a Trace, CBS, 6.6/12; 6. Two and a Half Men, CBS, 6.4/10; 7. CSI: NY, CBS, 5.9/10; 8. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CBS, 5.8/10; 9. Big Brother (Thursday), CBS, 5.7/10; 10. CSI: Miami, CBS, 5.6/9; 10. Football Night in America, NBC, 5.6/10.

Employing an odd choice of words for a man who had just purchased a company that publishes a newspaper called the Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch said Tuesday that the difference between his upcoming Fox Business Network and CNBC is: "They're Wall Street and we're Main Street." Speaking at an investors' conference in New York, the irony of Murdoch's remark seemed compounded when he indicated that Wall Street Journal writers will provide commentary for FBN as well as coverage of politics, international news, lifestyle -- "and you name it." Under an existing contract with Dow Jones that runs through 2012, the WSJ must provide its business news reporting exclusively to CNBC. But while CNBC focuses on "failures and politics," Murdoch said, "We want to emphasize innovation, success, people making money." In an interview with Daily Variety, a CNBC spokesman indicated that the cable network would not challenge Murdoch's interpretation of its deal with the Wall Street Journal.

CBS has no intention of following NBC's lead in pulling its TV shows out of Apple's iTunes Music Store if it is not allowed to control pricing, CBS chief Les Moonves indicated Tuesday. Speaking at an investors' conference in New York Moonves remarked, "We're sort of staying out of the battle." Fox has also indicated it does not like the pricing model but has suggested that it will wait to see how NBC's battle with Apple plays out before making a decision on whether to remain within the iTunes fold. (ABC is not a combatant since it is owned by Disney, whose largest shareholder is Apple Chairman Steve Jobs.) Moonves said that CBS does not regard its arrangement with Apple as a profit-making enterprise but rather as "a promotional vehicle for our shows."

NBC's The Biggest Loser was the biggest winner Tuesday night as it averaged a 5.8 rating and a 9 share over two hours, peaking in the final half hour with a 6.7/10. By contrast, the season finale of CBS's Big Brother managed only a 5.3/8. ABC flopped in its attempt to use its news division to help produce a two-hour Elvis special that integrated performances of Presley hits by several top musicians and celebrity interviews with never-before-aired performances by the singer in Las Vegas. The Presley special averaged a third-place 4.4/7 from 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.

CBS has agreed to pay Warner Bros. TV $25-30 million for the rights to a Jerry Bruckheimer series, Eleventh Hour, with $4 million alone going for a two-hour pilot and about $1.75 million for each of the additional 12 episodes, Daily Variety reported today (Wednesday) citing multiple people familiar with the negotiations. CBS did not confirm the deal.