Warning that "content may no longer be kind in the entertainment business," Lehman Bros. cut the stock ratings of the top entertainment companies Monday while warning that the Internet and digital devices could fragmentize the media. In a research note, Lehman Bros. analyst Anthony DiClemente warned that "structural changes" in the way entertainment is delivered to the public were likely to "impact the core revenue and profits of the entertainment business. The media companies singled out by DiClemente, Disney, Time Warner, CBS, and Viacom all saw their shares drop, with CBS's shares plummeting the most -- 4.5 percent to $17.77. DiClemente predicted they would drop still further, to $16.00.

Will Smith displayed his superpowers at the box office over the weekend as his poorly reviewed Hancock opened in first place with $62.6 million, making it Smith's 12th No. 1 opener. Still, Hancock was no Transformers, last year's Fourth-of-July blockbuster, and the overall box office for the year retreated behind 2007's by 0.65 percent to $4.81 billion (versus $4.84 billion), according to Media by Numbers. More significantly, the attendance gap between last year and this widened slightly to 3.46 percent. Overall, the box office recorded $153.19 million in total ticket sales, compared with $165.45 million a year ago, a 7.41-percent decline. Last weekend's top film, WALL-E dropped 48 percent to $32.5 million, while the Angelina Jolie thriller Wanted slipped to third place with $20.1 million, a 61-percent plunge. The top ten films over the weekend, according to final figures compiled by Media by Numbers (figures in parentheses represent total gross to date): 1. Hancock, Sony, $62,603,879, 1 Wks. ($103,877,446 -- from Tuesday); 2. WALL-E, Disney, $32,509,206, 2 Wks. ($127,196,028); 3. Wanted, Universal, $20,050,070, 2 Wks. ($90,186,395); 4. Get Smart, Warner Bros., $11,109,408, 3 Wks. ($98,100,652); 5. Kung Fu Panda, Paramount, $7,318,635, 5 Wks. ($193,221,867); 6 . The Incredible Hulk, Universal, $4,899,280, 4 Wks. ($124,841,395); 7. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Paramount, $3,774,807, 7 Wks. ($306,428,521); 8. Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, Picturehouse, $3,296,929, 3 Wks. ($5,822,544); 9. Sex and the City, Warner Bros, $2,382,438, 6 Wks. ($144,891,325); 10. You Don't Mess With the Zohan, Sony, $1,981,251, 5 Wks. ($94,773,156).

Results of voting by members of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists on ratification of a new deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are not expected to be announced until late today (Tuesday) or early tomorrow trade reports indicated. Meanwhile, further talks between the Screen Actors Guild and the AMPTP on the AMPTP's final offer were in recess as SAG awaited word on whether the vote would undercut its bargaining power or give it increased leverage.

Smoking has been banned in the Chicago production of Jersey Boys in order to comply with the city's strict new anti-smoking law, raising the possibility that scenes showing smoking in movies and television shows shot in Chicago will also be barred. Writing in today's (Tuesday) Chicago Tribune, theater critic Chris Jones writes that Michael Mann's Public Enemies, which was filmed in Chicago, is bound to show smoking, . He then remarks facetiously, "Seize the print! Consider this an official complaint." Finally, Jones urges the city's aldermen to write "an exception for artistic purposes. A waiver. An understanding. Whatever. Heck, it doesn't even have to be for tobacco. It just has to allow Chicago's great artists to tell the truth."

The box-office popularity of Kung Fu Panda in China, where it has earned $20 million since its release in late June, has led to a debate in the country about why a film with many Chinese symbols and settings could not have been made in China itself, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported from Beijing today (Tuesday). The newspaper quoted from a blogger named Mu on the Sina.com website: "Although the 'theft' of the Chinese symbol of the panda gives us pain, at least it makes the Chinese movie industry consider why we are always one step behind in globalizations war of creation." The film was also the center of a debate by a parliamentary cultural-affairs committee, which concluded, according to the Xinhua News Agency, that there are too many government controls imposed on film production. "Although there is no secret ingredient to filmmaking success, the government ought to relax its oversight," the committee said.

The traditional primetime variety show, long considered a relic of television's golden age, is about to be revived by Fox -- at least for a six-episode test run. The network announced Monday that the untitled hour-long show will be hosted by the Osbourne family -- Ozzy, Sharon, Jack and Kelly -- and will include interactive elements and contests. The project, being spearheaded at Fox by Mike Darnell, the network's president of alternative programming, and produced by James Sunderland of FremantleMedia North America, is expected to come together in time for a Christmas special.

Bringing to mind Apple's stylish Apple Stores, which continue to draw big crowds at shopping malls across the country, MSNBC has opened the MSNBC.COM Digital Café in New York's Rockefeller Plaza. News reports did not indicate whether the company is planning to launch similar cafés in other cities although in an interview with AdWeek, MSNBC.com marketing chief Catherine Captain seemed to suggest that it would be doing so. "Not everyone is going to come to your website every day. So we have been thinking of other ways to get our content out here," she said.

Google has no intention of challenging a judge's order that its YouTube unit turn over to Viacom information about users who viewed videos on the website. However, it said that it would attempt to keep the identity of the users anonymous, since, it said, "IP addresses and user names aren't necessary to determine general viewing practices." Google also assured YouTube users that "IP addresses identify a computer, not the person using it. It's not possible to determine your identity solely based on your IP address." But some YouTube users were unpersuaded. On the TV Week website, one user wrote, "Why aren't the users voicing their concerns to Viacom and Google? We can't just sit here passively and let this happen without having our voices heard. This has less to do with YouTube and more to do with the future of the Internet! If our privacy isn't honored by the courts or Viacom, we must speak out loud and clear."

Twenty percent of owners of high-definition television sets will only watch programs that are broadcast in HDTV, and 45 percent say they watch HDTV programs most of the time, according to a survey by Nielsen Media Research for the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing. The survey also concluded that among those TV viewers who do not own HDTV sets 28 percent expressed interest in buying one; likewise 20 percent said they would be interested in subscribing to a digital cable system. In a separate study, Nielsen found that the average television viewer now spends 127.15 hours a month in front of a TV set -- up 4 percent from a year ago. "Timeshifted" watching now accounts for 5:50 hours of viewing per month, up 56 percent from last year. TV viewers now spend 2:19 hours watching video on the Internet and 3:15 hours watching it on their mobile phones.

Conrad Riggs has filed a $70-million lawsuit against his former partner and best friend Mark Burnett alleging that Burnett cheated him out of revenues from projects that the two jointly developed, including Survivor and The Apprentice. The suit contends that Riggs has received no payments since February 2007. Riggs' attorney, Bart Williams told today's (Tuesday) Los Angeles Times, "We think that cutting Conrad out of the day-to-day operations and not paying him were both designed to put maximum pressure on him to give up his rights in the enterprise, and that's something that Conrad simply won't do."

A British company which specializes in the manufacture and sale of remote camera systems and support systems for broadcasters said Monday that it is installing more than 200 high-definition camera systems for coverage of the Beijing Olympics. Shepperton-based Camera Corps said that it is fulfilling terms of a contract with Beijing Olympics Broadcasting, the Games' host broadcaster. It also is shipping 18 motorized tracking camera systems, remote camera heads, camera cranes, underwater cameras, archery target cameras (to be mounted in the bull's eyes), and a camera with a fisheye lens that will be installed above the Velodrome stadium to cover the entire track. The announcement seemed to indicate that many of the Olympics events to be covered on television and Internet video will not use traditional camera crews but remotely operated equipment instead.