Dan Rather
A New York state appeals court dismissed longtime CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather's $70 million lawsuit against his former employers Tuesday.
Rather, 77, filed suit against CBS in September 2007 on grounds of...
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Dan Rather
Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather has sued network CEO Leslie Moonves and CBS News President Andrew Heyward in an effort to have them reinstated in his $70 million lawsuit against the network.
In the new complaint, which was filed in New York State Supreme Court, Rather accused both men of fraud, according to Reuters. Rather claims he was a made a scapegoat by the network during a scandal in 2004 over a report on ...
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Leslie Moonves and Julie Chen
Big Brother host Julie Chen will no longer just babysit reality TV stars.
Chen announced on The Early Show that she and husband Leslie Moonves are expecting their first child. The baby is due October 4.
Never fear, Big Brother fans: Chen said the pregnancy will not keep her from her weekly hosting duties for the 11th cycle of the show, airing this summer.
Chen and Moonves, the CEO of CBS, were married...
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Dan Rather by Marc Bryan-Brown/WireImage.com
Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather's $70 million lawsuit against his former employers may still make it to court, but it won't be packing nearly as much punch. Manhattan judge Ira Gammerman dismissed four of the seven claims made in Rather's lawsuit, particularly those that name Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone (Viacom is CBS' former parent company), CBS president Leslie Moonves and former CBS News president Andrew Heyward. Rather's lawsuit, which was filed in September, claimed that he was treated unfairly by CBS News after a September 2004 broadcast about the military service of President Bush in Vietnam was proven to be flawed. He also claimed his reputation in the final months of his contract was damaged because he was made a "scapegoat" in an effort to appease the Bush administration.With the dismissal, the suit has now been boiled down to a garden-variety contract dispute. With all of the sensational political accusations and sought punitive damages dismissed, the remai...
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Leslie Moonves by John Paul Filo/CBS
CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves has sealed a new deal to stay on at least through Sept. 30, 2011.... Foot-in-mouth poster-deejay Don Imus is thisclose to finalizing a contract that would bring him to Citadel Broadcasting, which owns ABC Radio Networks.... Per Variety, in a move that makes as much sense as adding bananas to peanut butter, Knocked Up laugh machine Judd Apatow has been made a partner in Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's comedy website FunnyorDie.com. — Ben Katner
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Dan Rather by Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com
Refusing to walk away from what he started, Dan Rather has responded to CBS CEO Leslie Moonves' accusation that the veteran newsman's critique of the "dumbed down/tarted up" Evening News was a "sexist" "cheap shot." "It doesn't have to do with Katie [Couric], it doesn't have to do with gender," Rather contended Tuesday on Fox News. "It has to do with the corporate leadership. Les Moonves knows about entertainment, but he doesn't know about news." Does he know football? Because Bo knows football. (That joke was brought to you by the year 1989.)POLL: Was Dan Rather being "sexist"? Vote here.
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Dan Rather by John Filo/CBS
During a Monday call to MSNBC's Morning Joe program, Dan Rather shared his qualified take on why CBS Evening News has yet to emerge from the ratings basement (where he left it upon his March 2005 exit from the anchor chair). "The mistake was trying to bring the Today show ethos to the Evening News and dumb it down/tart it up, in hopes of attracting a younger audience," the veteran newsman said.Rather called current anchor Katie Couric "a nice person," but said that trying to change networks and jobs in one fell swoop, as she famously and publicly did, "is always difficult."UPDATE: Per TV Week, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves said at a Tuesday breakfast conference that he is "surprised at the vitriol directed at [Couric]," and accused Rather of taking a "cheap shot" with his "sexist" remarks. "Give [Katie] a break," Moonves urged the crowd.
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Patrick Dempsey of Grey's Anatomy, Matt LeBlanc of Joey
Put a fork in the 2005-06 TV season. For the fourth straight year, CBS was crowned the most watched network, with an average of 12.6 million viewers per week. Fox was able to crow as well — for the second year in a row it was No. 1 among viewers ages 18 to 49, the group most coveted by advertisers. ABC didn't come up with a new hit, but its audience grew as Grey's Anatomy, Lost and Desperate Housewives remained hot, and Dancing with the Stars
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Brad Garrett, 'Til Death
After attending the networks' upfront presentations all week, the Biz has this analysis of the coming season. (Click here for next fall's grid and new-show descriptions.)
CWYou've got to wonder what went wrong in CW's new-series development process if the network had to bring back 7th Heaven — even though the show lost a reported $16 million for WB this past season.
But the decision to have CW's inaugural schedule made up of established shows from WB and UPN may end up being a blessing. Many of the shows have small but rabid followings, and promoting new shows on a new network will be tough. The fans of shows like One Tree Hill and Veronica Mars will track them down on their own. Viewers in the 18-to-34-year-old demographic that CW targets don't watch networks, they watch shows. (According to recent survey, only one in four 1
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Howard Stern
Robert Redford never meant for it to be this way. On April 27 the inaugural Howard Stern Film Festival — no need to adjust your morning coffee, you read that right — will culminate with the radio shock jock and arbiter of dubious taste anointing one "lucky" moviemaker a torchbearer for "lowbrow, high-quality entertainment." The following day the winning flick, along with other festival standouts, will be screened on Howard TV on Demand.
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