Planet Abell

T he New York Times' Bill Carter has done some amazing reporting in the past few days on the fits, starts and apparent dead stop of ABC and NBC to get the first post-jail interview with Paris Hilton. The Hilton family has been portrayed as prostituting their celebutante daughter (imagine that), with a hefty cash offer from network #1 only emboldening them to squeeze network #2 for more. This one jumped off the rails quickly. The $100,000 ABC was reportedly willing to pay was used to try to negotiate a much larger payday from NBC, which even gave the potential Paris interview a code name -- Rome -- to thwart enemy code-breakers. But even some insiders have had enough: TV Newser has a picture of a very professional sign displayed at the Today/GMA softball game that said: "For $1 million, we'll let you win!" (Today beat GMA 8-7, and there are no reports of money changing hands apart, perhaps, from a few side bets or victory rounds at the bar). This is an moment-in-tim...

T here isn't any real evidence that Rosie O'Donnell was shown the door at ABC, even though it isn't really possible to know for sure why these two parties with obvious common interests have decided to part company. The story is that Rosie wanted a one-year extension for being the lead host of "The View" and that ABC wanted to lock her into more time. The New York Times also reports that Rosie's salary demands were too high. ABC could have been feeling some heat in this post-Imus world (though Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly's employers seem to have NASA-grade tiles between them and the civilized world). Rosie, who is often restless in her work -- she gave up her top-rated daytime talker and walked away from her eponymous named magazine -- could just be playing her "I couldn't care less" card again. But you can't blame anyone for speculating about the reasons someone gives up a major, attention-getting pulpit. Or has it taken away. ...

T he day after, nearly every broadcast network has drawn a line in the sand about further airings of the Cho tapes. While reserving the right to air them in whatever way merited in the future, they are saying enough is enough, sometimes in very strong terms. The statements are all at TVNewser , the best outlet for breaking news about TV news, and I quote them all from that source. NBC : "Beginning this morning, we have limited our usage of the video across NBC News, including MSNBC, to no more than 10 percent of our airtime." It used to be that news organizations risked doing irresponsible things for competitive reasons against only other news organizations. Now the argument is extended to the point that if it is on YouTube, it is fair game. FNC : "We believe that 18 hours after they were first broadcast and distributed via the Internet, our news viewers have had the opportunity to see the images and draw their own conclusions about them. We see no reason to continue ass...