Viacom Inc.

If you live in the east 60's and you like sleeping in on Saturday mornings -- too bad.

For the third Saturday in a row, locals were awoken by the shouts of protesters outside the E.65th street mansion of Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman. The group, which calls itself the Campaign for Corporate Responsibility in Entertainment, wants to change the way media companies portray black and Latino men and women in music videos , T.V, and movies. It's calling for media companies like Viacom to adopt universal standards prohibiting lyrical or visual content that is degrading, promotes violence, and stereotypes black and Latino men as hoodlums and thugs, and women as promiscuous. Sample slogan: "BET does not reflect me!"  read more »

Peter Bart reports in today's L.A. editions of Variety that Viacom chief Sumner Redstone's relationship with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen is going south.

 

According to his report-which relies on unnamed sources-the duo could walk in 15 months if their relationship with Mr. Redstone, whose purchase of Dreamworks through Paramount was regarded as a coup in Hollywood, does not improve.

   read more »

Sumner Redstone "played down" reports over the last 24 hours that he had becomed estranged from his daughter and once-presumptive heir, Shari Redstone.

But the effect of his words was to confirms suspicions, as Richard Siklos and Geraldine Fabrikant write in The New York Times today, that the 84-year-old Mr. Redstone is preparing a William Randolph Hearst-style legacy: ensuring that his heirs are enriched by his controlling interests in CBS Corporation and Viacom, while media and entertainment professionals take over the running of the businesses.  read more »

On the evening of May 31, 2006, a shaggy-haired teenager in Buffalo, N.Y., peddled his skateboard to  read more »

If you’ve lately gotten on the subway at the intersection of 14th Street and Eighth Avenue, yo  read more »

The Observer's crackerjack media reporter (and former Manhattan Transfers columnist) Michael Calderone this week reported on New York magazine's likely move from Midtown to (gasp!) Hudson Square.

"Our lease is up in September," said a New York spokesperson. "So we are exploring a number of different options for a space, including negotiating with our current landlords."

First on the list: 1 Hudson Square, in far west Soho, just up from the Holland Tunnel. (Note to staff: Is Jersey ... back? Wait--was it here the first time? Check archives!)

The Rosetta stone for deciphering Park Slope stroller mommies and Upper East Side Type-A's would join other media joints that have made a commercial home in the once-struggling Soho slice, including WNYC and CBS Radio; Viacom, too, plans a move to Hudson Square.

- Tom Acitelli

Media behemoth Viacom has a lease out for as much as 250,000 square feet at 345 Hudson Street, in th  read more »

For years, Hudson Square has been an echo chamber of rumors. The vacancy rate is amazingly high, but brokers--especially those at Cushman & Wakefield brought in by Trinity Real Estate to shake things up--promise that will change.

In Wednesday's Times, Andy Peretz of C&W said, "We have so many deals and so many leases out, we are going to see [the vacancy rate] drop in 30 days."

Well, he's no doubt referring to the Viacom lease that The Observer reported today.

But what else out there is there for Hudson Square? Is this pending vacancy-rate plunge actually legit? Or just a bloated campaign pitch to attract more tenants?

The Real Estate will be watching closely.

- John Koblin

Hudson Square Grabs Viacom Lease "Media behemoth Viacom has a lease out for as much as 250,000 square feet at 345 Hudson Street in the long-struggling commercial area of Soho's Hudson Square." New York Sports Club Parent Leases in Penn Plaza "Take that, Equinox! Town Sports, which controls omnipresent gym New York Sports Club, has found its new headquarters. Town Sports will move into a 28,000-square-foot home at 5 Penn Plaza." Go to Commercial Breaks by John Koblin. Bank Branches Disappearing? What Corner You Live On? "Not long ago, some retail brokers were predicting a sort of cataclysmic bubble-bursting for the city's seemingly never-ending bank-branch boom. At least at street level, these forecasts of a recession in the recent retail-leasing dominance of banks appear quite premature." Go to Counter Espionage by Chris Shott. Moses Envy: Caro, Columbia Battle Over The Ghost of Moses "Sometime last fall, the biographer Robert Caro got a phone call from Roger Hertog, vice chairman of Alliance Capital Management and a rich and powerful New York City history buff. Columbia was planning a big exhibit on Robert Moses, New York's master builder from the mid-20th century, and he wanted to know if Mr. Caro would give a lecture as part of it. It was the first time, Mr. Caro said, that he had heard from anyone connected to the massive three-part exhibit opening next week, 'Robert Moses and the Modern City,' which includes among its backers noted historian Kenneth T. Jackson." Go to story by Matthew Schuerman. Johnson & Johnson Heiress Libet Sells Last Trump Condo for $18.5M "After a five-year wait, heiress Libet Johnson has finally sold off the brassiest penthouse in the brassiest tower in town. According to city records, she parted with Penthouse 51-B at Trump International on Central Park West for $18.5 million." Andre to Wally: Comfort Can Be Dangerous! "Wallace Shawn and Deborah Eisenberg, the exceedingly literary local power couple, have bought the duplex penthouse in a West 23rd Street brownstone near 10th Avenue. According to city records, they paid $2,158,530." Go to Manhattan Transfers by Max Abelson. Sky-High Property Taxes Give Renters the Shaft "Renters, beware! You are about to get shafted--thanks to property taxes. For many years now, rental landlords (and commercial-building owners) have been paying disproportionately more in property taxes; and they often pass these higher taxes on to tenants through higher rents." Go to The Lab by Tom Acitelli.

And so we’ve come to the final days of 2005.    read more »

And so we’ve come to the final days of 2005.  read more »

In this week's paper:

Let The Transom take you deep inside the first world, where Viacom king Tom Freston does a mean downward-facing dog; where any public interest in the shooting of The Devil Wears Prada evaporates when Meryl Streep isn't on set; where Jesse Eisenberg, the young star of The Squid and the Whale is not yet glib with reporters; and also where Marc Levin's new documentary gets, or requests, the heat from the Nation of Islam.

Cool Hand Judy! As Judy Miller goes free, the vultures are circling the New York Times, says Bill Keller—and we have met the vultures and they are us. The Devil Writes Nada: million-dollar hack chick lit-er Lauren Weisberger is the luckiest gal alive. Hysterics—never the Hysterics— are the teenage prep school sophisti-kid rock band of Brooklyn. The Transom would like to adopt them all.

Jason Binn bought a really expensive apartment. Relatedly: The Transom figures that a two-million-dollar apartment is the kind of thing that really brings solace when one is wheezing on one's deathbed.  read more »

Finally, we are not unconvinced that sending George Gurley to couples therapy and publishing the transcripts is an experiment that has gone truly, horribly wrong. Seriously. The Transom is reminded of the time it totalled a Jeep Cherokee in Denver; the hood mashing ever closer, the pressure of the steering wheel in the sternum... but this car crash may be, The Transom fears, fatal.

On Saturday afternoon, Sept.  read more »

Sumner Redstone, the 81-year-old chairman, chief executive and largest shareholder of Viacom, was in  read more »

Last week MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom and home to MTV, VH1 and Nickelodeon, began distribut  read more »

Displaying a rare degree of unanimity last week, the chief executives of the Walt Disney Company, AO  read more »

The second-story man had placed additional stolen property by a window inside the location, leading  read more »

In the short periodbetween being elected and being sworn in as a Senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton  read more »

Several times a week, my son's nanny gives me the sameadvice in her lilting Trinidadian: "Nina, why  read more »

You don't have to be a hypocritical Clinton-hater to be concerned about Hillary Clinton's lucrative  read more »

At the Sept. 7 press conference at New York's St.  read more »

It's not every day that the publisher of All the President's Men takes a back seat to a Great Americ  read more »

Wednesday, Sept.  read more »