Is Barry Diller a deal killer? That's what his former bosses at Vivendi Universal said in a lawsuit Wednesday when they accused Diller of trying to scotch its merger with NBC. They say the InterActive Corp. chief is trying to "gain leverage" in a tax dispute.

WPP may have sold its 25 percent stake in ZenithOptimedia, but it has an interest in nine ZenithOptimedia offices formerly run by Cordiant throughout the world. ZenithOptimedia's owner Publicis has decided that it wants to buy the offices -- in Argentina, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indo-China, Norway and India -- or cancel the agreement with WPP.

Two employees of Fox Entertainment Group have been terminated after the company's discovery of illegally downloaded movies and software on a Fox computer network server.

Advertising trade groups on Wednesday urged Congress to reject anti-violence provisions written into anti-indecency legislation, saying the added language would turn federal regulators into TV critics and censors.

And not only the Democrats -- The General Accounting Office said that the 30-second TV commercials over Medicare contained "notable omissions and errors" and said it would investigate further to see if the "video news releases" were in fact propaganda.

Nestle is talking to holding companies about its estimated $1.5 billion global media account, sources said.

Start-up company USDTV on Tuesday unveiled a digital television service being rolled out in various U.S. cities this year and sent via VHF/UHF antennas in a lower-cost alternative to cable and satellite television.

In an interview scheduled to be broadcast tonight, Martha Stewart's daughter indicated that she was not interested in taking over her mother's role as leader of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

If the older women who make up the bulk of the Game Show Network's audience don't have an early bedtime, they may be in for a shock. The network renames itself GSN on Monday, when it will begin to gradually phase in programs like "National Lampoon's Greek Games" and "Fake-a-Date" weeknights at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

Even if Comcast fails in its bid for Disney, don't expect media mergers to go away. The temptation is just too great. What's tempting, more precisely, are media mergers combining a content creator such as Disney with multichannel television distributors such as Comcast, the nation's largest operator of cable TV systems.