As media companies frantically seek to re-invent themselves, two industry chiefs--Les Moonves, CEO of CBS, and Jeff Zucker, CEO of NBC Universal--offer telling contrasts. WSJ blogger Evan Newmark says Moonves may have outshone Zucker as a TV programming executive, but lately tables have turned. Moonves paid $1.8 billion to buy CNET, a troubled Internet property aimed at tech geeks, while Zucker pays $3.5 billion for the Weather Channel, the premier weather media property aimed at everyman. Moonves pays a 45% premium for CNET. Zucker pays a 30% discount on the asking $5 billion price. Newmark goes on …

Reuniting one of the more memorable duos from cabledom, Dan Patrick will be joined by Keith Olbermann on NBC. The two shared anchor duties on ESPN's "SportsCenter" in the 1990s and have been hired to co-host NBC's Sunday night NFL game pre-game studio show. "Dan and Keith were more than successful together, they defined the way that sports highlights are now delivered," says Dick Ebersol, NBC Sports chairman. Sports Illustrated columnist Patrick was an anchor on ESPN's "SportsCenter" and reported all the major professional sports' events from 1980 to 2006. The rest of the "NFL Sunday Night …

A Robert Duvall miniseries running for four hours is the first project of a newly launched production company, America Saga Productions, that seeks to resurrect long-form television content. Former Showtime programming president Jerry Offsay will run the new miniseries, which will star and be directed by Duvall. The producers are covering all production costs and plan to share first-year ad revenue with a network. ASP is shopping the project to networks this month. Executives say they prefer to find network buyers for their projects, but such buyers aren't essential because there are many other alternative outlets, including …

MSNBC.com has opened a digital café in Manhattan's Rockefeller Plaza, which will be fully operational next week. It's one of several brand extensions the media company is creating to deliver its content in new ways. "Not everyone is going to come to our Web site everyday, so we have been thinking of other ways to get our content out there," says marketing executive Catherine Captain. There will be five touch screens and a larger monitor inside the café, as well as the prerequisite free Wi-Fi. The online news organization is working with agency partner SS&K on creative …

U.S. newspapers today are obsessed with creativity and innovation, but they need to focus more on just producing good journalism, according to Richard Aregood, media critic at British paper The Guardian. "Corporations love creativity. They say so all the time. Some, like the Chicago Tribune, even have a guy in charge of innovations," he writes. The problem is that truly creative people are frequently not team players and "are often total pains in the ass who frustrate traditional managers because they keep bringing up new things to think about." In the end, the delivery system doesn't matter, …

NBC is using the Olympics as a giant, billion-dollar research lab to learn how people use different media platforms to watch the games. The research effort is designed to show advertisers how much consumers are paying attention to the programming, and reveal how people are supplementing TV viewership with video streaming, video on demand and mobile phone content. "I have no idea how people are going to use this stuff," says research chief Alan Wurtzel. NBC will rely on Nielsen Media Research to count how many people are watching the Olympics on their home TVs and Quantcast …

A large problem facing CBS' sexy show "Swingtown"--and broadcast networks in general--is how to keep aging viewers happy and offer shows that attract younger audiences. When older viewers disapprove of such shows, it tends to scare off advertisers. This is a major issue for CBS, which arguably reaches the broadest TV audience in the U.S. In the quest for youth, CBS has to veer toward edgy content, such as "Swingtown," but advertisers are proving to be wary of the show. The situation proves how tough it is for broadcast TV networks to run compelling programs that …

Expect a flurry of cross-media promotions between the NBC Universal and The Weather Channel, now that NBC has agreed to buy the cable outfit. NBC and private-equity firms Bain Capital and Blackstone Group agreed to buy The Weather Channel from Landmark Communications for an estimated $3.5 billion. NBC CEO Jeff Zucker points to NBCU's success with cable acquisitions Bravo, Sci Fi and Oxygen in explaining the Weather buyout. Cross-promotional opportunities are "a big part of this deal," he says, mentioning NBC's TV stations, CNBC, MSNBC and shows such as "Today" and "Dateline" as possible Weather content partners. …