Media Minutiae: The "I'm Not <i>OK!</i>, You're Not <i>OK!</i>" Edition

Media Minutiae: The "I'm Not OK!, You're Not OK!" Edition

It would have been a gentlemen's agreement... if Richard Desmond were a gentleman. How badly does the U.S. editions of Desmond's OK! need ad pages? Badly enough to sue for them, apparently. Just in time for the magazine to cut both its cover price from $3.29 to $1.99 and to cut its trim size a bit — to a be a better fit in the racks, as if that were the root cause of the miniscule newsstand sales — now my kinda sorta colleague Nat Ives at Advertising Age is reporting that Desmond is suing the agency conglomerate WPP and its CEO, Sir Martin Sorrell. Desmond and his lawyers claim that Sorrell promised to steer $5 million of his clients' ad budgets to OK! after Desmond did Sorrell a favor by buying $8 million worth of ads himself. Ives believes that Sorrell mumbled a few (non-binding) words about helping Desmond out, who obviously believes otherwise.
It's time for another round of Mogul Family Feud! Lachlan Murdoch has nothing on Brent Redstone, son of Viacom & CBS chairman/owner Sumner Redstone and sister of vice chairman Shari Redstone. He's filed suit to have the family empire dissolved, claiming that his father and sister have lined their pockets with company money and that he would like his one-sixth stake in the $8 billion companies liquid, pronto. The real conflict may stem from Sumner's divorce from his childrens' mother back in 1999. Brent sided with his mother, and Shari, obviously, with dad.
Memo to Michael Eisner: Please stop now; you're already making me nostalgic for "Topic A With Tina Brown." The celebrity guests on his soon-to-air new CNBC TV show so far include Bette Midler and Goldie Hawn. Neither of those is going to keep anyone from a lead-in of "Mad Money." Is Michael Douglas available? Oh, and TVNewser is hearing even worse things.
Intra-office affairs at Wenner Media?You don't say.