Can you live without The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Hills? Some of you may have to, if Viacom can’t reach a deal by midnight Wednesday that would keep Comedy Central, MTV, and its 18 other networks on Time Warner Cable systems, according to a report in The New York Times. The conglomerate was expected to take out full-page ads in major newspapers today explaining how fans would suffer if Time Warner refuses to ante up in the new year. Viacom is home to kiddie powerhouse Nick (aka, the birthplace of Dora the Explorer, Drake and Josh, and Zoey 101) as well as nets like Comedy Central, VH-1, and Spike TV. Time Warner cable systems reportedly reach up to 13 million subscribers.
Viacom believes the fees they receive for the nets are way too low, given how they attract a healthy percentage of eyeballs for Time Warner. The cable operator, in the meantime, is arguing that Viacom’s profits are down because of the soft ad market and are desperate to increase revenue elsewhere. Stay tuned.
Monday’s 10 p.m. premiere of MTV’s new Hills spin-off, The City, averaged 1.6 million viewers, a significant drop-off from the season 4 finale of The Hills, whichaveraged 2.6 million at 10 p.m. the previous Monday. The City stars Hills player Whitney Port, chronicling her life after she moves to New York and takes a job working for Diane Von Furstenberg. Monday’s 9 p.m. series premiere of Brody Jenner’s competition show, Bromance, fared even worse, attracting just 963,00 viewers.
Aaron Eckhart, Laurence Fishburne, and Blake Lively have been added as presenters at the upcoming 66th annual 
Eartha Kitt, famed for decades as a singer, actress, dancer, and frequently outspoken cultural commentator, has died in New York, where she was being treated for colon cancer, according to 
Harold Pinter, the iconic British playwright, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and two-time Oscar nominee (The French Lieutenant’s Woman and Betrayal) died of cancer on Dec. 24, according to 
