Julia Boorstin covered an interesting topic over at CNBC.com the other day. The Supreme Court, by electing not to review a case involving Cablevision (NYSE: CVC), essentially said that cable companies such as Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) can pursue digital video recorder (DVR) storage on cable-system servers. By doing this, a perceived barrier to entry for subscribing to DVR has been eliminated: you don't have to deal with a clunky box. Cable should theoretically see an increase in customers who adopt DVR technology if remote storage is exploited.

Well, as Boorstin rightly points out, CBS (NYSE: CBS), Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ABC, General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC, and News Corp.'s (NASDAQ: NWS) Fox do need to worry. These DVR technologies basically translate to a drop in the economic value of advertising. Let's face it: who watches commercials when they don't have to?

Bernie Madoff was in federal court today, where he was given a 150 year sentence for charges related to his Ponzi scheme.

Reports from the courtroom state that Madoff, the mastermind behind the largest ever Ponzi scheme, showed little to no emotion today when he learned that he would be spending the rest of his life in a jail cell. Due to federal sentencing guidelines, Madoff must serve at least 80% of his sentence, so he will not be eligible for parole until 2129.

So, earlier in the week, I discussed Michael Bay and his freak-out with Viacom, Inc. (NYSE: VIA) over the marketing quality on his latest film, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Turns out Mike had nothing to worry about.

This film is doing great. At the time of this writing, the film was estimated to have grossed over $60 million on its opening day, which was this past Wednesday. Now, I hate talking about the breaking of this record and that record. Hollywood loves to point out that Movie X achieved the highest gross for a film released on a cloudy day in late September when the moon was full and a new supernova was spotted in the constellation of Cygnus. I'd rather talk about how much profit was achieved, and how much return on capital was recorded (too bad media companies don't have to reveal such data). Nevertheless, I'll give Viacom and Fallen credit. It apparently scored the biggest Wednesday opening ever, and it should theoretically have a great weekend, assuming word of mouth is good. So far, I've only heard superlative things about this particular piece of celluloid, and I know of one person who immediately consulted her cell phone to schedule a time to see the picture with her friends when she heard how awesome it was.

Wednesday, Bernard Madoff requested leniency through his attorney Ira Sorkin, who suggested a sentence of 12 years would be a sufficient penalty for his client's crime of stealing billions of dollars in one of the greatest frauds in history.

Sentencing by U.S. District Judge Denny Chin is set for Monday June 29, and the eyes of the world will be upon him. So will the eyes of the yet-to-be discovered fraudsters everywhere.

My thoughts on the subject are relatively simple and have little to do with revenge or payback. In cases like this I often remember a very old quote from another time and place.

World Wrestling Entertainment (NYSE: WWE) is calling on an old friend to help it bring in an audience beyond the media company's hardcore demographic. Donald Trump, who has worked storylines with WWE before (remember the battle between Trump and Vince McMahon, the one that saw McMahon lose his hair?), recently appeared on WWE's Raw television program. In fact, TVSquad.com discussed the high-profile promotion Trump's involvement received over this past weekend. TV Squad also covered the little controversy caused by Trump's "purchase" of WWE's famous asset (I honestly cannot believe that some investors actually sold the company's stock based on a storyline).

Using Trump isn't a bad idea. He's a pretty good performer, and he seems, at times, like a natural for the wrestling business. How should an investor process his involvement, however? Does it show that WWE is having a hard time developing engaging angles with its own talent roster?

I caught a very interesting post by Julia Boorstin over at CNBC.com. She discusses a movie studio that apparently wants to change the way movies are made. The company is called DF Indie Studios. Here's what it wants to do: make a dozen or so films each year on the cheap. What is cheap in Hollywood? Try $10 million or less. DF Indie Studios wants to go it alone, which means that it would rather not hook up with a Disney (NYSE: DIS) or a Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) to get distribution for its product. And Boorstin mentions that equity will be used as financing.

This movie-making model is right up my alley. I've written extensively about how Tinsel Town has gotten out of control when it comes to budgets and marketing expenses. Movies simply don't need to cost as much as they do. And projects give away way too many concessions in terms of cash-flow participation. Big stars tend to receive percentages of the gross that are too significant, in my opinion.

As the newspaper business goes south, many of us are wondering what will happen to investigative journalists, the standard-bearers of the third fourth estate and a crucial check to unfettered power. The Associated Press has moved to address this problem in announcing it will begin distributing stories from four prominent not-for-profit reporting organizations.

The sad fact is that many newspapers can no long pay for their own reporting from the revenues of advertising and circulation sales. The four organizations, however, operate on a different donor model. The Center for Public Integrity, ProPublica, The Center for Investigative Journalism, and the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University are already AP members, which no doubt made the decision to add their work to the wire offerings easier.

Viacom, Inc. (NYSE: VIA), a media company that competes with entities such as The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS), General Electric Company's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal, and Time Warner, Inc. (NYSE: TWX), held its annual shareholder meeting last week. An article from The Hollywood Reporter recounted a few tidbits from the gathering.

As you can imagine, the CEO, Philippe Dauman, was pretty happy about the company's stock performance. He pointed out that it has been strong against the broader market this year. While that might be comforting, the longer-term performance of Viacom shares has not been so rosy.

Last week it was announced that the long-anticipated separation of AOL from Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) is set to happen before the end of the year -- then what?

If all goes well, AOL will set its own course sustaining what's left of its internet prominence, after falling from what was once internet dominance before its merger with TWX, and the continuous contraction of its dial-up subscriptions.

AOL still attracts more than 100 million Internet users to its online content portal, which includes BloggingStocks, so the adventure will continue. And, an AD-venture it is sure to be.

The same is true for Time Warner, the world's largest media conglomerate with operations spanning film, television, cable TV, and publishing. It will have an AD-venture of its own.

Lions Gate Entertainment (NYSE: LGF) is a stock I've been looking at for a long time. It often looked like a great trade. It actually was recently. On Monday, the stock closed at $6.26. That represented a great short-term rise.

I wish I had gone with my instincts and bought shares when they were below the $5 mark. But something always kept me from doing it. I was worried about the fundamental risk involved.

The NY Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) has decided to double down on a failing strategy: Charge more for print. As circulation declines, the ailing newspaper company has decided to extract as much revenue as possible from its tangible product, despite the fact that the market is shrinking.

Starting Monday, the company's flagship newspaper will cost $2 an increase of a third from the previous newsstand price of $1.50.

Every few months, it seems, we get an article or two that says Disney (NYSE: DIS) might be a buy. TheStreet.com issued an upgrade on the stock based on several metrics. SmartMoney believes Disney might be a great company for the summertime.

When it comes to Disney, every investor has to be careful. Take every analytical article with a grain of salt. Why? Because even though the fundamentals might be good on the company from a valuation standpoint, Disney's stock has disappointed investors many times in the past. As a long-term shareholder, I know what I'm talking about. And many other pundits have made the same observation: Disney always seems to be cheap to someone at any given time.

The privately held Craigslist Internet classifieds will be changing due to the very public eye being focused on it after the much publicized murder of a masseuse by a would-be client who preyed on the unsuspecting.

The change comes as Craigslist has become the whipping boy by Attorney's General in a state near you. The change they seek is a banishment of all services advertised that are of a direct or indirect sexual nature. Instead, what has been volunteered is that Craigslist will be dropping 'Erotic Services' ads.

The company will set up a new "adult services" section that will be closely monitored. New postings in the "adult services" category will cost $10, but once a posting is approved, customers will be eligible for re-posting at $5.

Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist's CEO, said the agreement preserves a place "for legal businesses to advertise" while incorporating suggestions from law enforcement, free speech advocates and Internet law experts. He went on to say, "The record is clear that use of Craigslist classifieds is associated with far lower rates of violent crime than print classifieds, let alone rates of violent crime pertaining to American society as a whole,".

Last week, World Wrestling Entertainment (NYSE: WWE) reported its Q1 results. Above all, investors interested in this business look at one thing: cash flow. Why? Take a look at WWE's dividend yield.

As of Tuesday's close, the stock was yielding almost 13%! That's high. And a high dividend yield often indicates that a dividend cut may be in the offing -- the theory being that if the yield were sustainable, then buyers would rush in, and their activities would eventually lower the yield by driving the price higher.

Well, WWE hasn't had a great time of it when it comes to cash flow. I found this out when I examined the company's third quarter. Net cash from operations, unfortunately, has been overpowered at times by the dividend obligation. In fact, according to the Q4 report (pdf file), operational cash flow for 2008 dropped significantly to roughly $36 million, and the dividend obligation was over $80 million.

And that was before capital investments. That's sort of like the Undertaker throwing Mankind off the top of a steel cage. In other words, it's not pretty, folks.

CBS (NYSE: CBS) programmed its Q1 earnings report Thursday after the bell. If the report had been a pilot, it would have been canceled immediately.

Revenues slipped over 13% to around $3.2 billion. CBS said it lost 8 cents per share. Talk about a failure of a quarter. Last year at this time, CBS made 36 cents per share. True, the comparison was a difficult one, since a change in distribution strategy for the international placement of the CSI asset enhanced the previous year's results.

But let's not get hung up on difficult comparisons. CBS simply had a bad three months. A very bad three months indeed. Oh, and I should note that analysts thought CBS might earn 7 cents per share. That seems almost comical at this juncture.