Shares of CBS (NYSE: CBS) are no longer rolling around in the pits of equity hell. Do you recall when they were trading around $3 per share? Nasty time it was. Amazingly, as I write this, CBS is hovering near a 52-week high. They are well over $12 in value.

Yet, when I look at the latest earnings report, I don't feel as upbeat as the market. According to the press release (the link goes to a .pdf file), revenues were flat for the third quarter and adjusted income dropped to 25 cents per share from the year-ago figure of 39 cents per share.

A new executive team is trying to bring MySpace back to its former glory. By focusing on music, videos and games, it hopes to recapture some of its luster. With the MySpace refugees mounting, it's time for some new blood to make some brilliant, future-changing decisions. This week, the company is holding a conference for its global ad sales team to explore ways to bring in traffic and beef up ad spending.

MySpace is poised to haul in $495 million in ad revenue this year, down 15% from last year's $585 million, according to research firm eMarketer. In August, MySpace attracted 64.2 million unique visitors from the United States, off 15% from August 2008, according to comScore, while Facebook pulled in 92.2 million unique U.S. visitors – up more than 100% year-over-year.

Last week's sleeping bull market was brought back to a woken bull market. Despite warnings from Nouriel Roubini that things were up too much too fast, the services sector actually came in above the expansion line after 11 straight months of contraction. This caused most of the excitement for the day.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

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Printers of the world unite! Feeling the squeeze from the likes of Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), a group of magazine publishers is forming an industrywide joint venture ... for protection.

Led by Time Inc., a division of Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), participating companies would create a digital storefront for their content. In this way, they could peddle their goods without the hefty carve-outs that come with Amazon and Apple deals.

General Electric Co. (NYSE GE), owner of the 83 year old peacock NBC, wants to sell part of it to Comcast Corp. (NYSE: CCT), according to Alisa Roth, who reports that GE has entered into negotiations with Comcast to do just that.

Comcast is already the biggest cable operator in the country. If the deal goes through Comcast would own NBS, Bravo, CNBC and MSNBC, and other channels.

Last year, I composed a not-so-bullish appraisal of NBC Universal's Jay Leno strategy. NBC Universal, which General Electric (NYSE: GE) has an 80% stake in, wanted to make sure that Leno's services did not wind up in the hands of a competing media entity when they handed The Tonight Show over to Conan O'Brien, so they bestowed upon him a talk program to be aired weeknights at 10 PM. It debuts tonight. I basically argued that NBC would survive without Leno, and that such an odd programming choice at 10 PM, when scripted intellectual assets are usually broadcast, might not be the optimal paradigm to engage.

Well, I still feel this is a risky move, but I do have to say that an article by Scott Collins over at the Los Angeles Times has piqued my interest in the expected economical benefit that Leno-at-10 might imply. Leno might not bring in a ton of eyeballs, but his profit margin could be acceptable given the lower capital necessary to fund his extravaganza.

CBS (NYSE: CBS), the famous broadcaster that competes with Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ABC, News Corp.'s (NASDAQ: NWS) Fox, and General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC, reported Q2 earnings on Thursday after the bell. If you judged the performance solely by the profit drop, you would have no choice but to feel sorry for CBS. The media company made an adjusted 8 cents per share. Last year at this time, CBS pulled in an adjusted 49 cents per share.

But the market looked past the significant income decline and instead seemed to focus on the fact that management beat Wall Street's expectations by a penny, according to Earnings.com estimates. Shares of CBS were up over 7% during yesterday's after-hours session.

Here are some highlights from last week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• AK Steel Holding Corp. (NYSE: AKS) posted a smaller-than-expected Q2 net loss as steel prices rise.
• Boston Scientific Corp. (NYSE: BSX) posted a better-than-expected Q2 profit on strong overseas sales.
• Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) shares jumped after it beat earnings, missed revenues, and offered guidance.
• DuPont (NYSE: DD) shares declined after it posted a higher-than-expected profit but lower revenue.
• Eaton Corp. (NYSE: ETN) disappointing results were a sign that the bulls are in charge, said Jim Cramer.
• General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) Q2 earnings and sales declined, dragged down by finance and NBC units.

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?

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.

Jon Stewart has devoted a considerable amount of airtime to bashing CNBC and its pundits for not doing more to warn the public about the stupidity and incompetence that led to disasters for retirement portfolios.

Now NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker is firing back, calling Stewart's attacks "incredibly unfair" and "completely out of line." He said that "everyone wants to find a scapegoat" and believes that blaming the financial media for the meltdown is "absurd."

CBS (NYSE: CBS) reported Q4 earnings after the bell on Wednesday. Revenues declined 8%, and earnings per share from continuing operations on an adjusted basis dropped 39% to $0.34. Let me tell you, the bottom line really beat the analysts. Expectations were set at $0.25 per share. That's a $0.09 beat. Pretty awesome, right?

Well, not to my way of thinking. You see, CBS has read the writing on the wall about its dividend. Due to current economic circumstances, the quarterly payout was reduced to $0.05 per share. Previously, CBS was doling out $0.27 per share.

My secret shame . . . last Friday, I blew my ever-present diet and tried my first McFlurry at McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD). I was driven to the Golden Arches not by a craving or a bad day, but by Jack Donaghy, the arrogant General Electric Corporation (NYSE: GE) executive played so masterfully by Alec Baldwin on 30 Rock, broadcast by GE's own NBC Network.

In the Valentine's themed episode, Jack and lady love Elisa (Salma Hayek in a multi-arc guest-starring role) partake in the frozen concoction, praising it as "the world's greatest dessert." Soft ice cream, M&Ms, whipped together and served with the world's most practical-looking spoon? What could go wrong?

It is pretty obvious to investors that the Internet has accelerated the decline in print newspaper readership. It is also clear that the Internet is contributing to business model changes (and in many cases outright news/editorial budget reductions) at print magazines.

However, that the Internet would also compel changes in broadcast network news -- and in particular, the nightly network newscast -- might be viewed as less obvious. But that, in fact, appears to be the case.

Already dealing with a cable/satellite channel explosion that's decreased their viewership due to audience fragmentation (basically people have more channel choices), network news now must increasingly cope with the reality that adults tuning in have already seen and/or read about on the web the day's top news stories by the time the nightly newscast airs.

Was yesterday's Super Bowl "super" for General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE)? While it is no doubt prestigious to broadcast the NFL championship, I wonder whether it's as great as it seems for the company's bottom line.

GE's NBC network trumpeted in a press release that it earned $206 million in advertising revenue from 32 different advertisers. It sold the last two of the spots the night before the game. I am skeptical about this figure for several reasons.

Any numbers publicized in connection with advertising should be taken with a grain of salt. Gross billings, which often gets publicized, is a bogus number because it includes stuff that agencies charge their clients such as postage. The revenue figures publicized by NBC can be fudged in many ways. Remember, this is advertising.