Berman

NBC Universal Television on Monday agreed to a three-year deal to finance the newly formed boutique production studio headed by veteran TV executives Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun. The pair -- former top programmers for Fox Broadcasting and ABC -- had initially sought to create an independent production company that would own the programming it produced. The arrangement with NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co.

Two of the television industry's biggest names are forming a company to produce TV programs, movies and Internet entertainment, according to four people familiar with the plan. Gail Berman, who stepped down this month as president of Paramount Pictures, is teaming up with the person who recommended her for that job two years ago: Lloyd Braun, the former ABC Entertainment chairman who until December was head of Yahoo Inc.'s media group.

Paramount Pictures is eliminating the position of president now held by Gail Berman, who resigned Wednesday. Berman would probably agree with that decision: She discovered there wasn't as much power behind the title as when she joined the studio 18 months earlier. Her job was cut in half about a year ago after Paramount's acquisition of DreamWorks SKG's live-action studio.

Less than two years after she was hired to help turn around Paramount Pictures, President Gail Berman and the studio are expected to sever ties this week, according to four people familiar with the situation. Late Tuesday, Berman and Paramount Chairman Brad Grey had not formally discussed the terms of her departure. Berman has more than two years left on her contract. Paramount declined to comment. Berman did not return calls.

GAIL BERMAN completed an entertainment hat trick of sorts when she joined Paramount Pictures as president in early 2005, making her Chairman Brad Grey's first major hire. A native of Long Island, N.Y., Berman, 50, began working in theater with such productions as the Tony-nominated "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" before moving into television, where she was a producer of the cult favorite "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and served as president of Fox Entertainment.

It will be a comforting sound to the entertainment industry when Rep. Howard L. Berman pounds a key House subcommittee to order next month. That's because the Valley Village Democrat sometimes known as Hollywood's congressman will be wielding the chairman's gavel after his party takes control of Congress. The position will give Berman considerable sway over laws regulating the transition to digital media.

Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Valley Village) on Friday called on the head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection to investigate allegations that pirated DVDs were being smuggled into Los Angeles by flight crews of the Russian airline Aeroflot. Berman said the call was in response to a Los Angeles Times article on Sunday that detailed how a suspected bootlegger was allegedly assisted by Aeroflot employees.

THERE are other writers as intelligent as Marshall Berman, and as able to draw together disparate elements of cultural history into a dazzling new picture, but they seldom sustain the same sense of compassionate warmth toward those who make history. This is why Berman's scarce production has been cause for regret and a new book cause for excitement -- in this case his "On the Town: One Hundred Years of Spectacle in Times Square."

IN Paul Brownfield's article ["Hey, Shelley Berman's Phone Is Ringing Again," Oct. 23], he wrote about Berman's reaction to the offstage telephone ringing during his performance. In this context, this story may be of interest. I recall going with my parents to see Berman when he visited South Africa in the '50s or '60s and was appearing in Cape Town. The "theater" was actually a movie house and, in those days, smoking during the performance was permitted. For a particular sketch, he called for the lights to be turned off as the story required the audience to concentrate on the words and form their own images.