Gail Berman

As Fox executives touted the network's major Emmy Award nominations and its upcoming schedule on Thursday at the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel, several protesters marched outside, blasting the network's new comedy series "Banzai," which they said is racist and offensive to Asian Americans.

Doug Herzog stepped down Wednesday as president of entertainment at Fox Broadcasting Co., ending a tumultuous 15-month tenure during which the television network plunged in the ratings and was restructured. Herzog is the latest in a string of executives who have held the head entertainment job at Fox, whose history of turnover every two years has frustrated many program suppliers eager for continuity and stability. Fox does not expect to name a successor until summer.

Well, thanks, baseball fans. Based on Tuesday night's ratings, you have helped ensure that the public will again be treated to a barrage of promotion for Fox shows before, between and, yes, during innings in next year's World Series. After a stretch in which none of Fox's programs had fared especially well -- including the new David E. Kelley drama "Girls Club," which was yanked Tuesday after just two telecasts -- the critically heralded "24" delivered a stellar performance Tuesday night.

Somewhere in America, a TV remote control is guarded jealously. "My daughter was here and wanted to watch something and I said, 'No, we won't watch that in this house,' " said a homeowner who participates in the Nielsen Media Research measurements of television viewing. "I really have an aversion to the 'Survivor'-type shows." "Survivor" creator Mark Burnett won't be happy about this, but that's a pretty important viewer he's losing.

Continuing to make good on his pledge to remake Paramount Pictures, Chairman Brad Grey on Thursday fired the co-heads of the studio's specialty films division. According to sources, Grey called Paramount Classics co-Presidents Ruth Vitale and David Dinerstein into his office one after the other to deliver the news. The duo were hired eight years ago by the studio's former chief, Sherry Lansing, and her boss, Jonathan Dolgen.

A cadre of the most powerful women in Hollywood descended on the Beverly Hills Hotel Tuesday morning for the Hollywood Reporter's annual celebration of the top 100 women in the industry. Studio heads, assistants and publicists schmoozed and air-kissed while clutching mimosas and the ultimate power accessory: the handbag.

Think you know football? So who won the Super Bowl in 1996? 1998? 2001? The answers, in order, are "Friends," "3rd Rock From the Sun" and "Survivor II: The Australian Outback"--series that received the prized postgame spot and enviable audience spillover. Since the Super Bowl provides television's single biggest predictable audience, playing piggyback with the game can mean extra ratings yardage for a show.

A new unscripted series about wealthy party girls tackling farm life won out Tuesday over two other scripted series dealing with city life during the unofficial launch of network TV's midseason. Fox's "The Simple Life," in which hotel heiress Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie trade in their outrageously luxurious lifestyles for a stint on an Arkansas farm, attracted almost 13 million viewers, scoring the network's highest-rated premiere this season for a live-action series.

Fox will air a second installment of its teen talent contest "American Idol" early next year and will also debut its Emmy-nominated drama "24" with a commercial-free episode, top network officials said Sunday at an annual gathering of television reporters in Pasadena.

As Paramount Pictures hurries to finalize a deal to make former Fox Entertainment chief Gail Berman its new president, the man she's replacing is seeking a hefty financial settlement that would bring his time as a studio executive to an abrupt close, said sources at the Viacom Inc.-owned company. Donald DeLine, who has served just 14 months of his three-year contract at Paramount, is angry about the way his job as the studio's top creative executive was yanked from under him, friends say.