The week that was

Viacom Chairman and CEO Sumner Redstone told the New York Post last week that "with or without" COO Mel Karmazin, the company would do "just fine." He also said Viacom would thrive without Redstone himself but added that he's not about to step down. (If he does, by contract, Karmazin gets the job.)

Earlier this year, the two were said to be feuding but that has calmed down. It may heat up at the end of the year when Karmazin's contract expires, but Redstone told the Post, "I'm not for a moment suggesting that he's going to go" and throughout the article expressed admiration for Karmazin.

Redstone talked to the Post at the big media powwow held by Herb Allen in Sun Valley, Idaho, every year. The Post also reported that cable mogul John Malone denied he is cooking a deal with Vivendi Universal U.S. chief Barry Diller to buy parts of Vivendi Universal that may be peddled now that its assets have been so depleted. But, he added, "I wouldn't rule it out."

At the annual press tour for television critics in Pasadena, Calif., where cable and broadcast networks hype their new projects, Oxygen unwrapped Candace Checks It Out, in which host Candace Bergen gets behind quirky female stories, like the first woman to pilot the space shuttle and the life of a phone-sex operator. The weekly show, kicking off next month, is Bergen's second offering on Oxygen. When the network launched in 1998, she hosted Exhale, an in-studio celebrity interview show. Of those early days, Bergen said, "It was frustrating that it was not seen by anyone we knew or in the fly-over states."

Oxygen is expanding The Isaac Mizrahi Show to a weekly strip. It will follow Oprah Winfrey's new series Oprah After the Show beginning Sept. 16. …

Lifetime Television premieres its new legal drama For the People July 21. Its Sunday-night companion, police series The Division, has been renewed for a third season. …

Comedy Central is giving comedian Dave Chappelle his own show, slated for a January premiere. Comedy also is teaming with actor/comedian Denis Leary for Contest Searchlight, in which Leary leads the hunt for an aspiring writer/director; the winner gets to produce his or her show for Comedy Central. The 10-part series launches in August. …

ESPN's second original movie, due in December, will tackle legendary college-football coach Bear Bryant's 1954 grueling 10-day Texas A&M summer training camp. …

Crime programming continues to populate cable nets. For its third original movie, Court TV explores the plight of a young Afghan woman seeking political asylum in the U.S. Come fall, Court is adding investigative series Body of Evidence, hosted by profiler Dayle Hinman. …

Animal Planet heads to New York City to meet urbanites and their special pets in Pets and the City. Animal's first sitcom, Beware of Dog, kicks off with two episodes in August, with more to come in January. …

Food Network is adding four new series for fall, including prime time additions Top 5, billed as the American Bandstand of food, and The Food Hunter, in which host Pete Luckette forages for produce. …

For its new Crime Fridays, USA Network is airing original flicks The Wrong Man on Sept. 13 and Murder in Greenwich in the fourth quarter. A half-dozen crime miniseries, including Black Mass, based on criminal connections between the FBI and Irish Mob, and Traffic, on underground drug trade, are also in development. …

Sister net Sci Fi adds original action series Tremors, about a small town battling alien worms, in January and is remaking Quantum Leap into a two-hour back-door pilot, perhaps even with a female leaper.

Several journalism and journalism-education groups, including the Radio-Television News Directors Association, wrote a letter to Congress last week asking it to reject a provision in the proposed Homeland Security Act that would exempt some information from disclosure to the public under the Freedom of Information Act. …

Comedy Central is farming out its star Jon Stewart to CNN International. Beginning in September, Stewart will host The Daily Show: Global Edition, a weekend show with the best bits from his American version. (AOL Time Warner is a half-owner of Comedy Central.)

NBC's coverage of the Wimbledon women's final between sisters Venus and Serena Williams produced a 4.6 overnight rating/14 share, a 31% increase over last year's telecast.