IN BRIEF

Viacom has approached the owners of Telemundo about buying the Spanish-language TV network, sources confirmed last week. One owner, Liberty Media, recently facilitated the sale of BET to Viacom, in which Liberty also had a sizable stake. Viacom President Mel Karmazin has publicly stated his interest in the fast-growing U.S. Spanish-language TV market. Sony Pictures Entertainment is the other major shareholder in Telemundo and oversees the network's operation in Los Angeles. There was no official comment from any of the parties involved last week.

With profits down, Tribune Co. plans to cut 6% of its work force. That means that it will have reduced staffing by 10% since its merger with Times Mirror a year ago. About half the current reductions are expected to come from a voluntary retirement program; the rest, through "further initiatives within the publishing group."

TNT executives are giddy over the June 12 premiere of its new original series, Witchblade. The first episode of the sci-fi detective drama harvested a 2.7 rating and nearly 2.2 million viewers, about 60% higher than the cable network's average 1.7 prime time rating so far this year. The Witchblade series is a spin-off of an original movie which scored 4.5.

TNT executives have to be relieved: Last summer's original series Bull averaged a 1.5 and was pulled from the schedule, even though the network had filmed 13 episodes for a second season.

Susanna Zwerling has been named interim mass media and cable adviser to new FCC Commissioner Michael Copps. Zwerling had been the Mass Media Bureau's assistant chief for planning and communications. Before joining the commission in 1997, she was a trial attorney for the Justice Department's antitrust telecommunications task force. Jordan Goldstein is Copps' interim senior legal adviser and Lauren Maxim Van Wazer will be interim adviser for wireless and international issues.

Warner Bros.' rookie Moral Court has been canceled, after rarely pulling national Nielsen numbers above 1.0. Safer but not out of the woods, apparently, is Warner Bros.' other rookie, Street Smarts. Tribune Broadcasting, which initially launched the show in several markets, including on WPIX-TV New York, KTLA-TV Los Angeles and WGN-TV Chicago, has not renewed it for next season. Some sources say, though, that Street Smarts, one of the season's highest-rated freshmen, is secured in more than 100 markets for next fall.

Nickelodeon, powered by Rugrats and SpongeBob Square Pants, took the Saturday-morning ratings crown for the fourth straight season. For the 2000-01 season, the kids net grabbed a 4.8 rating/21 share (1.9 million viewers) in kids 2-11, jumping 17% from this time last year. Runner-up network The WB (3.0/13, 1.2 million viewers in that demographic) fell 25% from its year-ago performance.

Tribune Entertainment has snapped up the barter ad sales rights to NBC Enterprises' syndicated version of Weakest Link, set to launch in January 2002. The move follows the multiyear deal struck between the two in February, whereby Tribune will oversee barter activities for several NBC syndicated efforts, including fall 2001 entry The Other Half and long-running weekly George Michael Sports Machine.

Clear Channel could be putting its radio stations back on the Web this week, according to reports from the Radio & Records Convention in Los Angeles last week. Kevin Mayer, head of the company's Interactive division, said its stations may begin testing Internet-only ads on some Web sites. The giant radio company and other prominent radio groups halted Internet streaming in April.

MSNBC's The News With Brian Williams will be bumped to 8 p.m. beginning July 9 The time change is apparently sparked by an abundance of re-broadcasts of the program—which can also be seen on CNBC at 10 p.m. and again on MSNBC at midnight—and, according to MSNBC's Mark O'Connor, to eliminate competition with the broadcast networks' nightly programs on the West Coast, namely NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw

MSNBC Investigates, which had The News' new slot, moves to 9 p.m. ET.