NERW 9/10: The End of the Summer (take 2!)

[Scott D Fybush <fybush@world.std.com>]

[OK, OK, that's the last time we trry to crank out a NERW
of this magnitude while under the tight deadline of an impending
holiday.  Disregard all earlier versions -- THIS is the right
one, and any errors this time around are intentional.]

*We're back from vacation (about which much more later), only to find
yet another media mega-deal awaiting us: the CBS-Viacom merger,
undoing the 1970 spin-off that created Viacom in the first place.