Johnnie L. Roberts

MONTHS AFTER VIACOM bought Paramount Communications and Blockbuster Entertainment in 1994, one amused magazine artist depicted chairman Sumner Redstone and CEO Frank Biondi as Beavis and Butt-head.

The Congratulations Arrived Thursday afternoon, minutes, after the stunning news that Barney s, the snooty New York high-fashion chain, is in financial distress. "You're not dressing as nicely, but it looks like your boycott finally paid off," said a friend.

Black entrepreneurs are battling for ownership of the lucrative assets they produce for the music business. But will their continued reliance on big record companies -- and persistent violence in parts of the rap world -- stall the dream for some of them Andre Harrell, one of black music's moguls, is a "big Willy," hip-hop lingo for a big-time player in showbiz.

Software types call it "vaporware." A company announces a new product that may never--or much lat-er--see the light of day. The aim: to spook the market, befuddle rivals or cause customers to hold off buying the other guy's goods.

Talk about management style. When Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin sat down Thursday for his usual weekly chat with Michael Fuchs, chief of Warner Music and HBO, Levin said he wanted to talk about his new strategy for the media colossus, say company insiders.

In showbiz, Michael Jackson has excelled as much at the biz as he has dazzled onstage. A decade ago, at his peak, he had the foresight to buy hundreds of songs written by the Beatles.

No one imagined it would be easy conceiving the globe's biggest media company. But no one realized how tough it was until last Friday. On a rain-drenched day in New York, Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin and Turner chairman Ted Turner announced the latest birth in this fertile season of megamedia deals.

These guys are going to be partners? Just last year Ted Turner whined that Time Warner, which owns a large chunk of Turner Broadcasting System, was preventing him from buying a network like CBS.

On Friday morning superagent Michael Ovitz prepared for a conference call in his art-filled office at Creative Artists Agency, the legendary talent-supply house.

Investment banker Herbert A. Allen Jr.'s annual mogulfest in July drew the usual mix of Hollywood and Wall Street media barons, packed wallet to wallet amid Sun Valley, Idaho's verdant mountain vistas.

Couch Spuds Had No Reason to expect gripping television when two TV networks--United Paramount Network and the Warner Bros. Network--were launched earlier this year.

Lavish contracts are as much a part of the Hollywood landscape as moviemaking. But maybe someone forgot to inform Edgar Bronfman Jr., whose family-controlled Seagram Co.

For Michael Ovitz, it was all too ironic. Five years ago, on Thanksgiving eve, the Japanese were poised for another landing in their so-called invasion of Hollywood.

MICHAEL MEYERRupert Murdoch is nothing if not a gambler. He flies against conventional wisdom, and his daring usually pays off. A decade ago Hollywood scoffed when the Australian-born publishing magnate bought a string of television stations and called them a network.

Long ago, there was the sovereign state of ITT. International Telephone and Telegraph, as the company was formally known, bestrode the globe. It was the very embodiment of the ruthless '60s multinational corporation, a powerful conglomerate that controlled more than 250 companies spanning almost every business and industry.

ON THE FINAL DAY OF THE 1994 Winter Olympics, aired live on CBS from Lillehammer, Howard Stringer slipped on ice and broke his leg. For the network's to broadcast exec, it was a painful omen of the lame season to come.

FEW WALL STREETERS dispute that Sumner Redstone snared one of the nation's premier companies when he purchased Blockbuster Entertainment last year. In a mere 10 years, thousands of the bright and vast video stores have sprouted nationwide.

Breaking off seems so hard to do for NBC and Turner Broadcasting. After ambling toward the altar for months, Ted Turner spurned a proposal from NBC's parent.

BY MANY MEASURES, LIFE IS good for Time Warner chief Gerald M. Levin. Last week the company and its partner, Toshiba, appeared to win their battle for a new compact-videodisc standard that could displace the home video.

AFTER DIALING A 900 NUMBER AND punching in a three-digit code on the phone keypad, a teenager setback on his bed to gawk at the video he has just requested with a $3 call.