Morning Fix: Time Warner, Comcast can smile. ’30 Rock’ sans Alec?

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

After the coffee. Before figuring out how to shut up the crows outside my house.

The Skinny: I had a dream I met Steve Carell. He was very nice and I resisted the urge to tell him what I didn’t like about ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love.’ Yes, I’ll start therapy soon. Lots of earnings today including results from Time Warner and Comcast.

No hangover here. Time Warner Inc. released its second-quarter results early Tuesday morning and beat expectations thanks to ad revenue that its Turner networks pulled in from covering the NCAA basketball tournament. While ‘The Hangover 2’ opened at the tail end of the quarter, the company attributed much of the strong Warner Bros. revenue performance to the home video release of ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 1.’ Coverage from CNNMoney.

Thanks, NBCUniversal. Comcast Corp., the cable giant and parent of NBCUniversal, released its second-quarter results and said profit improved by 16%. The jump was attributed to adding more broadband subscribers and improvements at NBCUniversal. ‘Improvements’ and ‘NBC’ haven’t been written in the same sentence much lately. More from Bloomberg.

Thanks, Netflix. CBS Corp. posted strong second-quarter earnings due in part to a deal it made with Netflix to sell old library content. Revenue was up at all CBS units except publishing house Simon & Schuster, which is because I think I’m the only one who still buys books. I was going to say read books, but that would have come off as snooty. Details from the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times.

Reviving Regency. Regency Television, a small production outfit that had some success in the 1990s with ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Malcolm in the Middle’ before shuttering in 2008, may be reopening with former Disney executive Morgan Wandell at the helm. Details from Deadline Hollywood and, just to show how long I’ve been doing this, a profile on Regency when Gail Berman was running it that I wrote for Entertainment Weekly in 1999.

Life without Alec. Is there a ’30 Rock’ without Alec Baldwin’s Jack Donaghy character? NBC and the show’s executive producer seem to think so. Baldwin has been dropping subtle hints that next season will be his last on the network’s cult hit and, while NBC brass wants him to stay, his exit wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of the show. The New York Times chats with NBC about the prospects of a Baldwin-less ’30 Rock.’

A transforming moment. Hard to believe, but Paramount Pictures finally has its first billion-dollar hit in ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon,’ whose domestic and international take is expected to hit that milestone this week. Well, they didn’t get my 10 dollars. More from Variety.

Who makes what. Forbes has released its annual highest-earning actors list and Leonardo DiCaprio is on top with Johnny Depp second. Most surprising to me is how much Tim Allen is still raking in.

Inside the Los Angeles Times: Early works of Alfred Hitchcock have been discovered. James Rainey on how the Guardian blew the News of the World phone-hacking scandal wide open. A look at Dr. Drew’s rehab sidekick, Bob Forrest.

-- Joe Flint

Follow me on Twitter. It’s like eating potato chips all day. Twitter.com/JBFlint