Stewart's fortunes grow ever brighter

NBC, the producer of "Survivor" and Martha Stewart Omnimedia held a big press conference on Wednesday. The guest of honor couldn't be there, what with her being in prison and everything.

But Martha Stewart will be busy once she's released.

Beginning in the fall of 2005, NBC Universal will syndicate a new daytime show featuring the Domestic Diva. Reality-show guru Mark Burnett will produce the show, along with Stewart's company.

For her efforts, Stewart will receive a reported $8 million a year, not to mention how much richer she is today than she was yesterday because the stock price of MSO jumped when news of the deal broke.

This is certainly a lot more lucrative than working in the prison laundry.

At least Stewart won't have any trouble proving to her parole officer that she's found gainful employment.

To be fair, Stewart had a successful syndicated TV show before she went to prison. (She's serving five months for conspiracy and making false statements to investigators who looked into her sale of ImClone System Inc. stock amid allegations of insider trading.) She's scheduled to be released from a minimum-security federal prison in March; her house arrest ends in August.

Sometime in September, Stewart's new show is to premiere. As described in a statement from MSO, the new show sounds a lot like her old one, only it will be taped in front of a live studio audience. Audience members and celebrity guests will "participate and interact with Martha" as she demonstrates her cooking, entertaining and decorating tips.

Her other show was syndicated by King World, a CBS/Viacom-owned company. Apparently, Stewart is hoping her fans will have memories as short as hers when she switches to NBC's syndication company.

NBC Universal chieftain Jeff Zucker is the man who commissioned and aired the 2003 TV movie "Martha Inc.," which portrayed Stewart (played by Cybill Shepherd) as a screaming shrew who abused everyone in her path as she clawed her way to the top. It sliced, diced and pureed Martha's reputation.

But, hey, for $8 million a year you can forgive anybody of anything.

Stewart and Burnett had announced before she went to prison that they were working on a deal. And NBC was the only media conglomerate pursuing her for post-prison TV work.