Like hangovers and resolutions that will never be kept, predictions are a tradition of the new year. 

With that in mind, we offer up our own prognostications. Some are obvious (come 2011, Jay Leno won't be on NBC's prime time; MGM will be sold) and some are out there (Disney will make a play for video game publisher Electronic Arts; Washington will throw some tough regulations at the cable industry in an effort to rein in programming costs).

Of course, saying MGM will be sold is a little bit of a "boy who cried wolf" prediction, so we'll go a step further and predict that Time Warner will beat out News Corp. for the foundering studio. News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch has shown a little restraint lately, such as when he pulled out of bidding for the Travel Channel (after raising the price). Also, Murdoch is going to spend much of the next year focusing on his battle with Google and other aggregators.

Meanwhile, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes is sitting on a pile of cash. If Time Warner grabs MGM, Warner Bros. gets total ownership of "The Hobbit," which could succeed Harry Potter as the studio's next big franchise.

On the executive-shuffle front, look for a lot of jockeying to succeed Warner Bros. CEO Barry Meyer in 2011. Expect TV chief Bruce Rosenblum and Home Entertainment Group president Kevin Tsujihara to duke it out for Meyer's office, but don't be surprised if dark horse Phil Kent, who oversees Turner Broadcasting, emerges as a serious contender.

Assuming the Comcast-NBC deal closes next year (and, heck, even if it doesn't), expect a lot churn in the executive suites. A joke making the rounds in the industry asks whether, among NBC Universal's Jeff Zucker and Jeff Gaspin and Comcast's programming chief Jeff Shell, there aren't too many Jeffs in the kitchen.

For the rest of our guesses, please see our story here. And if we happen to luck out and be right on any of these, we promise not to say "toldja!"

Make some predictions of your own. Leave us a comment and we'll run the best ones. Try to keep it clean!

-- Joe Flint

Photos: Top: News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch. Credit: Amy Sussaman / Getty Images. Bottom: Time Warner's Jeff Bewkes. Credit: Evan Agostini / Associated Press.

Gossip columnist Roger Friedman wants more than $5 million in lost wages and damages from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. for firing him after he reviewed the company's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" based on a pirated copy of the movie.

In a suit filed in New York State Supreme Court on Monday, Friedman says he was fired from his $250,000-a-year job (no, that's not a typo) as a columnist and contributor to Fox News illegally. He reiterates his interesting claim that the copy he viewed online ended up there only because Murdoch, the chairman of News Corp., had inadvertently allowed his own copy of the movie to appear on the Internet and that he was fired to cover that up.

The suit outlines in detail Friedman's take on the events of early April that led to his firing. He says he viewed "Wolverine" online and wrote a column about the film. He claims he sent an e-mail to a Fox News lawyer about watching the film online and didn't get a response. The article went up on the Fox News website on April 2, and less than 48 hours later it was taken down. Friedman says that he went to his editor, Refet Kaplan, to ask why and that Kaplan replied, "Rupert Murdoch ordered it taken down."

Usually if the chairman of the company wants something taken down, that's a bad sign. But Kaplan, the suit says, told Friedman on April 3 that he had talked to Fox News Chief Executive Roger Ailes and not to worry.

That apparently was bad advice. The next day, when the storm showed no signs of abating, Kaplan, according to the suit, told Friedman, "Ailes has got to get with Murdoch." Later that day, Friedman was fired and both News Corp. and 20th Century Fox issued damning statements about Friedman and piracy. Friedman says that John Moody, one of Ailes' top lieutenants at Fox News, told him to keep quiet and that on Monday, April 6, there would be a meeting that could "repair the situation."

Friedman, who has hired legal guns Joseph Johnson and Martin Garbus of Eaton & Van Winkle, wants $180,000 that he says is still owed to him on his contract and $5 million in damages. Friedman hasn't dropped off the face of the Earth since being canned by Fox News. He's blogging for the Hollywood Reporter and appeared today on NBC's "Today" show to discuss Michael Jackson.

A Fox News spokeswoman said the network had not been served with the lawsuit yet.

— Joe Flint

Photo: Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch. Credit: Peter Morgan/Reuters