The price is $5.8 billion for the 20 percent of NBC Universal held by Vivendi. GE will acquire this 20 percent and then immediately sell 51 percent majority control of NBC Universal to cable giant Comcast. The final word can come as early as Thursday. For its end, Comcast is expected to put up as much as $6 billion for control of NBCU.

On the ABC side, Charles Gibson’s last day as anchor of “World News” will be December 18. ABC will honor the storied newsman throughout his last week. Diane Sawyer will take over in January.

The third major network, CBS, confirmed what most of us knew: that its new medical drama, “Three Rivers,” was a flop. The show has been pulled off the schedule, though CBS has promised to compete production of the 13 ordered episodes. The Sunday time slot will be replaced by repeats of the previous weeks’ “Cold Case,” “Criminal Minds” and the smash new hit spin-off “NCIS: Los Angeles.”

FX, which has really come into its own lately, announced its midseason schedule. “Nip/Tick” opens its final season on January 6, and will air nine episodes over nine weeks. The final show will come March 3 — it’s also the show’s 100th. Also, the FX comedy “Archer” debuts January 14 at 10 p.m. “Justified” with TOmothy Olyphant starts in March.

The series finale of “Monk” is Friday. Last week’s episode garnered nearly 6 million viewers.

Finally this morning, we learned that ABC is working on a comedy with Nicole Richie playing a professional woman with a complex family life.

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