The WGA strike closes out the thirteenth week at One Life to Live studios on 66th street between Columbus and Central Park West tomorrow, February 1st. WGAE President Michael Winship will be attending the large scale rally and picket line. Last Wednesday, the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers began informal discussions. Both sides have agreed to make no public comments about the discussions until talks conclude. Nikki Finke, though, notes progress.

PBS Mediashift: In Digital Age, J-Students Need Business Skills

Reuters: US Networks Ratings Slide As Writers Strike Progresses

TVNewser: 60 Minutes Back In Nielsen Top Ten

UnBeige: Tomasso Capuano To Design WSJ Lifestyle Mag

AP: Newspaper Publisher Shares Drop

(image via clipart)

Uber-popular New York food blog Eater has a new editor. We hear that Amanda Kludt, the associate editor of Gawker Media travel blog Gridskipper, has been named as Eater’s new editor. With parent company Curbed Network currently undergoing rapid expansion, we’re sure current Curbed editors Benjamin Leventhal and Lockhart Steele are pretty damn happy to have more time to focus on the business end of things.

No word on start date as of yet. Kludt, in our opinion, is one of the most underrated New York food writers to have come out of the blogosphere. Good move, Eater.

(ObDisclaimer: The writer of this piece was a former Gridskipper contributor/guest editor.)

After 17 years of syndicated talkshow goodness, the Montel Williams Show is coming to an end. It was a good run… but Montel Williams and his syndicaters figured out a way to make more money out of it. Come this fall, CBS TV Distribution will be offering individual stations the choice of airing a year’s worth of Best of Montel episodes. Williams, ever the class act, told the AP:

“I can’t say thank you enough to those who’ve welcomed me into their homes for the past 17 years. It has been both an honor and a joy.”

Cheers, Montel.

What happens when the New York Times runs a memoir piece that reads like an advertorial?

You get professional matchmaker Janis Spindel‘s ode to finding clients on the road as told to the NYT‘s Joan Raymond.

Memoir or advertorial? Judge for yourself via these excerpts:

I’m not a recruiter for a Fortune 500 company. I’m a professional matchmaker and have been since founding my company in 1993. I deal only with male clients. And on recent trips to Vancouver, Boston, Charlotte and Seattle, more than 1,000 women showed up in each city to meet with me and to see if they qualified to be matched with one of my men.

I’m always scouting for people. I’ve found that airports and airplanes are great hunting grounds. In fact, I met my first boyfriend at an airport. [...]

My clientele are investment bankers, lawyers, professional athletes and entrepreneurs. They are all very successful, fabulous and picky. They know what kind of qualities they want in a woman, and they hire me to find their perfect partner. It often takes me just a week or two to match a client with the right person. My success rate speaks for itself; so does my sixth sense. In the last 15 years, I’ve been responsible for more than 800 marriages and 1,000 more couples have entered into long-term, committed relationships. [...]

My approach is straightforward. First, I’ll check out the ring finger. If there’s no ring, I’ll say something flattering. Of course, a man’s initial thought is that I’m hitting on him. I consider these meetings pre-dates. I can usually find out more about someone in five minutes than most people can in three months. Most men are receptive, though some find it amusing they spent the flight talking to a happily married matchmaker. [...]

So strike up a conversation with someone. You never know. And if you see a woman cruising the airplane aisles, checking you out, don’t be afraid. It’s not the air marshal. It’s probably me.

What do you think? Innocent feature story or stealth advertorial? Let us know.

(Image via Hilary)

Fresh in from the Department of the Obvious: A Guardian poll of UK-based media executives and consultants reports that Google and News Corp. (through Europe/Asia Chairman and Rupe Jr. James Murdoch) are the media properties to watch in ’08.

Yeah, Google announced this morning through David Eun that they won’t become a media company… but note that Eun’s definition of “media company” in the linked interview is narrow as all hell. Through their (well-played out) role as a media aggregator and distributor, Google is indeed a media company. So lah de dah.

Best takeaway from the piece? 3% of the media folks surveyed don’t read newspapers at all.

IAC chairman Barry Diller introduces Tina Brown at today’s MPA/ASME awards

Though we snuck in sometime between the salad and the sea bass at today’s Magazine Lifetime Achievement Awards Luncheon at Manhattan’s Gotham Hall, we still managed to squeeze in some QT with the F.O.T’s* and the S.O.B’s* at today’s Magazine Publishers of America/American Society of Magazine Editors-hosted event. Highlights included Barry Diller‘s presentation of the award for Tina Brown, the Magazine Editors’ Hall of Fame inductee. Diller touted Brown’s “remarkable sui generis career,” pointing out that hers was “not a career of conformism and positioning,” given all the editorial chances she took to birth the melding of celebrity coverage and in-depth reporting that the magazine industry widely considers her imprimatur.

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— DIANE CLEHANE

It’s always a treat when the dining room at 55th & Fifth is buzzing with bold-face names to observe in their natural habitat. We love when the regular gang of media mavens, television titans and social swans stop by the bar to catch us up on the latest dish. Imagine my delight when I was invited over to join Tony Bennett and Eduardo Verastegui at Table One to chat with the two dashing gents about this and that. Tony (we’re on a first name basis now) told me this was his first lunch at Michael’s. The legendary crooner has got a full schedule these days. He’s performing with Zubin Mehta on February 6 at the Waldorf at a benefit for the Israeli Symphony and will be presenting the award for Album of the Year at the Grammys. Although he’s got a room full of them (15 and counting — he’s nominated this year for his duet with Christina Aguilera,) he’s still thrilled to go to the party. “Every industry has a convention and the Grammys is a chance to see all my good friends like Bono. I enjoy it.”

Today Tony was breaking bread with his new pal Eduardo — they met last year at a benefit in Las Vegas and have been fast friends ever since. During lunch Tony managed to do an incredible pencil drawing of Eduardo. “I’ve been painting and drawing my whole life,” says Tony. The charming Eduardo (who is otherwise known as the ‘Brad Pitt of Latin America’) asked me to weigh in on the two covers in the running for the DVD of his runaway hit Bella. One boasted ‘the smiley version,’ which depicted Eduardo in happy chick flick mode while the other showed a more passionate, intense image of the star and producer of the film that is sure to get hearts racing. Our verdict: go with the intense Eduardo. Turns out we’re in the same camp as Charles Osgood, Josh Hartnett and a slew of editors who’ve cast their vote. Bella is truly a phenomenon. Made for just $3 million, its domestic box office is $7.8 million and counting says producer-financier Sean Wolfington. A little gem with a lot of heart in a season full of gloom and doom pictures. Go see it now!

Here’s the rundown on today’s crowd:

1. Tony Bennett, Susan Bennett, Eduardo Verastegui and Sean Wolfington.

2. Peter Brown & two well dressed gents.

3. Warren Hogue & Gerald Schoenfeld.

4. Early shift: Richard Rubenstein; Second seating: Judy Price.

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Clearly, stiff online competition has forced the Big Three News weeklies to develop unorthodox strategies in order to remain relevant in an increasingly digitized world. And the verdict is still out on whether or not those strategies are bearing fruit.

Time, in a flurry of change a year ago decided to change the magazine’s delivery day to Fridays from Mondays. Time magazine announced, boldly, in late 2006 that it would institute a new advertising system in contrast to the previous business model. Until then ads were sold based on the number of people who subscribed or bought a copy of the magazine at the news stand. Time also decided to cut the rate base by three-quarters of a million readers while attempting, simultaneously, to pursuade advertisers that ads should be based on the total number of readers — not just subscribers and newsstand buyers — including those who read someone else’s copy. Time’s reasoning anticipated a multimedia future, where eyeballs will count for more than print circulation figures.

Time’s newsstand price also rose to $4.95, and Newsweek’s followed soon after in December 2006. A little over a year has passed since those changes were enacted. From Mediaweek:

”’It’s not where I’d like it to be,’ (Ed McCarrick, president and worldwide publisher of Time Group) said. ‘I thought we’d be further ahead than where we were.’

”Asked why more advertisers haven’t warmed to the idea, he said, ‘I really don’t know — I think the newness of it and the approach. They approach magazines with a very conventional way of looking at them.”’

US News & World Report’s Mort Zuckerman declined FishbowlNY’s request for a comment.

It’s that time of the year again. Starting at 9 pm on Sunday, February 3rd, WNYC TV (Time Warner 25 / Cablevision 22) is once again broadcasting from inside the tents and during the parties for fashion week. From the press release, ”Look no further than Full Frontal Fashion on NYC TV, where hosts Judy Licht, Lloyd Boston and James Aguiar provide nightly in-depth coverage of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week.”

(image via clipart)