Unlike, say, Conde Nast — who amidst the outcry over the closure of Domino may be wishing very much they had invested in their web properties prior to "seeing the religion" as a result of the financial collapse — Time Inc., as we mentioned yesterday, is doing fairly well online. They also have a whole batter of magazines that continue to sell — People is the nation's top newsweekly. So plenty of folks in the media world had their eyes on how Time Inc. would react to Ron Burkle's Source Interlink's decision to put a seven cent per-copy surcharge on all publications it delivers to retailers beginning next week! Turns out Time Inc. isn't having it.

"Time Inc. has basically told Source to drop dead," said one industry veteran... "I don't think copies will be shipped next week," said one publishing executive. "It is kind of like a labor dispute. There will be blood."

Magazine people, reeling from the recession, are unsympathetic to the plight of the wholesalers, claiming they got into this mess by aggressively trying to gain market share in the distribution business.