Media People

It's tough to be a media company these days. But IDG, a leading technology company with publications like PC World and MacWorld and their related brands, as well as events and a vertical ad network, seems to have girded itself against the worst.

IDG's CEO, Bob Carrigan, told FishbowlNY that although 2009 was a tough year, the company has big plans for growth over the next three years. "The tech media category is not immune to the recession and has been challenged by that," he said. "But our three-year plan calls for growth."

That growth includes the less than two-year-old ad network, the IDG TechNetwork, which offers ad space inventory from 250 Web sites to technology marketers. Carrigan says its "one of the most successful businesses we've launched in a long time."

After the jump, we talk to Carrigan about his company's business model, the ad network and his plans for the future.

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Mediabistro has scored an interview with Gayle King just days after her best friend Oprah Winfrey announced plans to leave her broadcast television talk show behind in 2011. "Oprah shared her thoughts with people she trusts, but at the end of the day, she made this decision on her own," King said.

Interviewer David Hirschman also asked the Sirius XM radio show host and O, The Oprah Magazine editor-at-large about Oprah's plans for the future, whether King would ever considering hosting a television show again and if she plans to get involved in Oprah's new cable network, OWN.

Read on for more of Mediabistro's interview with King

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"Nightline" has an interview with lifestyle and cooking tycoon Martha Stewart tonight, in which she talks about how it felt to lose "more than a billion dollars" while in prison (though whether that billion was hers personally, or tied up in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia is not made clear) and what it's like to be completely bonkers (which, in Stewart's opinion, involves her picking up gravel from her mile-long driveway in Maine).

But our favorite segment features Stewart slamming bubbly 30-minute meal cooking television personality and talk show host Rachael Ray for not being a real chef.

Video after the jump.

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Yesterday morning saw the memorial service for The New York Times' William Safire, the former Nixon speechwriter who became an Op-Ed columnist for the paper in 1973. Katherine Rosman was scoping the scene The Wall Street Journal and she got all the dirt:

Present at the memorial was Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who recounted how Safire had been hired by his father after a dinner party for Nixon where the elder Timesman had originally been insulted to sit "next to the flack!"

Safire wasn't all dark suits and grammar lessons though, as Barbara Walters recounted how while working at at a PR firm that he managed, Safire had given her a Christmas present of a see-through nightgown with lace panties. She got the joke, though admitted that today, "I'd have to report it to human resources."

The service also included speeches from Mort Zuckerman, Bill Janklow, Bob Menschel, Julie Eisenhower (Nixon's daughter), and William's son Mark Safire.

William Safire, Remembered --Wall Street Journal

Previously: William Safire, NYT Columnist, Dies At 79, Paying Tribute To Safire

Mediabistro.com has an interview today with Guardian News & Media's North American CEO Caroline Little, a former Washington Post Co. digital executive who left that company last year. She joined the British media company as a consultant and was later named CEO. Now she's in charge of marketing The Guardian's Web site to U.S. advertisers, with the help of a new stateside ad team.

Since Little has watched digital media since its beginnings we were eager to hear what she had to say about the prospect of making money off online advertising revenues and pay walls. To that end, she said those sorts of payments were just the beginning -- media companies are going to have to find other sources of revenue in order to survive, she said:

"I think everybody's trying to figure out how not to be so dependent on advertising. The funny thing is, newspapers in print have always had at least 80 percent of their revenue come from advertising. So I think everybody is trying to look at different lines of business. I think paying for content is just one revenue stream. I don't think it's going to be the silver bullet."

Read on for more from Little's interview

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Certain New York media blogs are all puffed with self-righteousness over the news that Dealbreaker's Andrew Sorkin made $250k last year, which may or may not have included a bonus that may or may not have been caused by the amount of traffic he was getting, essentially making it a pageview bonus. Which, as these blogs are quick to point out, get shredded by certain traditional journalists as being the downfall to "objective" journalism since it employs a tabloid mentality of "The more people read it, the better it is." Thus, Octomom, Jon Gosselin, etc, etc. And if The Times is using the same payouts as blogs do, while simultaneously cutting the staffroom and giving huge bonuses to their wunderkind, where's the fairness there?

But...shouldn't Sorkin be paid according to the traffic he brings in?

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Is Oprah Winfrey ready to ditch her syndication deal and take her talk show to her new cable network OWN? Yes, according to Nikki Finke, who reports that the queen of daytime will soon announce that she will not be renewing her syndication contract with CBS Television Distribution and will be moving her show to the new network, set to launch in 2011:

"I've learned that in coming days Winfrey and Discovery will issue a press release announcing OWN's on-air launch for the start of 2011. And, in several weeks, Oprah will tell the public that she's ending her syndicated Chicago-based daytime talk show when her current deal runs out and moving it to OWN headquarters in Los Angeles probably as soon as mid-2011."

Although Finke seems certain about these facts, The New York Times reported that Winfrey is "nearing a decision on whether to continue her daily talk show on broadcast television," and said that an official decision will likely be announced by the end of the year. The Times also said that Winfrey is in talks "with syndicators other than CBS," and pointed out that she has "taken advantage of speculation about possibly leaving her show in order to enhance renewals," in the past.

OWN, which has had its launch date moved back several times, will replace Discovery Health Channel in 70 million homes. The hope, it seems, is that placing the popular talk show on the channel will drive viewership. But will viewers follow Oprah from broadcast to cable? Despite declining ratings, she has a loyal following. Fans are willing to shoot any book she suggests up to the top of best seller lists and buy everything on her "Favorite Things" lists. Chances are good she'll have no problem drawing viewers no matter where she lands.

THE END OF 'OPRAH' AS WE KNOW HER --Deadline Hollywood

Question For Oprah: Broadcast or Cable? --New York Times

(Photo via)

Si Newhouse made out better than expected during a Sotheby's auction last night. The item he was selling off -- a sculpture by Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti entitled "L'Homme Qui Chavire" (pictured left) -- only fell $2.8 million short of what he paid for it.

And while that might seem like a big chunk of change to us, Newhouse was expecting to lose $10-$12 million off the piece he originally bought for $20 million. So instead of selling his art half-off and making him look really desperate, the famed auction house managed to save the Condé Nast owner some face...something his own publications haven't been able to do in quite some time.

Si Newhouse Catches a Break -- Cityfile

A few months ago, there was much ado about New Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch's plans to instate pay walls on his company's newspapers' Web sites in the coming year.

But today, The Guardian reports that Murdoch's deadline for his pay walls may have been a bit too ambitious:

"When asked about his self-imposed deadline yesterday, Murdoch said: 'I wouldn't promise that we're going to meet that date.'

He declined to comment on the reasons for any delay except to say that he was talking to rival publishers including the Telegraph group in Britain. 'It's a work in progress and there's a huge amount of work going on,' Murdoch said.

Looks like The New York Post's online content will remain free for the time being. Phew!

Murdoch admits delay in introducing newspaper website charges --The Guardian

Earlier: Would You Pay To Read NYPost.com?

Richard Rushfield (center) Photo via FishbowlLA

Richard Rushfield is one of the few West Coasters that are still kept on Gawker's payroll. Hell, even Gabriel Snyder had to move back to New York to take the job as managing editor of the online publication. And if that doesn't make him an outlier enough, Rushfield actually quit The Los Angeles Times (and no, that's not code for "got fired by Sam Zell" or "took a buyout package") to take on the role of a full-time blogger. Now he has a book out called Don't Follow Me, I'm Lost, about what some would call was his counter-intuitive switch from mainstream to digital media.

Our colleagues over at FishbowlLA had a chance to sit down with Rushfield and pin him down on why he left an editor's job to work at a blog. From their interview, we've hypothesized three theories on what makes Rushfield so well suited for the blogosphere.

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