Media People

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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No matter how many times people tell you it will all be okay, there's no easy way around it: getting laid off sucks. We've tried our hand at being inspirational, and now "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski has her own positive spin on getting the axe: it made her a better mother.

In a Huffington Post blog post (no doubt pulled from her upcoming memoir All Things at Once) Brzezinski says her "very public and very painful exit from CBS" helped her learn how to be open and honest with her children. Here's her advice for those facing pink slips:

"A fundamental lesson on being fired: Never lie about it. People will know what you're saying is a cover-up for how you really feel -- embarrassed, discouraged, and afraid. It's best to simply be true to those feelings and work form them. Kids are a great place to start with that. They too, will face challenges in life, and job loss is an opportunity to show them what you are made of."

Do you agree?

Getting Fired And How It Teaches You To Be A Better Parent -- Huffington Post

This weekend wasn't just Halloween in Manhattan, it was also the setting for the 40th Annual New York City Marathon, one of the most difficult (and longest running) endurance races in the world, and certainly one of the largest. It attracts professional athletes, celebrities, and your every day runners from around the world, who often train for months in preparation for the event.

And despite the wintry economic climate of the news world that makes the rest of us want to hide under the covers until we all have jobs again, this year's marathon also included some members of the media who certainly know something about endurance.

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Sue Simmons on on LX New York with fellow guest Andy Cohen, discussing her former drinking days

Sue Simmons, the WNBC-4 anchor who gained infamy for using the F-bomb on live television almost two years before Jenny Slate, confessed last week on WNBC's new show LX New York that in the 80's it wasn't unusual for her to show up to work a little bit tipsy. According to Simmons, "...that stopped in the mid '80s, late '80s, because I looked in the mirror before -- when I was about ready to go on the air -- and my eyes were red."

When the video of Simmons cursing on air surfaced in the spring of 2008, The New York Post was quick to jump on the theory that Simmons might still be boozing behind her desk. The Post culled its interviewees from employees of the restaurants where Simmons frequented before the show, where they remarked (anonymously, of course) that Simmons wasn't shy about her drinking habits before heading off to work at Channel 4.

That would seem to go against Simmons' current statement that she hasn't had a drink before work for years, and unfortunately this belated confession with alleged evidence to the contrary serves to strengthen what was originally just a gossip-based Post piece.

Full video of Simmons' on-air swearing and apology after the jump. NSFW language, obviously.

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The Huffington Post has asked its readers to help pick the top 100 "game changers": people who are "using new media to reshape their fields and change the world." But as the site has revealed two new lists each week, we were surprised not to see founder Arianna Huffington on any of the them, especially this week's list, Media Game Changers. We thought that HuffPost not putting its founder on the list rings just a little bit of false modesty. Come on, if Arianna isn't at least one of the top ten game changers in media, who is?

Read on to find out

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Earlier this week, we got a chance to chat with Steven Gray via Skype. Gray is a Time magazine correspondent based in Time Inc.'s new Detroit bureau, established earlier this year in a house in the Motor City.

Gray is the only person living full time in the house, but many reporters from across the company come and go to work on stories as part of Assignment Detroit. The project is year-long commitment to living in and reporting from the city, with reports appearing in various Time Inc. publications and Web sites, including Time magazine, Time.com, Fortune, Fortune.com, CNNMoney.com, Sports Illustrated, SI.com, Money and Essence magazine.

Gray gave us some background on the project, talked about what he's been working on and told us what it's like to live and work in the house/bureau. In the clip above, he talks about covering Detroit and blogging for Time.com. "Detroit offers one of the few places in the country where I can write about all of the issues that I care about personally, in terms of writing about society and politics and business and the economy," Gray said. "So why not Detroit?"

More of our interview with Gray, after the jump

Related: Time Inc. Launches Assignment Detroit

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Sam Zell visited Bloomberg TV to proclaim that Tribune Co. would be out of bankruptcy by the end of the first quarter. But when asked if he regretted the deal -- if it was, in fact, the "worst business decision he's ever made" -- he didn't back down.

"It's certainly the most amount of money I've ever lost in a single deal," he said.

However, Zell said that given the challenges facing all newspaper companies, "Nobody can survive."

Yesterday, we had New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. comparing print media to the Titanic, and today Zell admits that the end is near. Uh oh.