Repeat after us: Giant companies aren’t always bad. Especially when they use some of their overflowing money stash’s for the greater good. News Corporation, Viacom, The Walt Disney Company and NBC Universal are doing their part, as they’ve all pledged donations to Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.

Rupert Murdoch got things going by pledging one million from News Corporation. “Newscorp giving $1million to help families in NY and NJ badly hurt by Sandy,” Murdoch tweeted. “Hope other companies will do same.”

Viacom is donating $1 million, half to the Mayor’s Fund for NYC and half to local organizations that are helping Connecticut, Long Island, New Jersey and Westchester County get back on their feet. Disney is also splitting its $2 million donation; half will go to the Red Cross and the other million to assorted charities.

NBC Universal is taking a slightly different route, as it plans to air a fundraising special Friday night at 8 p.m. Matt Lauer will host the program, which will feature performances by Jon Bon Jovi, Christina Aguilera, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and Sting.

With the news of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski giving the nod to Comcast acquiring NBC Universal breaking today, we thought we’d give outgoing NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker one last shout out. The Hollywood Reporter obtained Zucker’s letter to NBC Universal staffers, and surprisingly he doesn’t say anything like “Hey, my bad about that whole Leno and Conan thing which completely ruined our company, but have a good holiday! Well, those of you that will still have a job after Comcast takes over.”

Check out what he does say after the jump.

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Odds and ends you might have missed from the weekend:

• Count Level 3, an Internet services company, as another bump in Comcast’s bid to take over NBC Universal.
• Do you feel bad enough to pay for the online version of The New York Times?
• Bloomberg Businessweek has style.

New York Post: As Comcast CEO Brian Roberts prepares to take over NBC Universal, he’s been meeting with ex-NBC exec Randy Falco to learn which execs he should keep and who he should dump. Is Jeff Zucker‘s job safe?

Advertising Age: Is radio making a comeback?

Daily Intel: Steve Jobs holds secret iPad meeting with New York Times execs.

E&P In Exile: Looks like the resurrected Editor & Publisher is still using ex-editor Greg Mitchell‘s name to sell renewals.

BayNewser: The Bay Area News Project, which is providing content for The New York Times‘ Bay Area section, has named a CEO and editor-in-chief.

Wall Street Journal: The Apple tablet is coming next week and Steve Jobs is looking at ways to “make money in old media.” Well, if anyone can do it…

Mediaweek: Congressional hearings on the antitrust implications of the Comcast-NBC Universal deal are set to begin February 4.

WWD: Celeb weekly InTouch is still on the hunt for a new editor, and Colleen Curtis from AOL, Rob Shuter of Popeater.com and Life & Style‘s Dan Wakeford are the reported frontrunners for the job.

Mediaite: The case of the missing $1.5 million Conan O’Brien “Tonight Show” sketch.

NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker made an appearance last night on “Charlie Rose,” for a 30-minute interview that mainly focused on the company’s late night network TV debacle.

Opening the interview, Charlie Rose described NBC as “in shambles” five years after Zucker was promoted from executive producer at NBC News. Zucker took issue with that description:

“I think that’s a little unfair to the fantastic folks who work at NBC. The fact is, NBC Entertainment has had a rough run the last five years. There’s no question about it. We haven’t done well enough…And we have to do better. And we have to find bigger, broader, better shows. And the truth is, that really has defined NBC and NBC Universal and I think that’s what so unfortunate for the 30,000 employees who work at NBC Universal…the fact that our failure to do better at NBC Entertainment has unfortunately defined us.”

Zucker went on to say that while NBC Entertainment is only responsible for about five percent of NBC Universal’s bottom line, it is also responsible for about “95 percent of our perception.”

Still, although he admitted NBC Entertainment could have done better programming in recent years, Zucker said he had no regrets about the whole Conan O’Brien-Jay Leno situation. He explained that had NBC not offered O’Brien the chance to take over the “Tonight Show” in 2004, he would have left the network then. And the same holds true for Leno last year, when they developed the plan to move him to prime time.

Zucker even described the idea of moving Leno to a half-hour show at 11:35 p.m. as a way to help O’Brien boost his own ratings, clearly not agreeing with O’Brien’s belief that such a move would mean certain death for the “Tonight Show” franchise.

“Leadership is about taking chances and taking risks,” he told Rose. “And also leadership is about acknowledging when they don’t work.”

Admitting the half-hour Leno show was “not perfect for anyone,” Zucker said he also had hoped that O’Brien would agree. “Not everything is going to work,” he concluded. “If we don’t try to do things differently, if we don’t try to take chances, then we know what the results of the status quo will be. Sometimes things work, sometimes they don’t.”

Watch the whole interview here.

Previously: Jay Leno: NBC Fired Me Twice”

RealSimple.com, the online home base for Real Simple magazine, has created a new managing editor position to lead its digital team, and brought on an experienced Web editor to fill the role.

Jennifer Mirsky is joining the lifestyle site from Meredith Interactive, where she served as editor-in-chief of women’s lifestyle, overseeing content for LadiesHomeJournal.com, More.com and FitnessMagazine.com. Through her career, which has spanned more than two decades, Mirsky has also worked as vice president of editorial programming for NBC Universal‘s iVillage.com and vice president of the Hearst Magazine group for iVillage.

In her newly created position, Mirsky will be reporting to Real Simple managing editor Kristin van Ogtrop, who said, “Jennifer inherits an exceedingly strong realsimple.com team and a Web site that is growing robustly by the month. Her industry knowledge and expertise make Jennifer the ideal leader for taking realsimple.com to a whole new level.”

Full release after the jump.

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Less than a month after sealing its deal with General Electric to buy a controlling stake in NBC Universal, Comcast has signed a new employment contract with its COO Stephen Burke.

The new deal keeps Burke at Comcast for five more years, and he’ll oversee NBCU once the deal is completed. Burke, who is said to have helped orchestrate the NBCU deal, is earning $2.2 million a year plus a $3 million signing bonus, and he’ll “be eligible for two cash bonuses of $3 million each during the course of the contract,” Variety reported. He also earned $6 million in stock at the time of signing and will get $6 million more when the NBCU deal closes.

Not too shabby.

Comcast seals exec deal –Variety

Previously: It’s Official: Comcast Acquires NBCU Stake

New York is home to some of the biggest media companies in the country, like Condé Nast, The New York Times Co., News Corp., Hearst and Time Warner, just to name a few.

This year, those companies were imperiled, struggling to survive like many other companies around the world. But as print media disputed declarations that its days were numbered, these once-great companies that made their money from print pubs were fighting hard to keep their heads above water. In order to do that they made some decisions — like bringing in new investors, closing publications and selling them off. It was in no way a big year for media deals, but there were a few. Below, our list of the biggest business stories to come out of the New York media world this year.

Bloomberg LP Buys BusinessWeek

After seeking a buyer for BusinessWeek for most of the fall, publisher McGraw-Hill finally cut a deal with Bloomberg LP, which snapped up the magazine in October. The result? Bloomberg BusinessWeek, a new vision of the mag that has a new editor and a smaller staff.

After the jump, Carlos Slim invests in the Times, classical music and the Comcast-NBCU deal.

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TVNewser: Time magazine’s Person of the Year will be unveiled Wednesday on the “Today” show.

WebNewser: Who said print is dying? Web-only alternative newspaper Jersey City Independent has purchased lifestyle print magazine NEW.

minOnline: Time.com and CNNMoney.com have cleaned up their article pages to look cleaner and less cluttered.

Deadline Hollywood: Nikki Finke reports that NBC Universal‘s Lauren Zalaznick is in talks to become president of entertainment for MTV and VH1.