Keep in mind that this is only a rumor, but according to Adweek, the biggest reason for Reader’s Digest Association (RDA) selling Every Day with Rachael Ray to Meredith yesterday was that Rachael Ray wanted more money. One source claimed that Ray was never happy with the amount of money she was getting from the magazine, and another said, “Rachael wanted a better deal, and they [RDA] [weren't] prepared to do it.”

Another problem was RDA’s contract with Ray, which kept the company from growing the title. “Because our agreement limited our participation to producing just a magazine, we were unable to expand the brand and its content across multiple platforms,” RDA’s CEO, Robert Guth, admitted. “Going forward, it was not a fit with our master brand strategy.”

Meredith apparently has a better deal in place as far as expanding the brand, but there’s no word on if the new contract includes more money for Ray.

How about that headline, by the way? We almost went with something that included “Sad Sammie” or “Not So Yum-O,” but ultimately went with “Delish” because it didn’t make us want to stab ourselves.

In his Media Ink column for NYPost.com, Keith Kelly reports that Liz Vaccariello will fill the editor-in-chief post at Every Day with Rachael Ray.  Readers Digest Association’s North American affinities president Suzanne Grimes said Vaccariello edged out about 30 people for the position due to her solid relationship with Ray:

Last evening, Forbes released their annual ranking of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women on their official website, Forbes.com.  The list included 18 media and publishing personalities and made it clear that the women controlling the industry have no shortage of creativity, wealth, and executive power.  Take a look at the major players that Forbes recognized this year:

Oprah Winfrey, talk show host and media mogul, #3
Arianna Huffington, editor and co-Founder, Huffington Post, #28
Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief, Vogue, #56
Tina Brown, The Daily Beast, #34
Cathleen Black, chair, Hearst Magazines, #67
Janet Robinson, CEO, The New York Times, #85
Nikki Finke, founder, Deadline Hollywood Daily, #79
Suze Orman, author, CNBC host, #61
Rachael Ray, talk show host and author, #78
Meredith Viera, co-anchor, The Today Show, #40
Ellen DeGeneres, talk show host,  #10
Christiane Amanpour, news anchor, ABC’s This Week, #73
Anne Sweeney, co-chair, Disney Media Networks; President,Disney/ABC TV Group #69
Katie Couric, anchor, CBS Evening News, #22
Diane Sawyer, news anchor, ABC’s World News, #46
Sarah Palin, television commentator, Fox News, #16
Rachel Maddow,  anchor, The Rachel Maddow Show, #50
Martha Stewart, talk show host, author, #99

The full list can be viewed in the Forbes October 25 issue, on newsstands today. 

“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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WebNewser: ABC News blog The World Newser has been blocked in China, although other ABC blogs are not.

WWD: Leslie Price has left shopping blog Racked to join Lucky magazine, where she’ll take the online editor post.

Mediaweek: Everyday with Rachael Ray is trying a new editorial strategy, swapping Rachael Ray — the magazine’s namesake who has appeared on every cover since its inception — for a delectable food photo. What would you rather look at, Rachael or ribs?

Washington Post: Former Washington Redskins president John Kent Cooke said he purchased ten North Carolina-based weekly newspapers last week because his company, Cooke Communications, is “contrary.”

Examiner: Part one of a five-part series celebrating the second anniversary of WCBS-FM‘s return to the oldies format.

New York Magazine: A look at dreaded consulting company McKinsey & Co., which was hired by Conde Nast last week to help realign the media company. A few interesting, little-known facts: the company once “forbade all junior consultants from wearing argyle socks” because they were thought to distract clients, but at another time consultants “were required to wear fedoras until President Kennedy stopped wearing them.”

Last night in New York City, the Foundation of American Women in Radio & Television presented their 34th annual Gracie Awards honoring the top women making entertainment for women.

The night’s biggest winners were Amy Poehler, who took home the 2009 Dove Real Beauty Award, Tribute Award winner Rachael Ray and MTV Networks CEO Judy McGrath, who was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award. And the red carpet was graced by more media celebrities who won or presented awards throughout the evening, including Suze Orman, Anderson Cooper, Katie Couric, Ann Curry, Bob Schieffer, New York Housewives Jill Zarin, Kelly Bensimon, LuAnn de Lesseps and Alex McCord, Oprah‘s BFF Gayle King and Maya Angelou.

Photo: Host Niecy Nash, reality star Ruby Gettinger, Kathy Griffin, Orman and Ray. Courtesy Larry Busacca/Wireimage. Check out some photos from inside the Gracies here and here.

Read on to find out who we talked to inside the Marriott Marquis ballroom

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Looking for last-minute Valentine’s Day ideas for your significant, media-consuming other? Here are some can’t-miss picks:

In case this whole media thing doesn’t work out: Rachael Ray [left] prayed, Paula Zahn swanned, and Kelly Ripa clomped to the beat like any good super worth her $10,000 to wake up that day. While we didn’t get a good gander of First Lady Laura Bush, who was front-row and center for pet charity The Heart Truth’s fashion show Friday morning, we did catch some media misses hitting the runway to support heart health for women.

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EXCLUSIVE VIDEO

No one can out-eat Tom Ryder, and Liz Smith has never slept with Lewis Lapham, though she wouldn’t exactly mind.

Those were just two of the themes to surface earlier today during the Magazine Lifetime Achievement Awards luncheon at Gotham Hall feting Ryder — outgoing CEO of Reader’s Digest and owner of a Darien, Connecticut, barbeque joint — and Lapham, the iconic former editor of Harper’s.

Over herb and peppercorn crusted chicken, Ryder and Lapham were showered with praise from their glossy peers, both live and in pre-taped video segments (“I love you almost as much as spaghetti,” said Rachael Ray, whose Everyday launch last year may be the crowning achievement for Ryder’s 8-year run at Reader’s Digest). Friend and — what else? — uber-restaurateur Danny Meyer said it is “a dangerous thing to try and keep up on the eating path” with Ryder. Longtime friend Gary Rich, former head of HR at American Express Publishing during Ryder’s tenure there, recalled the moment Ryder asked him, “How could butter possibly be bad for me?” in 1986.

Ryder, for his part, said that magazines “not only tranformed his life,” they gave him one.

In introducing Lapham, Smith, the 84-year-old New York Post gossipist, said, “I’ve never slept with him and I don’t have any anecdotes about him.”

“He’s a snob — a literate one.”

Smith admitted that when she tried to turn the “low-brow gossip readers” of her column onto Lapham, “my editors at the New York Post hated it.” Her response? “Even low-brows like to swim upstream.”

Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter opened Lapham’s video tribute [above] by recalling an outing with Lapham and a woman who was disappointed upon hearing Lapham was not the editor of Harper’s Bazaar.

Lapham closed the three-hour lunch by reflecting on his 28 years as Harper’s editor: “As an editor I’ve been thought of as cynical or an acerbic observer of the American scene,” Lapham said. “Optimism is an occupational hazard.”

[VIDEO CREDITS: Directed by Joia Speciale; Becky Glupczynski, producer; Scott Miller, director of photography]