When Travel Channel star Adam Richman stopped by recently to shoot a “Media Beat” interview, we asked him to stay and make his all-time favorite sandwich. The result is about what you’d expect from the host of “Man v Food” and “Best Sandwich in America”: an unruly mix of ingredients, including potato chips, bacon, and a fried egg, piled high on crusty bread.

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Your spring break just got fancier. The Travel Channel has, according to a press release, “acquired a meaningful interest” in Oyster.com, an upscale hotel booking site based in New York City. Founded in 2008, Oyster.com started out as a review site like Trip Advisor and grew to be a full-service transaction site like Hotels.com, using professional writers – not consumers – to check out the hotels in person, take candid photos, and write the reviews. Per the agreement, Oyster.com will share exclusive content with the Travel Channel, as well as collaborate on cross-platform promotional opportunities and programming.

Said Travel Channel president Laureen Ong:

This is a transformational event for the Travel Channel. Entering into a strategic relationship with Oyster.com greatly broadens our position as a trusted source for information and allows us to go beyond the inspiration and entertainment we offer on television. Simultaneously, this partnership provides an incredibly meaningful way to connect with and improve the experience of travelers and adventure seekers everywhere.

Said Oyster co-founder and CEO Elie Seidman:

We believe in engaging audiences through the power of a strong respected brand and reliable expertise. That’s what we’re building at Oyster.com and we were always impressed with the trust and knowledge that Travel Channel represents, and the large and discriminating audiences it attracts.

UPDATE: This morning GalleyCat editor Jason Boog interviewed Seidman on the Morning Media Menu about the Travel Channel’s investment, which Boog reports was $7.5 millon.  Follow this MP3 link to hear more about the deal.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Local Connecticut reporter and mediabistro.com instructor Debra Alfarone has a new “mini-talk-show” on WNBC‘s 24 hour digital cable channel New York Nonstop (channel 161 on Time Warner Cable).

On “Alt Side” Alfarone conducts short interviews with New York personalities — her first guest is chef and Travel Channel staple Anthony Bourdain — while she’s moving her car for alternate side parking. It’s a cute idea that’s unique to New York, and perfect bite-size entertainment for people like us with short attention spans.

Check out the first episode of “Alt Side” above. Alfarone is also teaching a mediabistro.com course — Intro to TV News Reporting — starting later this month. Since January is Profit from Your Passion Month here at Mediabistro, it’s the perfect time to launch you own broadcasting career. All you need is a camera, a YouTube channel and a good idea.

Read more: Debra Alfarone’s bio

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The transaction, which is expected to close in January, will leave Cox with a 35 percent stake in the Travel Channel, while Scipps will own 65 percent. Scripps is paying $181 million in cash and the partnership between Scripps and Cox will take on $878 million in third-party debt, the companies said.

“Adding the Travel Channel, and its related enterprises, provides us with a unique opportunity to meaningfully expand our portfolio into a lifestyle category that’s highly desirable to media consumers, advertisers and programming distributors,” said Scripps CEO Kenneth Lowe, in a statement on the deal. “Our vision for Travel follows the same script that’s made Food Network and HGTV two of the most powerful brands in all of television. By lending our unparalleled expertise in developing successful lifestyle media businesses, we have every confidence that we can build on Travel’s strong brand identity and leverage the successes achieved to date by the top-notch team at Travel Channel and our new partners at Cox Communications.”

Full release after the jump

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Wall Street Journal: Viacom, parent company of MTV Networks, reported its third quarter earnings today. Profit grew 15 percent due to cost-cutting, perhaps related to this summer’s layoffs at MTV?

New York Times: Scripps is reportedly close to closing its deal to buy the Travel Channel from Cox Communications.

Folio: B-to-b publisher Ascend Media has filed for Chapter 7 liquidation.

MediaWeek: Bloomberg unveils its plans for BusinessWeek: make it look more like The Economist and offer content for free “while creating deep, vertical content areas that paying users could access for roughly $100 a year.”

Business Insider: Alan Meckler, the CEO of mediabistro.com’s parent company WebMediaBrands, talks about plans to buy new blogs, and his plans for Mediabistro and Semantic Web.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.