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Oprah Cancels Her Own 'Big Give' Show (NYP)
Oprah Winfrey asked ABC officials not to renew Oprah's Big Give, her philanthropic reality show that had been a modest hit on Sunday nights. "We loved that show and absolutely would have loved to bring it back," ABC entertainment president Steve McPherson said yesterday. "But it was something [Oprah] didn't want to do."

NBC's 24-Hour NYC News Channel: Will Chuck Scarborough End Up a YouTube VJ? (NYO)
Underlying NBC's announcement is the theory that for too long, broadcast journalists have been a wasteful bunch. In the brave new world, every last scrap from the cutting-room floor promises to be picked up, mopped off, and served up on multiple, varied platforms, from the Internet to podcasts to the video screens in the back of taxicabs.

Kornheiser Takes Post Buyout (WaPo/D.C. Sports Bog)
"All I ever wanted to be was a newspaper writer," Tony Kornheiser said, which is likely not something that anyone under the age of 30 will ever say again. "This other stuff is great, but I don't care about it," he continued. "In my mind that's what it says on the headstone, it says 'newspaper guy.'" But he also said he signed the papers to take the Post's buyout last night, after, I believe, 29 years at the paper.

Fox's Chris Wallace: Frustration in Covering Dems' Race Because 'They Haven't Played With Us' (THR)
"Sen. Clinton has been on twice, and that's been great," says Wallace in an interview. "I certainly feel frustration that Obama has failed to come on. One, I would like to be able to report and cover him, and two, there are millions of people who watch the show and the network, and to a certain degree, not that they don't get their news any place else, they are missing an opportunity to hear the guy ask tough but I hope fair questions."

Turner to Put Ads in Context (TV Week)
Turner Broadcasting plans to introduce a new advertising system designed to match commercial messages with the content of its programming. Turner, which holds its upfront presentation to advertisers Wednesday morning in New York, calls the system "TVinContext" and says it has been in development for more than a year.

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Bonnie Fuller Out at AMI, Will Announce New Media Venture Soon (FishbowlNY)
Bonnie Fuller, no longer queen bee at American Media Inc., has something up her sleeve. "My next venture will be in media," she said. "I really can't give you any details ... but there's something specific I want to do." She'll announce the new endeavor "shortly." She called the decision to leave "100 percent" hers, adding that she was "thinking about the next stage in life and the new, exciting adventure I'll pursue." NYP: Fuller's contract was set to expire March 31, 2009, but relations between Fuller and American Media CEO David Pecker have been frosty for a while. Portfolio: Fuller says she doesn't think the mania for celebrity news that AMI hired her to exploit — and whose blossoming can arguably be traced to her successful reimagination of Us Weekly — is anywhere near burning out. WWD: Speculation in the industry is that Fuller has been looking for a new gig for some time, leaving her office frequently to take meetings and even trying to lobby television honchos for a job. Fuller, however, said she was "very busy" at AMI in recent months, overseeing the covers each week at Star and redesigning Fit Pregnancy and Country Weekly.

Carl Icahn Considering Attempt to Oust Yahoo Board (AP)
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is reportedly loading up on Yahoo Inc.'s stock in preparation for a possible attempt to shove aside the Internet icon's board and bring the company's disillusioned suitor, Microsoft Corp., back to the bargaining table. As he mulls whether to lead a rebellion, Icahn has accumulated about 50 million Yahoo shares, a stake of roughly 3.6 percent in the company.

American Idol Viewers Disappearing (AP)
Contestants are disappearing as the American Idol finale approaches. Unfortunately for Fox, so are the viewers. The 21.8 million people who watched last Tuesday's competition was the show's smallest Tuesday audience in more than five years. The show did better the next night, with 22.9 million, but that was the smallest Wednesday audience in three years, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Diller, Malone Agree to IAC Spinoff Terms (NYP)
The war is over between IAC CEO Barry Diller and Liberty Media boss John Malone. The media moguls yesterday announced a truce ending their fight over voting rights control in the proposed breakup of IAC into five publicly traded companies, with Liberty dropping its appeal of a defeated lawsuit challenging the plan.

ABC Will Have Only 2 New Fall Shows (AP)
ABC will introduce only two new series in the fall in a schedule the network admits was affected by the writers strike. The new David Kelley-produced drama, Life on Mars, is about a police detective transported back to 1973. In the second new series, Opportunity Knocks, producers show up at a home with a truckload of prizes and quiz family members on what they know about each other. USAT: Hurt by ratings declines for its stalwart crime dramas and the lingering effects of the writers' strike, CBS is hoping to find a buzzworthy hit to soften the blow. Variety: The CW will get a jump on the competition next season, launching Sept. 1 with a fall schedule that the network is touting as its most cohesive to date.

Clear Channel Accepts Smaller Takeover Bid (NYT)
Clear Channel Communications agreed on Tuesday to a revised $17.9 billion takeover by two private equity firms after settling a long and often acrimonious dispute with the six banks that agreed to finance the deal. The deal heads off what would likely have been two rancorous legal battles over the buyout, one of the last holdovers from the recent private equity boom.

The Dolans March in on Newsday, But Please, No Press! (NYO)
The Dolans haven't been known for their warm embrace of the media. Ask any Knicks beat reporter about life at Madison Square Garden, and you'll get your share of war stories about Cablevision's Moscow-like media policies. But to many on the Newsday staff, the attempt by the paper to introduce itself to the Dolans the best way it knows how was pretty roundly rebuffed, and that didn't look good.

Web Users Back Code of Conduct for Bloggers (Guardian)
Nearly half of all internet users would support a voluntary code of conduct for bloggers and online commentators. A survey by legal firm DLA Piper said 46 percent of Web users think bloggers should sign up to a code that reflected the laws on defamation, intellectual property and incitement, with 15 percent ambivalent and 4 percent strongly opposed. Around 34 percent of bloggers opposed the idea but 32 percent supported it.

Online Ad Spending Estimates Drop for Social Networks (NYP)
Web ad tracker eMarketer cut its ad spending estimates for Facebook, MySpace and other social-networking sites amid growing questions over whether such sites will attract major ad dollars. Advertisers in the U.S. will spend $1.4 billion to place ads on social-networking sites this year, down from an earlier estimate of $1.6 billion, eMarketer said in a report released yesterday.

Report: Al Gore's CurrentTV Offered $100 Million For Digg In 2006 (TechCrunch)
Michael Arrington: Sarah Lacy's new book, Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0 does a deep dive into the histories of a number of high profile Web startups. But Lacy was also able to uncover a few stories that were never covered in the day-to-day press, including the story of a failed 2006 attempt by Al Gore's CurrentTV to buy Digg.

TNR Obama Cover's Metaphor a Bit Too Apt (Portfolio/Mixed Media)
Revenge or coincidence? A few weeks ago, The New Republic cried foul after Time produced a concept cover that resembled one that TNR had published. Now it's TNR's turn to be accused of lacking originality. This week's paint-by-numbers cover, consisting of an unfinished watercolor rendering of Barack Obama, bears a distinct resemblance to a Time cover from 2004 featuring Howard Dean.

What Keeps Viewers Glued to the Tube? Disney Wants to Know (LAT)
Walt Disney Co. is trying to get inside the minds of television viewers. The entertainment company, with its profitable ESPN and ABC entertainment networks, said Tuesday that it was developing an "emerging media and advertising research lab" to try to figure out why people watch the shows they do. AdAge: "In today's rapidly changing media environment, we need to go beyond traditional forms of research to ensure an effective connection with our audience," George Bodenheimer, president-ESPN and ABC Sports and co-chair, Disney Media Networks, said in a statement.

Zweig Leaves Money to Become WSJ Personal Finance Columnist (Talking Biz News)
Jason Zweig has been hired to be personal finance columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He will begin work there on July 1. In this role, Zweig's responsibilities will include writing a weekly column for the Journal. "Jason is one of the best-known personal finance journalists," said Nikhil Deogun, editor of the Journal's Money & Investing section, in a statement.

Writers Pick Their Favorite Obscure Books (Village Voice)
Ah, summer! The time to kick back in the sun, sucking up both gin and tonics and intellectual stimulation. But why be the hundredth person on the beach getting sand in Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth or smudging Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion with SPF 45? To help guide you through the waters of the literary unknown, we asked some authors to name their favorite obscure book.

Bloomberg News Seems Poised To Do Something Big (Marketwatch)
Jon Friedman: It was big news when Bloomberg announced Monday that Norman Pearlstine had joined the company as chief content officer. After all, Pearlstine had been the top news executive at Time Inc. and The Wall Street Journal. But Pearlstine's newly created position may be a precursor to an even bigger story involving the powerful information and news company.

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A New Editor at the Forward (NYT)
Jane R. Eisner, former editorial page editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, was nominated Monday to become editor of The Forward, the Jewish newsweekly. The appointment is expected to become official at a meeting on Sunday of The Forward Association, the group that oversees the newspaper, said Samuel Norich, the paper's publisher.

A New Vision for Newsday (WSJ)
On Monday, Cablevision outlined ambitious plans for Newsday, including trying to boost circulation by marketing the newspaper to households it serves and giving advertisers a selection among media outlets that would allow for a more effective targeting of audiences. "We see this as a wonderful fit," Cablevision chief executive James Dolan said in a statement.

New Sites Make It Easier To Spy on Your Friends (WSJ)
If you are still relying on Google to snoop on your friends, you are behind the curve. Armed with new and established Web sites, people are uncovering surprising details about colleagues, lovers and strangers that often don't turn up in a simple Internet search. Though none of these sites can reveal anything that isn't already available publicly, they can make it much easier to find. And most of them are free.

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An NBC Goodbye for Leno After Tonight? (NYT)
After a news conference on Monday introducing Jimmy Fallon as the next host of the 12:35 a.m. Late Night series, Ben Silverman, the co-chairman of NBC Entertainment, acknowledged that the changing late-night landscape at the network would probably mean that Jay Leno would leave it.

Norm Pearlstine Jumps to Bloomberg (FishbowlNY)
Norm Pearlstine, former editor-in-chief of Time Inc. and onetime managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, has announced he is joining Bloomberg as "chief content officer." Most recently Pearlstine has been the senior advisor for telecom and media at the Carlyle Group. He also authored a book called Off the Record about the aftermath of Valerie Plame case. NYT: The move suggests that Bloomberg, whose fortunes have been buoyed by the selling of its hugely profitable data terminals to brokerage firms and investment banks, plans to expand the journalism side of its business.

Clear Channel in Settlement Talks, Trial Delayed (Reuters)
Talks are underway to settle a dispute over financing the $20 billion leveraged buyout of U.S. radio operator Clear Channel Communications Inc., the company said in a statement on Monday. A trial over the case was delayed by a day in New York and hearings were postponed in Texas as the discussions went on. NYT: The latest push for a settlement began Wednesday as Highfields Capital Management, one of Clear Channel's largest shareholders, and Morgan Stanley, one of the six banks involved, urged a settlement to avoid the uncertainties of an impending jury trial.

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The Pundit Analyzing Obama? Some TV Upstart Named Rove (NYT)
The bete noire of the Democrats has turned pundit, and his old nemeses do not always know what to make of it. One year ago, when he was still a deputy White House chief of staff in the Bush administration, Karl Rove was more likely than not ducking news organizations. Now, he has joined them, as an analyst for Fox News and a contributor to Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal.

PBS Revives The Electric Company (NYT)
Refitted for the age of hip-hop and informed by decades of further educational research on reading, the 2009 version of The Electric Company is a weekly, more danceable version of its former daily self. The series, which is expected to make its debut in January, faces challenges the original never did as well as familiar ones.

Chuck Todd Keeps the Numbers Flowing in NBC's Election Coverage (WaPo)
For political junkies, Chuck Todd has become all but inescapable. When he isn't shuttling between studios, he is being invoked as an authority by one anchor or another. After a career out of the limelight, the genial 36-year-old is the campaign season's most improbable TV star. The voracious appetite of cable news has given him a huge megaphone and an outsize role in shaping coverage of the White House race.

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Cablevision Buys Newsday After Murdoch Withdraws Bid (NYT)
Cablevision has prevailed in the bidding for Newsday, after the News Corporation, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, pulled out of the running. Murdoch said a week ago that he would not raise his price, and people briefed on his talks with Tribune said that he stuck to that position even after it became clear that he needed a higher offer to beat Cablevision. LAT: Tribune Co. signed a deal Sunday to sell Newsday to Cablevision Systems Corp. for $650 million.

NBC to Give Conan's Late Night Gig to Fallon (AP)
Jimmy Fallon will officially be given the keys to NBC's Late Night franchise following Conan O'Brien's exit. All that's left is an official date for NBC's transition: O'Brien moving out West to take over for Jay Leno on the Tonight show and Fallon following in the next time slot.

In the Age of TiVo and Web Video, What Is Prime Time? (NYT)
In the past TV season, there has been a sharp increase in time-shifting. Some of the six million who have left broadcast television are still watching, but on their own terms, thanks to TiVos and other DVRs, Internet video, and cable video on demand. So while usage of television is steady, the linear broadcasts favored by advertisers are in decline. The mystery, then, is what the networks should do now. LAT: NBC, ABC, and CBS to tone down "upfront" advertising sales events. NYT: Marketers welcome shift to a 52-week television season.

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As Dykstra and Doubledown Wage War, Overtime Watches From the Sidelines (Folio:)
As the bitter legal dispute between Lenny Dykstra and Doubledown Media plays out in a federal court, a publishing company with its own legal troubles may eventually insert itself into the narrative. Watching this case with a keen interest is Maven Media Group, publisher of its own financially-challenged magazine for professional athletes, the 35,000-circ Overtime.

Vibe to Cut Rate Base, Hike Cover Price (Mediaweek)
Vibe, which along with other music titles has seen its ad pages plummet in recent months, will cut its rate base to 800,000 from 850,000 while raising its cover price to $4.99 from $3.99 in the second half of '08. Steve Aaron, CEO of parent company Vibe Media Group, said Vibe tested the higher price this past winter and saw no sales falloff.

'Deafening' Silence in on Military Analyst Story (Politico)
Even with countless media outlets available, a Sunday New York Times cover story could always be counted on to send a jolt through the TV news cycle. But apparently that's no longer the case. David Barstow's 7,600-word investigation of the Pentagon's military analyst program — whereby ex-military talking heads parroted Defense Department talking points on the air — has been noticeably absent from the airwaves.

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Ryan Seacrest in Talks to Replace Larry King (FishbowlLA)
Sources have confirmed that Ryan Seacrest is in talks with CNN to shimmy into Larry King's chair. Now "talks" can mean a lot of things, and our source also says, "I don't think it's going to happen." Why? Well, for one thing Ryan is currently the host of... everything. E! News, American Idol, a popular KIIS-FM radio show — not to mention a producer.

Microsoft Reportedly Disbands Yahoo Slate (LAT)
Microsoft Corp. continued to distance itself from Yahoo Corp. on Thursday, telling the people it had lined up to nominate to the board as part of a prospective hostile takeover battle that their services were no longer needed, according to a person familiar with the conversations. BusinessWeek: Inside Microsoft's war against Google.

Nina Garcia to Marie Claire? (P6)
Project Runway isn't alone in switching allegiance from Elle to Marie Claire. One of the show's three judges, Nina Garcia , who was fashion director at Elle until recently, is said to be going to Marie Claire, too. The show's winning models and designers will now be featured in the Hearst title rather than Elle. A Marie Claire rep said: "We have no personnel announcements at this time." FashionWeekDaily: Currently, Marie Claire's fashion department is directed by Tracy Taylor, but it appears that Taylor will be leaving the magazine. Portfolio: If Garcia does land at Marie Claire sooner than later, it presents quite a quandary for Elle, which has seen a revival in its circulation and advertising performance since the show became a hit.

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MTV Plans to Increase Its Blending of Ads and Shows (NYT)
Every year at this time, networks pitch advertisers on their programs for the coming year in previews called the upfronts. On Thursday, MTV Networks will sell not only the appeal of its programs but of its commercials as well. In the past year MTV Networks, which is owned by Viacom, has produced a series of commercials for its advertisers that look like regular content.

Web Ad Revenue Up Against 'The Wall' (E&P)
Shackling content behind a pay wall may be off the drawing board — or at least a thing of the past — for most big metros. Yet in smaller markets, some papers have had success online with the paid model while others can't pull the wall down fast enough.

Adults Spend Slightly More Than Half Their Media Hours With TV (AdAge)
The results of a survey on consumer media habits commissioned by the Television Bureau of Advertising, out this week after the study was conducted by Nielsen Media Research, show that adults spend a little over half of their media hours with TV. Meanwhile, a recent survey of marketers and advertisers found many were losing confidence in TV as a medium

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NBC Plans 24-Hour News for the New York Region (NYT)
NBC Universal announced on Wednesday plans to start a 24-hour local cable news channel similar to New York 1. It will de-emphasize the identity of NBC's flagship station, WNBC, Channel 4, rechristening it a "content center" and making it one part of a larger media presence. The new channel will provide the first 24-hour local news coverage of the New York region, including New Jersey and Connecticut. NYP: "We think New York represents such a great news market for us, we want to make a statement about how serious we are about local news," said John Wallace, president of NBC's local media division.

Times Ax Falls on 15 (NYP)
The New York Times is laying off 15 journalists after the company acknowledged it fell short of its goal of getting 100 people to take voluntary buyout packages. The company would not confirm the precise number of layoffs, but in a memo executive editor Bill Keller said the ax would fall on "relatively small numbers" of staffers.

Kaplan to Return to Evening News Next Week (TVNewser)
Insiders say Rick Kaplan's days of double duty are coming to a close. Kaplan has been acting EP of The Early Show since early March. He's also kept his day job as EP of the CBS Evening News With Katie Couric, though the EN staff has done most of the heavy lifting. Kaplan's last day at Early will be this Friday. CBS execs are looking at internal candidates to fill The Early Show EP vacancy.

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