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Fandango Acquires Movies.com (LAT)
Fandango Inc., the nation's leading movie-ticketing site, on Monday acquired a similar but smaller Web site from Walt Disney Co. that sports an attractive address: Movies.com. Fandango hopes the acquisition of Movies.com, with its generic name, will give it broader reach for people seeking movie information online.

Execs Jam While Time Inc. Burns (Gawker)
Hamilton Nolan: Media companies are all facing a fundamental quandary: They have to throw lavish, expensive events to impress advertisers, even as they slash editorial budgets. But even so, it looks bad when execs are partying it up in the Bahamas "getting a massage, being given a wii fit, jamming with some old dudes, being on vacation" at a fancy sales meeting while the company faces a hiring freeze.

Cable Channels Gain on Broadcast Networks (NYT)
The shift in advertising dollars from broadcast to cable is not new, but it is particularly pronounced this year. There are several explanations, analysts say, including the fact that the most popular cable channels on their best nights, now attract nearly as many viewers as some of the less popular broadcast networks. Over all, the ratings gap, once vast, has been gradually narrowing. TV Week: Turner Broadcasting this year gambled that original programs such as The Closer on its TNT cable network would appeal to advertising buyers as much as broadcast shows. Judging by Turner's upfront advertising market sales, it was a winning bet.

Cathie Black Had No Direct Say in Vic Ganzi's Resignation at Hearst (MIN)
Cathie Black, who is a protégée of interim CEO Frank Bennack's, is an "internal candidate" for the job. The irony is that that right now Ganzi would have to approve, because he remains on the Family Trust. Like the U.S. Supreme Court, members are appointed for life, though we would presume that Ganzi would resign when his full-time successor is named and takes his seat.

Reading the Kindle with Your Morning Coffee (BusinessWeek)
While for the most part the Kindle is marketed as an electronic replacement for printed books, I turned to it for a month in an effort to soothe my environmental guilt while still indulging my three-decade-old newspaper habit. The device, which costs $359, is for the most part a pleasure to read because it's as readily portable as a newspaper itself. It contains much for a newspaper junkie to appreciate.

Most Newspaper Sites Down, in Time Spent (E&P)
Some newspaper Web sites increased the average amount of time per visit in May, according to Nielsen Online. But for the most part, many Web sites saw the average time spent per person dwindle in year-over-year comparisons. The Wall Street Journal online fell to about 8-and-a-half minutes last month versus about 15 in May 2007.

Hallmark Magazine to Up Rate Base (Mediaweek)
In a sign that there's still room for growth in the women's lifestyle category, Hallmark, the oversized lifestyle magazine from the eponymous greeting card company, will take its rate base up to 800,000 with the February/March 2009 issue. That's an increase of 14.3 percent over its current rate base of 700,000.

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