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Ratings Soar for Summer Competition Shows (WaPo)
Turns out what people really crave this summer is a competition series in which people risk bodily harm so we can point at them and laugh. Tuesday's unveiling of ABC's reality series Wipeout became the highest-rated debut of the summer among the younger viewers advertisers covet, and ABC's best summer-series premiere in three years.

Sun Also Sets: Baltimore Paper Joins Tribune Job Cut Brigade (AP and E&P)
The Baltimore Sun will cut about 100 jobs, including 55 to 60 in the newsroom, through buyouts, layoffs and the closing of open positions. The latest in a series of cuts to the venerable newspaper were announced Wednesday in a memo from publisher Tim Ryan to staff.

Murdoch's Journal: Some Like It Bought (Portfolio)
Jeff Bercovici: Earlier this week, we asked readers whether there's been a change in The Wall Street Journal's quality since Rupert Murdoch took control of the paper in December. Of the nearly 300 who responded, a plurality of 44 percent think the paper has fallen off, while 29 percent disagreed, saying they think it has improved. A solid quarter of poll-takers insisted there's no clear difference.

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