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Oscars On: Plans Begin for Regular and 'Alternative' Shows (Variety)
The Oscars will go on, but maybe not in the usual form. Amid the pervasive uncertainty created by the WGA strike, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is forging ahead with plans for the Feb. 24 Oscar ceremony. But the Academy is also planning two different shows — the usual kudocast and an alternative event if the scribes are still out.

Would Tribune CEO Sam Zell's Breezy New Employee Manual Hold Up in Court? (LAT)
How much should a company's culture reflect its chief executive, especially one who prides himself on being a blunt and innovative businessman? If you're new Sam Zell, the answer seems to be: A lot. At least that was the feeling workers got Wednesday with the distribution of a new employee handbook, a document that's nothing like the mind-numbing, lawyered gobbledygook in most corporate manuals. WaPo: The handbook is a mix of corporate earnestness, surprising folksiness, and common-sense rules, free of the antiseptic training-module language that has become a part of corporate human resources culture.

Idol Takes a Ratings Dip — Albeit a Slight One — in Season Opener (WaPo)
Lisa de Moraes: Chris Daughtry looks like some kind of American Idol soothsayer for having forecast, right before Tuesday's seventh-season debut, that the show was in a state of decline, only to have the debut numbers come out yesterday showing its ratings had ... declined!

Draft Lou Dobbs Group Emerges (CNN/Political Ticker)
Americans for Legal Immigration PAC launched a campaign Wednesday designed to convince the CNN anchor to enter the presidential race if a so-called "pro-amnesty" candidate wins the Republican presidential nomination. According to the group, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, and Rudy Giuliani all fall into that category. TVNewser: In a press release, a member of the group says, "Eighty-four percent of our supporters say they would support Lou Dobbs for President, if the GOP primary fails to yield a candidate opposed to Amnesty."

Ex-Time Editor to Help Lead Book Publisher (NYT)
Priscilla Painton, most recently the deputy managing editor of Time, has been named editor-in-chief of the adult trade imprint of the publishing company Simon & Schuster. Painton, who left Time in December, will be the first person to take the editor-in-chief position since the retirement of Michael Korda, the editor who shepherded authors like President Ronald Reagan and Jacqueline Susann.

Hirschorn Looking for the Door at VH1 (NYP)
Michael Hirschorn, the VH1 programming chief responsible for the network's turnaround with hits like Flavor of Love and I Love New York, is close to leaving the network. According to two sources close to the situation, Hirschorn, a VH1 executive vice president, has been in discussions with several rival networks and independent production studios, and is said to be in advanced talks with British company Ricochet.

Gawker Bullying Draws a Facebook Warning (Portfolio)
Has Nick Denton gone too far? The new-media minimogul is notorious for poking New York media types in the eye. But now he is accused of ambushing a publisher's daughter by using her Facebook entry in an unflattering and unwarranted item on his media-industry blogsite, Gawker. In the process, he has violated Facebook's terms of use, and the social network's honchos are not amused. Gawker: Scientology claims copyright infringement over Tom Cruise video posted by Gawker.

Final 2007 Report: Magazine Ad Revenues Grow, Ad Pages Dip (Foilo:)
Total magazine rate-card-reported advertising revenue for consumer magazines grew 6.1 percent in 2007 when compared to 2006, according to year-end Publishers Information Bureau figures released this morning. But total ad pages — considered the more telling statistic, given the unaccounted rate card discounts doled out by publishers — declined about a half a percent (-0.6) over the same period.

Howe Named President of Sci Fi Channel (B&C)
Sci Fi Channel's Dave Howe was promoted to president after three years as executive vice president and general manager of the network. The new title gives him official oversight of all aspects of the channel, including programming, development, marketing, and branding.

NBCU Expands Out-of-Home Digital Ad Initiatives (TV Week)
NBC Universal announced two deals to expand its out-of-home digital video advertising business. Featuring short-form customized entertainment and news programming from NBC networks, shows, and personalities, the network is being sold to TV advertisers looking for another way to extend their on-air campaigns, as well as smaller and local advertisers that want to aim messages at specific geographic targets.

Writers Strike Doesn't Rate With Viewers (NYP)
January was supposed to be the month when the networks were to feel the full brunt of the writers' strike, but so far there's no evidence of a mass exodus from television. Two weeks after the networks resumed the regular season, the "strike effect" is lopsided at best. Awards season and scripted series are struggling, but sports and reality shows are picking up the slack.

Cosmo Kate (Forbes)
James Brady: Kate White, who runs Hearst's Cosmopolitan, proves you don't have to be neurotic, tyrannical, or subject to "the vapors" to edit a hot women's magazine. You are even permitted to wear Prada, as I'm sure White does on occasion, but it's not a requirement. She is one of the most successful, powerful, decisive, sensible, appealing, and non-driven magazine executives I know.

Harry Potter, Paperbacks Are Top Publishing Trends in 2007 (USAT)
The year 2007 saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows shatter publishing records. It was also a year in which a number of books that sold modestly in hardcover became blockbusters in trade paperback. That trend is expected to continue in 2008. "Trade paperbacks were huge, and I expect it to stay that way," says Cathy Langer of the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver.

Toy Companies Try to Shut Down Scrabulous on Facebook (AP via LAT)
The companies that make Scrabble are trying to shut down Scrabulous, an online version of the game that is one of the most popular applications on the social-networking Web site Facebook. Hasbro Inc., which owns the rights to the crossword game in the U.S. and Canada, and Mattel Inc., which owns the rights elsewhere, believe that the Facebook game infringes their copyrights and trademarks.

Should Nabokov's Son Destroy His Final Manuscript? (Slate)
Here is your chance to weigh in on one of the most troubling dilemmas in contemporary literary culture. It's the question of whether the last unpublished work of Vladimir Nabokov, which is now reposing unread in a Swiss bank vault, should be destroyed — as Nabokov explicitly requested before he died. It's a decision that has fallen to his sole surviving heir (and translator), Dmitri Nabokov, now 73.