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Ellie Awards Nominations Announced (FishbowlNY)
The American Society of Magazine Editors has named this year's Ellie Awards nominees. The New Yorker received 12 nominations overall (including one for General Excellence). New York again was received in high esteem, with nine nominations (last year the mag won five awards). Mediaweek: Others receiving multiple nominees included Vanity Fair, receiving six; GQ and National Geographic, each getting five; and The Atlantic, Popular Mechanics, T, The New York Times Style Magazine, The Virginia Quarterly Review and Wired, each getting three. FishbowlNY: Chow.com EIC says "We're the No Country for Old Men of the group." FishbowlNY: If National Magazine Award nominations are any indication, Radar version 3.0 could be sticking around for some time. Editor Maer Roshan gave his thoughts on the honor, the value of perseverance, and continuing to come into the office. Portfolio: Hachette Filipacchi Media also got its first nomination, not quite ever, but in a very long time, with Elle named a finalist in the essays category. The last nomination for a Hachette title was in 2000, for the now-defunct Premiere. WWD: Some individual finalists were the usual suspects — this year, Christopher Hitchens was nominated for columns and commentary in Slate, having won last year for commentary in Vanity Fair, while The New Yorker's Louis Menand was nominated for the fifth time.

NBC, CBS Shopping Sundance Channel (NYP)
The Sundance Channel, the cable network spawned from Robert Redford's eponymous annual film festival, is up for sale. Investment bank UBS has been quietly shopping the network and is "down the road with a few key buyers," according to a source close to the situation, who added that a deal should be wrapped up "in a few weeks."

Hundred-Million-Dollar Racketeering Complaint Filed Against Metro Newspapers (NYO)
Lawyers for Daniel Magnus, the former publisher of free-sheet newspaper Metro New York, have filed an amended complaint in New York's Southern District Court charging the media company with racketeering. Magnus first filed suit against his former employers in February, claiming that he was owed severance and bonus pay; now he's amended the complaint to add RICO violations.

Zucker on Why Niche Is No Good for NBC (AdAge)
Broadcast-network TV's place in the media landscape is changing, acknowledged NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker this morning, and as such, consumers can probably expect less scripted fare, but more shows aimed at reaching broad swaths of audience. "I do think there will be a broadcast network in 10 years. But it will not be like the broadcast network of 1975," said Zucker.

Content Overload: NYmag.com Redesign (FishbowlNY)
NYmag.com didn't get the General Excellence Online Ellie nomination it wanted, but it did get a redesign. We, for once, agree with Denton — too busy. How are we ever going to find the Lohan photos?

College Gossip Site Under Scrutiny (AP)
New Jersey prosecutors have subpoenaed records of JuicyCampus.com, a Web site that publishes anonymous, often malicious gossip about college students. Language on the site ranges from catty to hateful and offensive. One thread, for example, on the "most overrated Princeton student" quickly dissolves into name-calling, homophobia, and anti-Semitism.

Law & Order Faces a Libel Case (NYT/City Room)
Ravi Batra, a Manhattan lawyer, filed a lawsuit in 2004 against Dick Wolf, the creator of the television series, arguing that the plot of a November 2003 episode included an unsavory character, Ravi Patel, who is modeled on Batra. In a decision made public on Wednesday, Justice Marilyn Shafer of State Supreme Court in Manhattan rejected a motion by Wolf's lawyers to dismiss the lawsuit.

British Papers Blunder in Missing Girl Case (NYT)
The headline, splashed across the front page of The Daily Express on Wednesday, could not have been clearer or more jarring. "Kate and Gerry McCann: Sorry," it said. The paper indeed had something to be sorry about. In the ensuing article, it admitted that much of its coverage of the case of 4-year-old Madeleine McCann, who disappeared during a family vacation in Portugal last May, was dead wrong.

Mag Bucks for Celeb Tots (NYDN)
We're headed into a bumper season of baby buggies. Halle Berry welcomed daughter Nahla last Sunday, the day after Jennifer Lopez prepped month-old moppets Max and Emme for their first photo shoot. While J.Lo's love don't cost a thing, the snaps of her duplicate darlings sure do. Estimates run from $4 million to $6 million for the cover shoot that hit People.com at 7 a.m. this morning.

Luxury SpaFinder Folds Print Pub, Transitions Online (FishbowlNY)
SpaFinder Inc. has announced that it will shutter Luxury SpaFinder, its bimonthly publication, after the July edition. In its place, the company will produce Luxury Spafinder Interactive, a monthly Web magazine published in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

Company Promises the Deepest Data Mining Yet (NYT)
Amid debate over how much data companies like Google and Yahoo should gather about people who surf the Web, one new company is drawing attention by boasting that it will collect the most complete information of all. The company, called Phorm, has created a tool that can track every single online action of a given consumer, based on data from that person's Internet service provider. NYT: A push to limit the tracking of Web surfers' clicks.

Lame Duck Reporters Bored With Bush (Politico)
Several White House correspondents describe a scene in the press room where one might expect tumbleweeds lazily blowing across the finely manicured lawn on Pennsylvania Avenue. Fewer reporters attend daily briefings, and both foreign and domestic travel budgets for many news organizations have been scaled back in the past year.

Lauer Will 'Brace for the Worst' at Friars Roast (AP via IHT)
Matt Lauer must have really thick skin. The Today show co-anchor will be the center of attention — and the target of insults and general humiliation — at a Friars Club celebrity roast Oct. 24. Things could get ugly: The Roastmaster is Lauer's longtime colleague and friend Al Roker, who knows him as well as anyone.

FCC Schedules Second Public Hearing on Network Neutrality (Portfolio)
Despite earlier equivocations, the Federal Communications Commission has said it will hold a second public hearing on network neutrality following last month's botched public session at Harvard, at which cable giant Comcast paid people to take up space. The FCC said this morning that a new "en banc" hearing will take place at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, on Thursday, April 17.

Knight Foundation Gives $25 Million to Newseum (WaPo)
The Knight Foundation is giving $25 million to the Newseum, the mammoth facility dedicated to the history of news that opens in D.C. next month. The gift, the largest single donation from a news institution to the museum, will be commemorated with the naming of two broadcast studios and a conference center for John S. and James L. Knight, the brothers who founded Knight Newspapers.

Why the Golden Age of Celebrity Gossip Is Grinding to an End (Salon)
Rebecca Traister: In the past decade, the rag trade has exploded, bringing vaguely shameful joy to millions of transatlantic travelers, subway commuters, grocery store shoppers, and those languishing in doctors' offices. But now it seems a confluence of events has changed the manner in which America gobbles its vapid information about celebrities.