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Times Drops TimesSelect Pay Wall (NYT)
The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight Tuesday night. The move comes two years to the day after the Times began the subscription program, TimesSelect, which has charged $49.95 a year, or $7.95 a month, for online access to the work of its columnists and to the newspaper's archives.

Us Weekly Slapped With $55M Suit by Former Staffer (Jossip)
Jann Wenner, Janice Min, Ken Baker, and Wenner Media proper are being hit with a $55 million lawsuit today filed by former Us Weekly staffer Jill Ishkanian. In court papers, Ishkanian — who left the magazine and went on to form the paparazzi agency Sunset Photo and News — alleges her former bosses went on the attack after her departure, trying to sully her reputation. Page Six: Ishkanian also claims Us Weekly was behind an FBI raid on the agency last year when she and her boyfriend were held at gunpoint as G-men searched her computer for data she supposedly took illegally from Us Weekly. No charges were filed.

Ex-HBO Boss to Head Global Media for IMG (LAT)
As head of global media for IMG, former HBO chief executive Chris Albrecht plans to generate programming based on the firm's existing sports and fashion-industry properties and build a U.S. distribution network. But he also may produce broadcast and digital entertainment akin to what he did for HBO, where he helped create such monster hits as Sex and the City and The Sopranos.

CBS Screening Kid Nation for Schools (Variety)
CBS is taking its marketing message for Kid Nation directly to the show's target audience: kids. Without fanfare, net has set up screenings of its controversial reality show at a number of elementary schools around the country. Students, parents, and teachers have been invited to screenings set up by local CBS stations in major markets such as Miami, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, and Denver.

USAT's Neuharth on Blogs: 'Interesting Bullshit' (Portfolio)
"What bothers me about bloggers is there's a growing sentiment that maybe the government should exercise some control over them. I'm totally opposed to that," said Al Neuharth. He likens today's bloggers to the pamphleteers whose incendiary writing helped bring about the American Revolution. But he has no interest in joining their ranks. "I use the Internet to retrieve information, not to peddle information or gossip." E&P: Neuharth took The Wall Street Journal to task for printing nothing in today's paper about his 25-year success story. Still, he was glad to praise soon-to-be-Journal owner Rupert Murdoch, saying later at his table that "Rupert's the smartest media guy on earth."

Media Squeeze More Juice Out of OJ (WaPo)
In the media encampment outside the Regional Justice Center in Nevada's largest city, dozens of journalists, with camera crews and satellite trucks in tow, staked out their turf yesterday. The atmosphere quickly took on the air of a reunion. "OJ Three!" CBS radio correspondent Steve Futterman cried when he spotted NBC reporter George Lewis standing on the courthouse steps. NYT: TMZ paid cash for audio of the OJ incident.

Bewkes Keeping Closer Eye on AOL (NYP)
AOL's announcement that it was moving its headquarters to New York City is as much about being closer to Time Warner CEO-in-waiting Jeff Bewkes as it is about being near Madison Avenue. What Time Warner does with the online unit is an issue expected to loom large over Bewkes, Time Warner's chief operating officer who is widely seen as succeeding Dick Parsons as CEO of the media giant. NYT: The change speaks to how much the digital world has evolved since America Online emerged in the 1990s as a dominant Internet provider. Fortune: Time to break up Time Warner?

Fox Responds to Outcry Over Emmy Censorship (LAT)
Fox said that it bleeped out comments in three parts of the show because they could have been considered offensive. "Some language during the live broadcast may have been considered inappropriate by some viewers," the network said. "As a result, Fox's broadcast standards executives determined it appropriate to drop sound (and picture) during those portions of the show."

WGA Talks Hold Little Optimism (Variety)
With Writers Guild of America contract negotiations set to resume Wednesday, the saber-rattling is growing louder and the public posturing more pointed. There's little optimism that Hollywood's scribes will reach a deal with studios and networks by the Oct. 31 expiration of the WGA contract. Most expect that the guild won't strike at that point but rather tell its members to keep working under terms of the expired deal.

Olbermann Recovering From Appendectomy (TV Week)
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann was still hospitalized Monday after undergoing an emergency appendectomy Friday. Olbermann's appendix apparently ruptured Wednesday, but he wrote it off as a stomach ailment and soldiered on. Though still feeling ill, he nonetheless reported for work Thursday night, when he anchored MSNBC's analysis of President Bush's prime-time address on the war in Iraq.

Union at WSJ Faulted (NYP)
Dow Jones' union president has come under intense fire from one of his top negotiators, who accused him of stripping the union of its negotiating power. E.S. "Jim" Browning, a reporter at The Wall Street Journal and the head of the negotiating committee, claims that IAPE President Steve Yount seriously eroded the union's bargaining power in putting together a new proposal over the weekend.

Google to Sell Web-Page Ads Visible on Mobile Phones (NYT)
In another step to extend its dominance of online advertising, Google said Monday that it would begin selling ads on Web pages that are viewed on cellphones. The company said that its new product, AdSense for Mobile, would establish a cellphone advertising network in which Google would match ads with the content of mobile Web pages, much as it does online.

CNBC's Innovative HD Play (LAT)
Financial news network CNBC will launch a high-definition service this fall in an innovative fashion: by grabbing its existing 4:3 picture, shifting it to the left, and filling the widescreen frame with a bevy of 3D graphics displaying the latest market metrics. The new network, branded CNBC HD+, will initially be carried by DirecTV as part of its dramatic expansion of HD channels.

Times Mag Editor: 'I Am Not Exactly Running For Cover' (Folio:)
Dylan Stableford: While diversifying revenues may be the result, the launches of both Page Six: The Magazine and the WSJ's Pursuits represent a clear shot across the bow by Murdoch at the New York Times and its Sunday magazines. The papers are going after luxury advertising — a large and growing category that does much of its spending in magazines.

MySpace to Discuss Latest Effort to Customize Ads for Members (NYT)
The Web's largest social network and one of the most trafficked sites on the Internet says that after experimenting with technology over the last six months, it can tailor ads to the personal information that its 110 million active users leave on their profile pages. Executives at Fox Interactive Media, the News Corp. unit that owns MySpace, will begin speaking about the results of that program this week.

Rosie Disses Oprah (Page Six)
Insiders say Oprah Winfrey wanted to have Rosie O'Donnell on her show to talk about O'Donnell's book, Celebrity Detox, which bashes Barbara Walters, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Donald Trump, and others. But while many would kill to be on Oprah's program, which sells books by the boatload, O'Donnell declined. "She's doing an interview with Diane Sawyer instead," our spy said.