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NBC's Zucker Dismisses Sale Rumors (Reuters)
NBC Universal chief executive Jeff Zucker on Monday dismissed repeated rumors that the media company would be sold by parent General Electric. Speaking at an event in New York, Zucker said GE chief executive Jeff Immelt had been "very clear" about NBC Universal's role within the company. "He has said numerous times that NBCU is not for sale," Zucker said. "It is not for sale after the Olympics." TVNewser: NBC will be more of a player in the 18 months after Beijing than in the months leading up to it. The presidential election, the Super Bowl and the Vancouver Olympics are among the events to come. AP via USAT: Zucker confirms that Leno will be out as planned in 2009. Hollywood Reporter: The battle between NBC and Fox ratcheted up Monday when NBC chief Jeff Zucker waved aside Fox Business Network's chances of competing with CNBC, and Fox responded by firing back at Zucker.

Google Working on Its Own Version of Facebook (TechCrunch)
Google may have lost the bidding war to invest in Facebook, but it is preparing its own major assault on the social networking scene. It goes by the codename "Maka-Maka" inside the Googleplex (or, perhaps, "Makamaka"). Maka-Maka encompasses Google's grand plan to build a social layer across all of its applications. Maka-Maka will be unveiled in stages. The first peek will come in early November. Guardian: Clipstar.com, a social networking site styled as "The X Factor meets YouTube," launches today, offering users a $1 million prize for the best clip.

Taking Cue From Radiohead, Paste Introduces 'Pay What You Want' Subscriptions (MIN)
For the next two weeks, new subscribers and old readers can pay what they think an 11-issue, one-year subscription is worth, from a minimum of $1 to above and beyond the standard $19.95. Multiple subscriptions are allowed, and giving one as a gift is encouraged. In addition, anyone paying more than the standard price will be thanked in print, their names published in a future issue of Paste. Folio:: Apart from the accompanying buzz and potential press, the goal of the initiative is to generate new subscriptions as opposed to revenue. AdAge: The key findings for this two-week experiment will be whether or not the magazine is worth the full $20 to its loyal fan base — not to mention to the new readers who could potentially be lured by the prospect of paying a $1 for a year's worth of magazines and CDs.

AMC 2007: The Panels (FBNY)
In a panel entitled "How Publishing Companies Position Themselves for Growth: Best Bets for the 21st Century," it was panelist Wenda Harris Millard — a former Yahoo! executive now serving as president of media at Martha Stewart Omnimedia — who delivered the strongest words to magazine industry members. "There's no question in my mind that this is a revolution," she said to the crowd of online media. "There's no question that the consumer is way ahead of us." FBNY: ASME opens eight Ellie categories to online entrants. FBNY: Mag publishing "behind" on integrated marketing. FBNY: Adam Moss says of being EIC, "You get paid to be a dilettante." MIN: AMC soundbytes. Mediaweek: Leading publishing executives speaking at the conference warned that now is no time to be complacent. WWD: By Monday afternoon, Men's Health editor-in-chief David Zinczenko was still blithely torturing the English language both by pushing the term "magabrands" (despite an early onstage warning from Advertising Age editor-in-chief Jonah Bloom that he was boycotting it) and overindulging in puns.

AMC 2007: Content Providers Must Know Consumers 'Like We've Never Known Them Before' Says NBC Prez (FBNY)
In a slideshow-laden presentation that miraculously managed to keep AMC attendees' after-lunch attention today, NBC Universal Integrated Media president Beth Comstock advocated allowing consumers to govern all parts of the "viewser" — viewer+user — experience in her keynote talk, "What Magazines Can Learn From TV." Folio: Citing NBC research, Comstock said 72 percent of Internet users have streamed video at least once a month in the last year. "We're finding that workers are no longer taking cigarette breaks," Comstock said. "They're taking Internet breaks to catch up on the latest videos." AdAge: Personalization capabilities and new applications for video are likely to come soon as well, Ms. Comstock said. "If you look at what happened with music, video is following," she said.

AMC 2007: Dan Rather on the Presidential Race (FBNY)
"Senator Clinton and her staff are trying to create an aura of inevitability" among both voters and journalists to suggest that she's the Democratic frontrunner, the Dan Rather Reports anchor and managing editor pointed out, and "you'd better get on board." Still, he cautioned AMC attendees to "beware of the inevitability." Folio:: Rather said the press has not paid enough attention to Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

Reality Shows on Tap if Writers Strike (AP)
With Hollywood writers poised to log off their laptops as soon as Thursday, TV networks were bracing for the need to fill the airwaves with reality shows, game shows, and even reruns if a threatened strike devours their script inventory. Viewers could start seeing an onslaught of unscripted entertainment by early next year, when popular series such as Desperate Housewives and Heroes run out of new episodes.

Stahl on Sarko: 'There Was a Lot of Tension in the Room' (TVNewser)
The veteran 60 Minutes correspondent was five minutes into what she was promised would be a 45-minute sitdown with French president Nicolas Sarkozy. By the third question, which was about the state of his marriage, the French president abruptly got up and walked out. Stahl told TVNewser that only once before has someone walked out on one of her interviews: "Ross Perot. But he came back."

BBC to Introduce New Global Channels, U.S. On-Demand News Service (Guardian)
The BBC's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, will launch a further 30 channels internationally, as well as a high-definition outlet and an on-demand service in the United States, as part of the next stage of its aggressive expansion plan. The launches, which will be based on four thematic brands, come on top of 21 channels it already plans to launch before the end of this financial year.

Meet Arianna Huffington 2.0 (Fortune)
Before the launch of The Huffington Post in 2005, she was an easily caricatured Greek-born pundit and author who seemed to know everyone and have an opinion about everything. Nowadays, thanks in large measure to the growing chatter about The Huffington Post, she is gaining not just media cred but the kind that comes with being one of those few people who supposedly "gets" the Web.

AOL and MTV Making Sweet Music Together (NYP)
AOL and MTV Networks are unveiling new services that will allow consumers to search for and view the lyrics to popular songs. The initiatives are the latest examples of music publishers licensing the words to popular tunes for reproduction on Web sites and television. Yahoo! Music and Real Networks' Rhapsody have also launched industry-sanctioned music lyric offerings this year.

The Atlantic Celebrates 150 Years With Issue Full of 'Hideous Blather' (WaPo)
Peter Carlson: The award for over-the-top cliche-mongering [in the issue] goes to Greil Marcus, the world's most pretentious rock critic, who drones on about "people sacrificing their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to prove that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were at once genies that could never be put back in a bottle and a promise all Americans must keep for themselves."

Tribune, Gannett Team Up on Entertainment Web Sites (Reuters via LAT)
Tribune Co. and Gannett Co. said Monday that they were working on a joint venture to expand Tribune's Metromix local entertainment Web site network throughout the United States in a bid for more revenue from national advertisers. Metromix will be owned equally by Chicago-based Tribune and Gannett, based in McLean, Va. The companies did not disclose financial terms.

O'Reilly Sends Camera Crew to Harass Rosie (Page Six)
Bill O'Reilly has once again targeted Rosie O'Donnell, sending a cameraman and a field producer to her latest book signing on Long Island to taunt and tape her while she autographed copies. O'Donnell was taken aback when O'Reilly producer Jesse Watters interrupted her during the signing. "This is for Bill O'Reilly," said the producer. "He wants to know if you regret saying 9/11 was an inside job."

Turning Novel Ideas Into Inhabitable Worlds (WaPo)
Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk gave an impassioned political speech yesterday at Georgetown University about the "literary globalization of the world," outlining the way the novelist's imagination — when employed to evoke "the other, the stranger, the enemy that resonates inside each of our heads" — can be a powerful, liberating force.