Oprah Winfrey's cable channel OWN won't even be on your television until January and it's already making all kinds of news, including a double-down on its investment and its very first lawsuit—for discrimination, of all things.
Execs at Discovery Communications, the media conglomerate fronting the money for Oprah Winfrey's upcoming OWN network, said they budgeted $100 million to launch it, but that still won't be enough. And yet for Oprah $100 million is like pocket change!
• Prepare to enter the third dimension. ESPN plans to launch a 3D channel in June. And Discovery, Imax and Sony are teaming up on a 3D channel, too.
• Has Kathy Griffin been banned from CNN following her risqué performance alongside Anderson Cooper on New Year's Eve? Maybe yes, maybe no.
• Newsday is cutting pay and…
• NBC is pulling out all the stops to promote Jay Leno's new show. Don't believe it? Try this out for size: "In early September, NBC will even adopt a portion of Interstate 10 in California to reiterate Mr. Leno's time slot." [NYT]
• Notwithstanding the Leno blitz, NBC is still looking to cut its budget. [NYT]
• No…
• Esquire, The New Yorker, Backpacker, and Wired were all big winners at last night's National Magazine Awards, although the mood was much more subdued this year, not surprisingly. [ NYT, WWD, NYP]
• Portfolio's Joanne Lipman reflects on what went wrong. [Newsweek]
• Hollywood might be on track for its best year ever…
Discovery Communications, the owner of cable channels like FitTV and Animal Planet, is suing Amazon.com, maker of the Kindle, over an electronic-books patent taken out by its founder and CEO, John Hendricks, years ago.
Ever heard of Uber.com? Join the club. But the Los Angeles-based social networking startup now says it's a victim of "the crisis in the economy." Investors like Discovery Communications and Universal Music Group, which sunk up to $7.6 million in the social network-turned-publishing platform, want what's left of their…
How much would you pay for a viral-video site which some have charged with stealing clips? Depends on who you ask. eBaum's World has just sold for $15 million. Or is it $17 million? Or $67.5 million? HandHeld Entertainment, the San Francisco-based developer of the ZVUE portable media player, has agreed to shell out…
Blogs continue to sell — but blog valuations are staying modest. Discovery Communications, the cable-and-online media company, has bought enviro blog TreeHugger for a reported $10 million. With nearly 2 million unique visitors, that means Discovery paid a very modest $5 per "eyeball" — the unpleasant…
