Prepare yourself for a yarn from the high seas that's so exciting and dangerous it makes Jaws look like fucking Babe. This maritime drama stars none other than Simon Cowell, a British man known mostly for being mean to amateur singers on musical game shows. The setting: Cowell's yacht off the coast of St. Tropez. Are…
Litigious recluse and Deadline.com founder Nikki Finke has escalated her tiresome war with The Hollywood Reporter—her boss Jay Penske is suing THR's parent company for copyright infringement, for allegedly stealing code. But that's kind of boring! So they dressed up the lawsuit in a whole bunch of other fun, utterly…
Another day, another wacky survey classifying you based on what TV you watch. This one was done by the new (!) and improved (?) Hollywood Reporter and pertains solely to late night shows. What does your show say about you?
In your crowdsourced Monday media column: The Huffington Post covers the hell out of Arianna Huffington; Janice Min refuses to be spoon fed; and the New York Times lets NYU students loose on its blog.
• Nielsen has concluded a deal to sell handful of trade titles like The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard to a consortium of investors that includes Jimmy Finkelstein and Guggenheim Partners. Rupert Murdoch's son Lachlan was once part of the investor group, but ended up dropping out. [AdWeek, NYP, LAT]
• Nielsen also…
The New York Post and Paid Content report that Nielsen Communications' $70 million sale of The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, and other trades to an investor group is done, but that Lachlan Murdoch dropped out at the last minute.
• Lou Dobbs is leaving CNN! Tonight's his last show! Happy Wednesday! [NYT]
• Condé Nast magazines have lost a collective 8,359 pages of advertising in 2009, which represents a 31 percent decline from a year earlier. [NYT]
• One thing that Hearst has going for it: lots of cash in the bank. [NYP]
• Banker-turned-media…
• Rumor has it Condé Nast isn't going to shutter several of its money-losing magazines like Details and Teen Vogue, after all. But the budget review that's taken place in recent weeks seems to have "scared fiscal responsibility into some of the highest-rolling titles at the glitzy empire." This means Graydon Carter…
• Glenn Beck is Time magazine's cover boy this week, sadly. [Time, HuffPo]
• Spike Lee and Robert De Niro are teaming up with Showtime "to develop a drama series about Manhattan's Alphabet City." [THR]
• Twitter is now worth $1 billion, believe it or not. [TechCrunch]
• Nikki Finke hears that Variety is planning to…
We're Tarantino fans for sure, but a WWII movie about Nazi-killing Jews? We're a little skeptical, and the critics aren't helping our confusion.
Yesterday, the first reviews of Judd Apatow's Funny People started to trickle out from the major film critics. How'd it do? Well...
• Monthly mags continue to suffer: Ad pages have dropped by 23 percent on average, although the situation is particularly dire at Condé Nast. [NYP]
• Maureen Dowd landed in a bit of hot water after it was revealed she'd "borrowed" from blogger Josh Marshall for her op-ed column yesterday. She's since offered a…
There's not much fun to be had watching The Hollywood Reporter implode, but a morsel in today's Page Six does offer a puzzling clue as to what might be responsible. Hint: It's not the economy.
More bloodshed from the Doomsday trenches: Nikki Finke has word that "as much as half of the Hollywood Reporter staff" faces downsizing today, with TV writers Barry Garron and Kimberly Nordyke already pink-slipped alongside editors Harley Lond and Randee Cohen. And a tipster just sent a memo confirming that People…
"I always feel like something of an impostor," Jodie Foster said at this week's Hollywood Reporter 'Women in Entertainment Power 100' breakfast this week. Says the AP: "Foster characterized herself as a 'professional' and a 'gentleman.'" Really? What else, Clarice? "I don't know what I'm doing... I suppose that's…
The Hollywood Reporter has chosen former Variety editor-at-large Elizabeth Guider as its new editor. How does spitemeistress Nikki Finke rate the hire? "[A] joke... an unimpressive choice who sources tell me was passed over and demoted at Variety... [THR] was looking for a softball editor, someone who wouldn't ruffle…
