♦ Gordon Gekko will live again: A sequel to Wall Street is in the works, although Michael Douglas has yet to sign on to the pic. [Variety]
♦ The downturn has been good for financial news sites: CNNMoney.com and BusinessWeek.com have both experience record growth. [WWD]
♦ The new issue of Rolling Stone is shorter…
♦ The TV Guide Channel is for sale if you happen to be looking for junky media properties to purchase this afternnon. [Variety]
♦ What's Tom Brokaw been up to? It seems he's been playing peacemaker with the McCain campaign on behalf of NBC News. [NYT]
♦ There are 336 magazines devoted to food and cooking, believe…
For vivid proof of the weakening dollar, look no further that the annual salary survey in the forthcoming issue of TV Guide: After two years of slumming alongside the likes of Zach Braff and seeing everyone from William Petersen ($600,000 per episode) to the Simpsons cast (each $400,000 per episode) pass him by,…
One more thing that the good people who run TV Guide have to worry about: Henry Yuen, the company's former CEO, is now officially a fugitive. He was charged with obstruction of justice last week for destroying documents that the SEC requested (in relation to an earlier conviction for securities fraud, natch), but he…
TV Guide, one of America's biggest magazines, was sold a few days ago. Now it's for sale again! Well, not the parts of the brand that have some actual value (the website and the cable program guides and on-demand technology). Rather, new owner Macrovision is looking for a sharp business entity that would like to…
The death of the quintessential TV listings magazine is a shabby affair. The rumor we floated yesterday-that editor-in-chief Ian Birch and other staff are being laid off-appears indeed to be true. The new owners, Macrovision, is thought only interested in the TV Guide's online and electronic program guides; the print…
Anyone have news on the bloodshed at TV Guide in the wake of the merger of its parent company? We're hearing editor-in-chief Ian Birch, executive editor Steve Sonsky and managing editor Lois Draegin have all been dismissed from the TV listings magazine, but no confirmation. Email tips.
• Bush summoned Sulzberger and Keller to Washington earlier this month in a last-ditch attempt to get them not to run the domestic-spying story, reports Jon Alter. [Newsweek]
• And, says Greg Mitchell, as the Times's handling of the domestic-spying story increasingly seems to be another major management fuckup at the…
On Tuesday, it was reported that girly celeb-ish television rag Inside TV was folding so that its publisher, Gemstar, could focus on the company's "considerable core assets." Gemstar also publishes TV Guide, but apparently that mag isn't included in the core assets: we hear that the company cut 6 staffers (running…
TV Guide, as we all know, is dying. No on needs a weekly magazine of TV listings any longer. Solution? As of April, it was: Launch Inside TV, a woman-oriented celebrity-ish mag.
• Are Men Necessary? is "a very odd, occasionally entertaining mish-mash of politics and sex, biology and Cosmopolitan-ology, gravity and wit, insight and carelessness." We don't care what it is; we'd just like to stop hearing about it. [NYO]
• And Maureen should go away for a while, too. [MW]
• Republican senators…
• Michael Kinsley likely to stop running Los Angeles Times editorial page. Displaying his legendarily razor-sharp analytic skills, Kinsley says: "This living in Seattle and editing the editorial page is not an ideal arrangement." [NYT]
• TV Guide to slash rate base, pull back on listings, increase lifestyle and…
