Earlier this week, a rumor circulated that Time Inc. was considering buying celeb-slobbering money-losing OK! Magazine. Time decided not to. But a fellow money-losing enterprise is, for some reason!

Earlier this year, we heard rumors of a revolt brewing among dissatisfied employees at AMI, publisher of Star and The National Enquirer. This prompted every last AMI editor and executive to email us, insisting in the most strenuous terms that AMI is just fine! For example, Star editor Candace Trunzo (pictured, at left) wrote, "What revolt? This is a crock! Your source clearly has an axe to grind. At Star, we are committed to the magazine, AMI and most especially David. He is a superb leader!"

In your fleeting Wednesday media column: Robert Thomson is staying put, new offices for the HuffPo, ironic union troubles at Harper's, David Pecker is beloved without ever ordering anyone to love him, and A.J. Daulerio, profiled.

Yesterday we told you that a revolt may be brewing at National Enquirer publisher AMI, where employees are upset about furloughs, layoffs, and perceived management screw-ups following its recent bankruptcy. Did we get some feedback from AMI execs? Did we!

American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer and Star, is freshly emerged from bankruptcy, and already cutting costs with layoffs and mandatory unpaid furloughs. Now, we hear AMI's beleaguered employees are on the verge of total revolt.

Who: The CEO of the rather generic-sounding American Media Inc., Pecker oversees a collection of more than a dozen magazines and newspapers including the National Enquirer and Star. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in November 2010.

American Media, publisher of the National Enquirer and Star, has been working for over a year to wiggle out of its crushing debts without bankruptcy. It didn't work: the company will be declaring bankruptcy in the next two weeks. [NYP]

• The broadcast of Super Bowl XLIII generated solid results for NBC, even though ratings were down 6% from last year. [THR]
• Super Bowl commercial hits and misses. [AdAge, NYT, AdWeek, AdAge]
• NBC reports its Super Bowl spots generated $206 million. [B&C]
• A last-minute deal will allow David Pecker to keep AMI out of bankruptcy and he'll get to keep his job. But he'll now have a new board to deal with. [NYP]
• Michael Boodro is out as editor of Martha Stewart Living. [NYP]
• Is Vibe in trouble? [Gawker]
• David Carr on the problems plaguing Condé Nast. [NYT]
• Fox's Taken was No. 1 at the box office this weekend. [THR]

National Enquirer and Star publisher American Media has, for all practical purposes, gone bust. Although they left enough wiggle room to declare a successful non-bankruptcy!

The National Enquirer and Star could theoretically be out of business within weeks, what with publisher American Media facing a creditor takeover or even bankruptcy.

• David Pecker's magazine empire may avoid bankruptcy after all. [NYP]
• The mood is expected to be bleak when Sundance kicks off next week. [WSJ]
• Discovery has signed Paula Zahn to create a weekly news show. [THR]
• An op-ed and podcast by Bono in the Times will debut on Sunday. [JR]
• Three more Politicker sites have been shuttered. [Jossip]
• The spring issue of Men's Vogue will be bound inside Vogue. [WWD]
• Katie Couric chats about feminism, Hillary, and the future of TV news. [CNP]

Is AMI going to go bankrupt? Nooooooooo! Do you know what that would mean: trouble for the new zombie version of Radar.com! Keith Kelly reports this morning that AMI, which publishes Star and the National Enquirer in addition to zombie Radar, missed a deadline on an interest payment and is "feverishly negotiating" with its lenders. How can you publish the National Enquirer in its finest year ever and still be coming up short of cash? We blame Bonnie Fuller, a little bit.

♦ Alan Colmes, the "liberal" who supposedly serves as co-host of Hannity & Colmes with Sean Hannity, is leaving the Fox News program at the end of the year. [HuffPo]
♦ A daily news program hosted by Christiane Amanpour is in the works at CNN. [NYT]
♦ Despite screwing up nearly everything he touches, NBC golden boy Ben Silverman may see his contract renewed in the next few weeks. [NYM]
♦ USA Today has announced plans to cut staff. [E&P]
♦ Twilight was No. 1 at the box office this weekend, raking in $70.5 mil. [LAT]
♦ Forbes is not being sold to a shady Russian billionaire. [SAI]

♦ Election returns may set TV viewing records tonight, assuming there's some "suspense." [AP]
♦ What's been on cable news channels all day? Mindless talk and speculation, for the most part. [TV Decoder]
♦ It's possible the networks will call the election before the polls close. [THR]
♦ Some of the high-tech wizardry in store tonight: CNN plans to feature 3D "holographic images" of the network's remote correspondents in its New York studio. [WSJ]
♦ More trouble for tabloid kingpin David Pecker: John Miller, AMI's chief operating officer, has resigned. [NYP]

As rumored, AMI has bought the website RadarOnline.com, just as the print version of Radar folds. That, incongruously, puts the site under the same corporate umbrella as the celebrity mags Star and the National Enquirer, which may now become off-limits for mockery. The site will be "relaunched" in 2009. Judging from the tone of the press release alone, the site may well be repositioned to be far more credulous in its celebrity coverage, and consequently less funny. The effect on the RadarOnline staff is not clear yet; we'll fill in details as they come. Full press release from AMI below: American Media Inc. and Integrity Multimedia Company form joint venture to launch a new and enhanced RadarOnline web site

• According to Nielsen, John McCain's acceptance speech at the RNC was watched by more people than Obama's speech last week. [TVWeek]

• Temasek, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, has "great confidence" in Merrill CEO John Thain. [Bloomberg]

• David Pecker's magazine conglomerate, AMI, may be turned over creditors. [NYP]

It looks like American Media didn't cut its $2.4-million-per-year editorial chief Bonnie Fuller fast enough: the tabloid publisher is reportedly nearly broke, desperately trying to raise money before a bunch of junk bonds come due in February. Granted, those bonds are worth $415 million, so Fuller's salary is only a sliver of the problem, but had Fuller delivered on hopes she could improve Star and National Enquirer enough to beat back competitors like Us Weekly and People perhaps the situation might not be so bleak. The company's worth has fallen by half in seven months, and its private equity owners will likely give up equity to keep it going. Perhaps some sort of juicy scandal will come along to breathe some life into the firm! [Post]

• Clay Felker, the founding editor of New York, has died at 80. [NYM]