• ABC is scrambling to find advertisers for the Oscars. [AdWeek]
• The New York Times takes a delicate look at Carlos Slim Helú today, the media mogul who also happens to have bailed out the paper last month. [NYT]
• Sam Donaldson is retiring from ABC News next week. [WP]
• Tina Brown's advice to young journalism students: Go to India. [HuffPo]
• BlackBook is cutting staff and reducing its frequency to stay afloat. [P6]
• Tim and Nina Zagat are launching a Zagat guide for doctors. [NYT]
• Friday the 13th was No. 1 at the box office this weekend. [THR]
• Alfred A. Knopf Jr. died over the weekend at the age of 90. [NYT]
• Project Runway may return to the air later this year. [WWD]

Take note, beleaguered Wall Streeters: Your girlfriend may have left you (now that you're unemployed) and your therapist may no longer be taking your calls (now that you're no longer paying your bills), but there's at least one person out there who wants to hear all about your troubles: Michael Moore! The filmmaker says he's currently looking for "a few brave people who work on Wall Street" to interview for his upcoming documentary on the financial meltdown. Hey, it's not like you have anything better to do, right? [NYT]

• Viacom reported a 69 percent drop in its fourth-quarter profit today. [NYT]
• Vibe is cutting back to 10 issues a year and merging its print and digital operations. It's also slashing pay and adopting a four-day workweek. [AdAge]
• Sirius XM is looking to sell the company to Liberty Media in order to fend off a takeover by satellite entrepreneur Charles Ergen. [WSJ, NYT]
• Paul Allen's Charter Communications may file Chapter 11 by April. [THR]
• Scene from Domino's death party last night. [Gawker]
• Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds will hit theaters this August. [RB]

• Magazine newsstand sales tumbled during the second half of 2008. [NYT]
• The Grammys were seen by an estimated 19.1 million people last night. [AP]
• The Times reports on the Times's recent troubles, conveniently concluding the paper's "positioned itself well to ride out another year of recession." [NYT]
• Steve Brill has a few thoughts on how the Times can save itself. [Poynter]
• Not surprisingly, SI is milking every last dollar out if its swimsuit issue. [WSJ]
• Following the news last week that Universal and DreamWorks were parting ways, Disney announced today it would distribute DreamWorks's films. [THR]
• Jim Cramer's ratings are up; his stock picks are as lousy as ever. [Barron's]
• A Queens hairstylist is suing the Daily News after the paper accidentally identified her as "Manhattan Madam" Kristin Davis. Twice. [Regret the Error]

Headband-loving socialite Arden Wohl's short film, Two Other Dreams, premiered this past weekend. What's it about, you ask? "Drugs, strange spirituality, co-dependency between female friends," and, uh, necrophilia, which means it probably won't be appearing on cable in the near future. Luckily, the film will be on display at APF Lab until February 28th, so there's still time for necrophiliacs to take in the masterpiece before it disappears forever. [NYM]

Jean Doumanian, the film producer who may be best known for feuding with former business partner Woody Allen several years ago, has a new project in the works. Her production company has acquired the stage and film rights to Mitchell Zuckoff's 2005 book, Ponzi's Scheme, which details the life and times of Charles Ponzi, the charlatan who made off with millions in the 1920s. Naturally, Doumanian thinks the timing is just right for a tale of greed and financial fraud: "The whole ambiance of Boston in the '20s before the Depression has great parallels with what we're seeing today with Madoff and our terrible recession-depression." Presumably she'll have plenty of personal material to draw on, too. When Woody Allen filed suit against her several years ago, he alleged that she and her husband had been providing him with false financial records and had used shady accounting tactics to cheat him out of millions.

• 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]

Armin Amiri's Socialista was shuttered last month, the result of a crackdown by the Department of Health, a hang-up over the club's liquor license, and, according to Amiri, a lack of enthusiasm on the part of his investors, who include Harvey Weinstein and Sting. The good news? Socialista's closing will give Amiri more time to focus on his acting career! He says he's already landed a part in a new movie called The Imperialists Are Still Alive. Given the amount of money that was invested in Socialista and eventually lost, we're going to go ahead and assume The Weinstein Company won't be producing. [NYO]

• Martha Stewart has sold a third of her shares in her eponymous media company. But she's still as anal as ever around the office. [NYP, Gawker]
• Bill Kristol's New York Times column has come to an end. [NYT]
• Fashion and beauty magazines will see a 22 percent decline in advertising pages during the first three months of the year. [WWD]
• Doubledown Media, the publisher of Trader, is reportedly up for sale. [NYP]
• Conde Nast is reorganizing its web division. [MW]
• Moody's has downgraded New York Times Co. debt to junk status. [NYP]
• A long Q&A between Lesley Stahl and Rachel Maddow. [Wow]
• Sundance ended yesterday without a big sale. [NYT]
• Once again, Paul Blart: Mall Cop was No. 1 at the box office. [THR]

Eric Roth has a lot to be thankful about. The award-winning writer of Forrest Gump and Munich, this morning Roth was nominated for an Oscar for his adaptation of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The bad news? Whatever money he made from Benjamin Button—or any of his other movies—is long gone. In late December, Roth revealed that he'd lost "all his retirement money" to Bernie Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Now Roth has filed suit against Stanley Chais, the LA-based money manager who helped collect an estimated $250 million for Madoff. So if Roth ends up winning on Oscar night and his acceptance speech strikes you as a little overly emotional (or you're just outraged that Button won), you should probably cut him a little slack.

We'll excuse you if you forgot that the Sundance Film Festival is taking place right now. Whether it's because of the recession or those scene-stealers in Washington who've been hogging the spotlight this week, this year's fest will likely go down as one of the most low-profile in recent memory. The first batch of events this past weekend turned out to be a disappointment to celeb spotters (unless you count the occasional glimpse of people like Denise Richards and Ron Jeremy, that is). And the situation didn't improve yesterday when Park City turned into a ghost town as important people jumped on jets to head to Washington and the less fortunate had to make do with watching the historic event on TV. (Pity the photogs: The dearth of A-listers, reports VF, sent "errant packs of TMZ reporters scrambling for a celebrity sighting that was nowhere to be had.")

If you're waiting anxiously for the Tucker Max movie release, you can look forward to this too: Jersey gossip Chaunce Hayden (pictured) has written a movie about stripper palace Scores. He sent us a summary!

• Scribner won the non-race to publish Laura Bush's memoir. [AP]
• The Times is now selling ads on the front page of the paper. [NYT]
• Movie ticket sales totaled $9.6 bil. in 2008, down 1 percent from '07. [NYT]
• Is HuffPo worth $200 million? Not so much, says Simon Dumenco. [AdAge]
• Publishing companies are cutting perks, in case you haven't heard. [NYT]
• Howard Kurtz profiles Liz Claman, who left CNBC for Fox. [WaPo]
• Michael Phelps will now be pitching Mazdas in China. [Bloomberg]
• Marley & Me was No. 1 at the box office for a second week. [THR]

• For the first time in 12 years, FedEx is skipping the Super Bowl. [AdWeek]
• Another gloomy sign for NBC as the Super Bowl approaches: The network is allowing an agency to divide up 30-second commercials. [THR]
• GQ's cover featuring a half-nude Jennifer Aniston seems to be too risqué for the Hudson News outlet in Grand Central Terminal. [Folio]
• SAG has delayed voting on a potential strike until at least January 14. [EW]
• Ticket sales have tumbled since Jeremy Piven ditched Speed-the-Plow. [AP]

We hope you're satisfied, Nora Ephron: Because of romantic comedies, people have unrealistic and unhealthy expectations of their own love lives, according to a new study. Films like Sleepless in Seattle and Serendipity promote the idea of a perfect love that's fated to happen, in contrast to real life, where apparently the universe doesn't conspire to bring two wholesome and lovelorn individuals together after a variety of amusing mishaps culminating in a run through the rain/car chase to the airport. "If you think that's how things are," says Dr. Bjarne Holmes, who led the study, "you are setting yourself up to be disappointed." Although not quite as disappointed, perhaps, as the teenage Twilight fans destined never to find a boyfriend who can fly and live forever.

The nine-year-old who self-published, then actually published, a 46-page book about how to talk to girls (he compared us to cars that need lots of oil, and we hope he isn't talking about what we think he is) just sold the movie rights to Fox, who thought it would make a fine movie. Maybe starring Robin Williams as the nine-year-old? Then there's the twelve-year-old, who was mouthing baby food only a few years earlier, who fancies himself a food critic (“Softish jazz music. Seem to enjoy kids but not overly") whose film rights were acquired by SNL's Lorne Michaels. Well, goody for them! Brats. Trend alert: only precocious kids need apply for book-to-movie success for the next few months. And yes, we would be happy to show you an excerpt!

Every major media enterprise is looking to cut costs these days. One way film studios can consider trimming some fat: By replacing really expensive actors (like Penelope Cruz) with much cheaper alternatives (Paz Vega), who look similar enough that the audience will barely notice the difference. [Empire via Buzzfeed]

♦ The Tribune Co. is now hovering dangerously close to bankruptcy. [NYT]
♦ Media companies have let 30,000 people go thus far this year. [AdAge]
♦ Christie Hefner is stepping down as CEO of Playboy. [Bloomberg]
♦ It's now official: David Gregory is the new host of Meet the Press. [NYT]
♦ The New York Times Co. says it plans to borrow $225 million against the value of its new office building to "ease a potential cash flow squeeze." [NYT]
♦ More on the changes to NBC's executive ranks last week. [Variety]
♦ Ad agencies are bracing for a round of deep cost cuts. [NYP]
♦ Wowowow.com, the site featuring writing by the likes of Liz Smith and Lesley Stahl, has raised $1.5 million from Bob Pittman, among others. [NYP]
♦ Four Christmases was No. 1 at the box office this weekend for a second week in a row. [Reuters]

New York Times reporter David Carr's alter-ego the Carpetbagger has come out to offer movie analysis in the long, loooong runup to Oscar season, which seems to last for approximately four months. Now, it isn't that these year's movies are bad; they're "solid efforts. And all the other things you would say to a shiny class of first graders who are all very special in their own ways." However, they're all the same, he argues.

The Tribeca Film Festival was founded to help New York bounce back after the deadly attacks of Sept. 11th. That was all well and good, except for the fact that the fest never managed to turn a profit, much to the chagrin of the festival's founders, Jane Rosenthal, Craig Hatkoff and Robert De Niro, who had established the annual event as a moneymaking enterprise, not as a not-for-profit like, say, Sundance or the Toronto Film Festival. Last year, the trio raised ticket prices and trimmed the lineup, an effort designed to stem the flow of red ink. But it seems the three have figured out a new way to boost the fest's fortunes: They're taking the franchise to the Middle East.