hearst

Esquire Is Getting Nervous

Hamilton Nolan · 04/16/09 11:31AM

Esquire's ad revenue dropped 22% in the first quarter, which actually put it above average. But we hear that the magazine's staff, and its corporate overlords, are on edge. There was a meeting yesterday [UPDATED]...

Amazon's Scandal, MSNBC's New Show & More Layoffs

cityfile · 04/13/09 11:32AM

• Amazon.com is in the hot seat for stripping gay and lesbian books of their sales rankings, something the bookseller is now calling a "glitch." [EW, WSJ]
• MSNBC is reportedly in the process of developing a weekend political show to be moderated by chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd. [NYO]
• More bad news for barely-living BlackBook: its longtime fashion director is out. And Jann Wenner's marketing chief is leaving Wenner Media. [WWD]
• Alpha Media has laid off a handful of employees at Maxim, including deputy editor Chris Wilson and editor-at-large Steve Garbarino. [NYO]
• Magazines are looking to raise subscription rates to save themselves. [NYT]

A Deadline for the Globe, A Columnist Gets the Boot

cityfile · 04/06/09 11:19AM

• The New York Times Co. says it will shut down the Boston Globe within a month unless the paper's unions agree to $20 million in concessions. [BN]
• Fox News gossip columnist Roger Friedman got axed after he reviewed a pirated version of Fox's new X-Men movie, Wolverine. [DHD, NYT]
Vanity Fair is scrapping its annual "green issue." [Independent]
• Michelle Obama may be beloved by the media world, but she isn't a sure thing when it comes to selling magazines on newsstands, apparently. [AdAge]
Playboy's former fashion director is suing the mag for discrimination. [NYP]
• Hearst's Country Living is launching a line of products. [MW]
• Michael Crichton died last November, but two more novels by the best-selling author will be published over the next year and a half. [NYT]
Eliot Spitzer was on the Today show this morn, in case you missed it. [Jossip]
Fast & Furious was No. 1 at the box office this past weekend. [THR]

Times Readers to the Rescue, Spitzer to the Today Show

cityfile · 04/03/09 11:34AM

Bill Keller says that New York Times readers have offered to donate money to keep the paper alive, which is both very sad and very sweet. [Politico, NYP]
• Hearst has asked all of its newspapers to reduce costs by 20 percent. [BN]
• The launch of Oprah's cable network has been pushed back to 2010. [NYP]
Eliot Spitzer will hit the Today show on Monday, presumably to talk about the financial crisis, not about his personal life. [NYO]
• Tensions are reportedly running high at MSNBC after the network decided to give Ed Schultz a show and bump Norah O'Donnell and David Shuster. [P6]
• Breaking! The media appears to be rather fond of Michelle Obama. [WaPo]
• Last night's series finale of ER generated big ratings for NBC. [NYT]
• Is Google about to acquire Twitter? Not so much, says Kara Swisher. [ATD]

Another Newspaper Shutters, Sci Fi Picks a New Name

cityfile · 03/16/09 10:52AM

• Yet one more newspaper is folding. Hearst's Seattle Post-Intelligencer will shut down its print operations tomorrow, but its website will live on. [Seattle PI]
• The Sci Fi Channel is changing its name. To Syfy. This is not a joke. [NYT]
• CNN says it plans to "devote the bulk of its news effort this week" to covering the global financial meltdown. How timely! [NYT]
• Are CNN anchors Kyra Phillips and John Roberts secretly dating? [NYM]
• Book sales in the U.S. are down slightly, but they're up in Europe. [NYT]
Andy Samberg will host the 2009 MTV Movie Awards. [THR]
• Barack Obama will appear on The Tonight Show on Thursday. [The Caucus]
• More on last week's management shakeup at Fox. [Variety]
Sopranos creator David Chase is back at HBO with a new mini-series. [AB]
Race to Witch Mountain was No. 1 at the box office this weekend. [AP]

College Papers Stage Sympathy Die-In

Hamilton Nolan · 03/06/09 02:23PM

In your philosophical Friday media column: arm-twisting at the San Francisco Chronicle, intellectual thuggery at the NAACP, body-slamming of college papers, and death and rebirth of reporters:

San Antonio and Houston Papers to Merge?

Hamilton Nolan · 03/05/09 11:42AM

We heard a downright bizarre unconfirmed rumor that Hearst's flailing newspaper division is considering merging the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News into one operation. Bizarre, we say, for two reasons:

Box Office Gets a Boost, Redstone Catches a Break

cityfile · 03/02/09 11:58AM

• The recession hasn't been all that bad as far as Hollywood is concerned: Ticket sales this year are up 17.5% and attendance is up 16%. [NYT]
• Viacom and CBS chieftain Sumner Redstone will have until the end of next year to sell off assets in order to repay his enormous pile of debt. [WSJ]
• Hearst is looking to charge readers for online access to its newspapers. [WSJ]
• Univision has laid off 300 people, or 6 percent of its workforce. [AP]
• Hachette is planning to reorganize its collection of women's titles. [WSJ]
• The recession has forced food mags to focus on cheap dining options. [NYT]
• Sarah Silverman's Comedy Central show hasn't been renewed yet and now the show's executive producers have threatened to quit the network. [THR]
Madea Goes to Jail was No. 1 at the box office again this weekend. [NYDN]
• Another Bernie Madoff-related book is in the works. [NYP]

Hearst's E-Reader: The Last Stand of a Doomed Industry

Owen Thomas · 02/27/09 01:15PM

Dear media companies: Please stop trying to innovate. You're lousy at it. Hearst's supposed "Kindle killer," an electronic reader for magazines, is just the latest in a series of debacles from the moribund print-media business.

Cable News Ratings, Another Newspaper Bites the Dust

cityfile · 02/27/09 12:08PM

• Fox News remains in first place in the cable news ratings race. MSNBC is showing modest gains, while CNN is dropping like a lead balloon. [NYT, MM]
• Cablevision says it plans to charge readers to access to Newsday.com. [NYP]
• Hearst is launching an e-reader for magazines and newspapers. [Fortune]
• The Times is launching several local "citizen journalism" sites. [E&P]
• Sony CEO Howard Stringer has pushed aside two senior execs. [WSJ]
• Old Navy's newest ad campaign resembles a celeb tabloid. [Jossip]
Peter Scarlet has resigned as the Tribeca Film Fest's artistic director. [THR]
• Take a tour of the White House with Katie Couric if you'd like. [YouTube]
• Denver's Rocky Mountain News says goodbye. [RMN]

Two Papers? Outrageous!

Hamilton Nolan · 02/20/09 02:15PM

In your downward Friday media column: rumored layoffs at Playboy and Hearst, two-paper towns are dying, your favorite crappy TV channels revealed, and more!