Well well well, it seems that The History Channel is a big cable success story. The fifth most popular channel on all of cable! Only trails ESPN among middle aged men! How has The History Channel done it? By having nothing to do with history, or "true" things at all!

The History Channel has decided to cancel its 8-part miniseries The Kennedys, starring Katie Holmes, because the "dramatic interpretation is not a fit" for the channel. Good! The show was developed by the guy behind right-wing torture fetish show 24.

[Mrs. Tom Cruise dressed as Jackie Onassis on the set of History Channel mini-series The Kennedys. Image via Splash.]

• Star Trek reeled in $76 million at the box office this weekend. [WSJ]
• Metro is selling off its collection of free (and money-losing) newspapers to Seabay Media, a company controlled by Metro's former CEO. [WaPo]
• Playboy says it's planning to make "radical changes" to the mag, and may raise prices as well as reduce the number of issues it prints every year. [Folio]
• Jon Stewart is creating a two-hour special for the History Channel. [B&C]
• Lit agent Larry Kirshbaum is shopping a memoir by Rafael Nadal. [Crain's]
• More speculation the Sulzbergers will be forced to give up the Times. [NYP]
• Speaking of the Times, a San Francisco organization paid columnist Tom Friedman $75,000 for a speech he's given before (and which is online). [SFC]
• Brit chef Jamie Oliver and Ryan Seacrest are working on a new reality show for ABC that will "give healthy makeovers to an entire city." Be afraid. [THR]

Website College Humor redesigns TV channel logos to reflect the character of their audiences