In your odious Thursday media column: Russell Simmons has friends in low places, Virginia Heffernan's out at the NYT Magazine, Brandon Holley has literary plans for Lucky, and Demand Media will now take your money.

In your celebratory Wednesday media column: Brandon Holley makes it back to the magazine world, Tina Brown vows not to join the magazine world, Arianna Huffington's in her own world, and the WSJ's digital prez is out.

• More layoffs at the New York Times may be on the way. Uh oh. [Wrap]
• NBC was planning to lose $250 mil. on the Olympics before the games even started. Now it's worried about low ratings/injured athletes, too. [LAT, NYP]
• More bad news for NBC: A poll finds that 69 percent of the people who used to watch Jay Leno have no plans to follow him back to The Tonight Show. [TVG]
• Two-in-one magazine/catalog Lucky has a new publisher. [WWD]
• Movies: The next Twilight installment will consist of two separate movies (everyone gets to pay twice!); Brittany Murphy's final film will hit theaters this summer; and Valentine's Day is expected to top the weekend box office.
• Related: Julia Roberts makes a six-minute appearance in Valentine's Day. That means she was paid about $500,000/minute for her services. [NYM]
• MySpace has clearly seen better times. (Like 2005.) [NYT, LAT, ATD]
• TV: The Ellen DeGeneres Show is staying on NBC, not going to ABC; evil empire Wal-Mart is planning to produce "family-friendly" television programming; and Sarah Palin's fave show, American Chopper, has been canceled, gosh darnit.

• The New York Times says it will cut 100 newsroom jobs, or roughly 8% of its editorial workforce, via buyouts and/or layoffs. [NYT, NYO]
• The Condé Nast cuts continue today at Wired, Glamour and Lucky. [Gawker]
• The bad news for NBC: It's facing blowback from its affiliates over Jay Leno's 10pm show. The good news: MObama is booked on Leno this Fri. [LAT, AP]
• Meanwhile, Vivendi, NBC and Comcast are inching along in their respective negotiations to hand over control of the network to Comcast; and former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin has signed on to advise the cable giant. [NYT, WSJ]
• CBS News paid tribute to late 60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt today. [AP]
• Ticket sales were up big this weekend. As expected, Where the Wild Things Are came in No. 1 at the box office with $32.5 million in sales. [LAT, THR]

Melissa Lum, accessories editor of shopping rag Lucky "quit shopping." She encourages you to continue to do so, however. [Beautiful Stranger]

A fresh batch of media layoffs were reported today, including cuts at Condé Nast's Lucky, Time Inc.'s Cottage Living, and Forbes. New York's Daily Intel has a rundown of the carnage. [NYM]

Boutiques! They're in, New York mag tells us this week. Generally found in such areas as the West Village, Cobble Hill, and Williamsburg, these usually woman-owned mini-stores cater to a particular population of twenty and thirtysomething women. Not quite hipsters, not quite preps, not quite socialites (or wannabes), these women—who toil in such industries as publishing (book and magazine, of course), advertising, and PR, with the odd teacher or non-profit employee thrown in (and maybe a lawyer looking for some weekend outfits)—will spend hundreds on the perfect pair of boots, or on a handbag. They own premium denim, but not anything immediately recognizable from the back pockets. They wear skirts and dresses, but avoid looking overly "girly." It's because the prevailing aesthetic among this demographic has become dictated almost entirely by Lucky magazine.

From the mailbag: "The Jane fashion interns from the reality show are getting shipped over to Lucky. In the end Kim France always wins."

Remember Priyantha Silva, the usually drunk and sweaty party crasher who pretended to be a Conde Nast editor? Well, he's got a Hearst competitor in Sara Litke, who emailed Lucky magazine trying to get comped for herself and a friend for the Lucky Shops event, which starts tomorrow.