magazines

Disney Buys Marvel, NBC Gets 'More Colorful'

cityfile · 08/31/09 01:55PM

• Get ready for the Spider-Man ride at Disney World: Walt Disney has agreed to pay $4 billion in cash and stock to acquire Marvel Entertainment. [NYT, WSJ]
• Because she was clearly the very best person for the job, Jenna Bush has signed on with the Today show. The daughter of the former president will be contributing stories "about once a month on issues like education." [THR]
The Final Destination was No. 1 at the box office this weekend with a $28.3 million take; Inglourious Basterds came in No. 2 with $20 million. [THR]
• Newsstand magazine sales continue to fall. Single-copy sales fell 12 percent during the first half of the 2009 compared to the same period in 2008. [AP]
• NBC's new slogan for its fall marketing campaign? "More colorful." [Variety]

Proof That Profiling Journalists Is Worthless

Hamilton Nolan · 08/28/09 12:50PM

In your finally Friday media column: Army profiles of journalists are a huge waste of money, a special journalists asks for a special job, the New Yorker hires someone expressly to make you jealous, and newspapers lose billions again.

The Plight of Print's Lucky Ones

Gabriel Snyder · 08/27/09 01:31PM

Lest they offend their many laid off friends, anyone who's kept their job in print media will tell you they're one of "the lucky ones." But privately, survivors talk of the malaise sweeping medialand. This is one of them.

A&E Buys Lifetime; Another Luxury Magazine Launch

cityfile · 08/27/09 12:59PM

• A&E has agreed to acquire Lifetime, which means it's not entirely out of the realm of synergistic possibility that Duane Chapman of Dog the Bounty Hunter will make a cameo on Project Runway sometime next season. Yay. [THR, NYT]
• The Daily News has dropped its restaurant critic, Danyelle Freeman, and doesn't appear to be making any plans to replace her. [P6, NYT]
• Another luxury magazine is coming! The Financial Times plans to bring its quarterly glossy, FT Wealth, to American shores this October. [Crain's]
• It's been nearly two years since Oprah announced plans to launch a cable channel, and the venture's been riddled with problems ever since. [LAT]
• Italian officials are now investigating Google for its "lack of transparency." Yes, the same Italy that's governed by a man named Silvio Berlusconi. [NYT]
• Larry David will be bringing the cast of Seinfeld together for a multi-episode appearance on the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Which makes sense considering it's not like Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, or Michael Richards have anything better to do, now do they? [EW, LAT]

Layoffs at AP Entertainment Beat

Hamilton Nolan · 08/27/09 12:44PM

In your recovering Thursday media column: layoffs at the AP, a truly awesome correction, another restaurant critic gets canned, the SPJ conference is good for alkies, and Incisive Media has contest that is fun and tasty!

Homelessness Now an Edge in Elle Internships

Hamilton Nolan · 08/25/09 09:54AM

A homeless woman has landed a (coveted?) four-month internship with Elle magazine, proving that unemployed journalists need only fall a *little* farther to get "back in the game."

The Weinsteins Dodge a Bullet

cityfile · 08/24/09 01:44PM

Harvey and Bob Weinstein are breathing a sigh of relief today. Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds did better than expected at the box office this weekend, raking in $37.6 million in sales. Not that one good weekend will be enough to lift the studio out of the financial mess it is in. [NYT, THR, WSJ]
• Related: In what may be a first for a movie opening, Inglourious Basterds seems to have benefited by a "crest of tweeting goodwill." [THR]
• Some 48 years after it was first published, Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking is now No. 1 on the New York Times' best-seller list. [NYT]
• Has the Glenn Beck brouhaha made advertisers skittish about buying commercial time during political shows in general? [AdAge, Politico]
Jared Kushner's New York Observer is launching a new paper called The Commercial Observer. It's about commercial real estate, naturally. [NYT]
• Magazine newsstand sales continue to suffer, not surprisingly. [AdAge]

The Skye Parrott Conspiracy

Hamilton Nolan · 08/24/09 12:41PM

In your unnerving Monday Media column: The paper of record cannot stop talking about Skye Parrott (??), the Tribune Co. sells a losing team, JPMorgan takes over publishing by accident, and the great political talk show ad debate. No worries!

The Magazine Ad of the Future; Rupert Takes a Hit

cityfile · 08/20/09 01:01PM

• Get ready to see commercials appear inside magazines. CBS is embedding tiny screens in an upcoming issue of Entertainment Weekly, which will play a clip promoting the network's fall season. What will it look like? Like this. [WSJ]
• Poor Rupert: The billionaire chairman of News Corp. only collected a compensation package of $18 million for the most recent fiscal year, which is down from $30 million, or 40 percent, from a year earlier. [AP]
David Letterman continues to beat Conan O'Brien in the ratings. [NYT]
• Did Glenn Beck get yanked off the air after stirring up so much controversy recently, or is he on a regularly scheduled vacation? It's a mystery! [Politico]
60 Minutes is planning to air a tribute to Don Hewitt this Sunday. [NYT]
• Meghan McCain is returning to The View as a guest host. How thrilling. [NYP]
• Reader's Digest is one step closer to officially filing for bankruptcy. [NYT]
• What is Jayson Blair, the disgraced ex-New York Times reporter, up to these days? He's a "certified life coach" for a mental health facility. [Gawker, AP]