• Rupert Murdoch and John Malone are "interested" in a deal with NBC Universal, but have yet to pick up the phone and do anything about it. [THR]
• Condé Nast cut sales staff at W and Vanity Fair today and proved that no one is safe by dismissing the wife of a Newhouse family member. Some good news: magazines are reporting that automotive advertising is way up, so maybe the auto industry will end up saving print media! Crazier things have happened.
• The Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger is running into trouble in DC. [WSJ]
• The Fox News-White House brouhaha continues, not surprisingly. [THR]
• Fox Reality, which is going off the air next year, will be replaced by a new channel called Nat Geo Wild. Think less Cesar Millan, more Jeff Corwin. [NYT]
• Were you dismayed that yesterday's little balloon incident generated so much cable news coverage? Wait till you see what's in store next week! [CJR]

• More on Gourmet's last party and Ruth Reichl's book about Condé Nast. [NYO]
• More "constructive criticism" of Time Warner courtesy of Ted Turner. [AP]
• The New York Times' San Francisco edition launched today. [E&P]
• What's up with Tina Brown's Daily Beast? Here you have it. [FT]
• TLC has filed a breach-of-contract suit against that guy who's estranged from his wife and has a million kids and whose name we refuse to type. [LAT]
• One more sign of the times: media bigshot Bob Pittman—the former head of MTV; AOL Time Warner's COO in the early '00s; and the investor in a long list of media start-ups over the years—is now in the tequila business. [AllThingsD]