barry-diller

cityfile · 10/27/09 02:52PM

• Nell Scovell, a writer on Dave Letterman's show in the late '80s, has stepped forward to detail the show's "hostile, sexually charged atmosphere." [VF]
• Layoffs: Yesterday's cuts at Forbes claimed 30-40 people; reality TV-focused Teen Vogue laid off half a dozen staffers today; the cuts continue this week at W; and a big round of cuts could go down at Time Inc. sometime next week.
• Sarah Palin's memoir, which comes out next month, had already earned her $1.25 million even before she stepped down as Alaska's governor. [AP]
• Michael Jackson's This Is It debuts in theaters tonight. [NYDN]
• How's Jay Leno's new show doing more than a month in? Not so good. [NYT]

I Am Slightly Underwhelmed By Lindsay Lohan's Paris Fashion Week Debut

Foster Kamer · 10/04/09 10:30AM

Lindsay Lohan makes her big Paris Fashion Week catwalk debut. Beyonce dad is impregnating women and moving women to the left. Vincent Gallo: still awesome. Liza Minella, Michael Jackson, Padma, Diller, the High Line! Here's your Sunday Morning Gossip Roundup:

Leno's Fall, Bloomberg's Bid, Dan Brown's Big Day

cityfile · 09/16/09 01:36PM

• As expected, ratings for Jay Leno's new show are falling fast. [THR]
• Bloomberg LP appears to now be in the lead to buy BusinessWeek. [NYP]
• Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol sold 1 million copies its first day. [NYT]
• Don't try to talk to Vogue publisher Tom Florio about what changes are in store for the mag now that those McKinsey consultants have finished their review. (He's not talking about it.) Meantime, McKinsey's final report will be handed over to Condé Nast's management next week. [NYO, WWD]
• Fox News boss Roger Ailes collected $24 million in compensation last year, which is $2 million more than his boss, Rupert Murdoch, took home. [BW]
Jay-Z has his 11th No. 1 album. That puts him ahead of Elvis Presley as the solo artist with the most chart-toppers. But he's still behind the Beatles. [LAT]

ABC Sinks Further, MTV To Relocate?

cityfile · 08/11/09 01:27PM

• All is not well at ABC. The hoped-for comeback of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? didn't happen and ratings have been so low, the network is now occasionally falling behind Univision. Yes, Univision. [NYT, B&C]
• The owners of Uptown magazine are in talks to acquire Vibe, which shut down in June. What they plan to do with it is anybody's guess. [AdAge]
Tina Brown's Daily Beast is on the move: She's planning to launch a U.K. version of the Barry Diller-funded website within months. [Telegraph]
• Not every magazine in America is struggling, apparently! [Newsweek]
• Is MTV planning to leave Times Square? Quite possibly. [NYP]

Time Warner's Loss, IAC's Gain & The McKinsey Mystery

cityfile · 07/29/09 01:16PM

• Time Warner sucked wind in the second quarter as profits fell 34%. Newly-independent Time Warner Cable, however, posted a profit. [AP, Reuters]
• McKinsey has set up shop at Condé Nast. What it is the consulting firm's actually doing (or recommending), however, remains a mystery. [NYO]
Barry Diller's IAC posted a modest profit for the second quarter, but reported that revenues at the media conglomerate were down modestly, too. [AP]
• Michael Milken is backing some sort of new business website. Exciting! [NYT]
• Even more exciting: Sarah Palin is thinking about hosting a radio show. [HP]

Ben's Big New Deal, Another Rough Quarter For Viacom

cityfile · 07/28/09 12:45PM

• Ben Silverman didn't have much success during his two-year stint at NBC, but that didn't stop him from scoring a super-sweet deal with Barry Diller's IAC. His new venture will reportedly give him $100 million to play with. [NYP]
• Viacom, the media conglomerate controlled by batty billionaire Sumner Redstone, reported that profits plunged 32% in the second quarter. [NYT]
• Struggling McGraw-Hill reports quarterly profits dropped 22.7%. [PC]
• The Daily News and sportswriter Adam Rubin are refuting the claims of Mets management that Rubin tried to get himself a job on the team. [E&P]
Amanda Hearst has landed a job at Hearst's Marie Claire. It's a miracle! [P6]

Is Brangelina NYC-Bound?

cityfile · 07/13/09 06:02AM

• Are Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie moving to NYC and into a giant apartment at the Apthorp? That's the rumor! [NYDN]
• The good news/bad news for Madonna: She's getting along much better with her ex, Guy Ritchie, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, the reconciliation isn't making Madonna's boyfriend, Jesus Luz, very happy. [DM]
• After six months in St. Lucia, Amy Winehouse is lonely, homesick, and deeply unpopular with the locals. So now she may return to the U.K. where she's totally adored, naturally, [DE]
• Boys will be boys: Leonardo DiCaprio looked like he was "on the prowl" in NYC last week. And Jeremy Piven looked like he was "ogling" Hayden Panettiere the other night. [P6, P6]

The Jackson Memorial, The WSJ, Another NYT Scandal

cityfile · 07/08/09 11:39AM

• How many networks covered the Jackson memorial? Count 'em yourself: ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, HLN, MTV, VH1, VH1 Classic, VH1Soul, BET, E!, TV Guide, TV One, Univision and Telemundo. [AdWeek]
• The WSJ is planning a weekly New York-only arts-and-culture section. [NYO]
• Condé Nast will launch a version of GQ in China in October. At last! [NYT]
• The view from Sun Valley: Barry Diller doesn't think Twitter is ever going to make any money. But Disney chief Bob Iger says we're all going to be paying for online content in the near future. So everyone is in agreement. [WSJ, WSJ]
OK!'s $500K cover of a dying Michael Jackson wasn't a big hit. [DF]
• The New York Times has pulled down a gallery of photos that had been digitally manipulated, presumably without its knowledge. [E&P]
• Coming in 2010: An entire cable channel devoted to Olympic sports. [THR]
• The adult entertainment industry is phasing out "narrative arcs" and dialogue, and it's supposedly because the Internet has shortened attention spans. [NYT]

Syfy's Arrival, Timberlake's Book & TMZ's Big Win

cityfile · 07/07/09 12:21PM

• The Sci Fi Channel is now called Syfy. It's pronounced the same way, except it's less science fiction-y, which is why it was changed to begin with. [THR]
• Justin Timberlake has tapped lit agent David Vigliano to sell publishers on the notion that Timberlake is just the person to write a book about golf. [NYO]
• After a heated, two-year battle, big record labels and online radio stations have finally agreed on new royalty rates for streaming music online. [NYT]
• Who says embattled media companies are doing their best to spend money more wisely? The soundstage for Jay Leno's new primetime show will be "specially fitted to accommodate his passion: expensive cars." [THR]
• "Online predators" have hit Twitter. Paging Dateline's Chris Hansen! [LAT]
• A new study finds that kids are spending more time online. Surprise! [AP]
• Equally shocking: Breaking the Jackson story has boosted TMZ's traffic. [AP]

Sun Valley 2009: Biking and a Bit of Dealmaking

cityfile · 07/07/09 08:48AM

It's that time of year again, time for the Allen & Co's annual media industry confab in Sun Valley, Idaho. Occasionally described as a "summer camp for billionaires," the Herb Allen-hosted event is expected to atrract more than 250 media chiefs, tech moguls, financiers, Hollywood agents, and politicians, as well as the odd sports star or two. (LeBron James will be putting in an appearance this year.) Mostly, however, it will be populated by the sort of people who make it a point to show up every year, people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Barry Diller, Sumner Redstone, and Rupert Murdoch, all of whom will undoubtedly be photographed over the coming days taking part in one of the many leisure activities arranged for attendees, like rafting, yoga, chess, bridge (a particular fave of Buffett and Gates), and biking (see Diller, left).

Lisa Maria Falcone Steps Into the Spotlight

cityfile · 06/30/09 08:36AM

It hasn't been a fun ride for hedge fund manager Phil Falcone since he picked up 20 percent of the New York Times Co. a couple of years ago. He had to face off against the ruling Sulzberger clan for representation on the board of directors and the company's plunging stock price means his investment in the paper is now worth a few hundred million less than it once was. Today, however, he gets his money worth with a Times profile of his beloved bride, Lisa Maria Falcone, who, as the title of the piece informs us, is a "philanthropist with a sense of timing." Indeed!

The Friday Party Report

cityfile · 06/19/09 03:55PM

More than 1,200 people descended on Skylight Studios on Wednesday night for the Whitney's annual Art Party. Sponsored by BCBG Max Azria, the designer (left, with co-host Camilla Belle) and wife Lubov welcomed the likes of Lake Bell, Lydia Hearst, Gretchen Mol, Hilary Rhoda, Calvin Klein, Jason Wu, Tinsley Mortimer, Genevieve Jones, Fabiola Beracasa, Ali Larter, Lindsay Price, Stacey Bendet, Olivia Palermo, Meredith Melling Burke, Alexis Bryan Morgan, Ivanka Trump, Byrdie Bell, Bradley Cooper, Alexis Bledel, Selita Ebanks, Hana Soukupova, Claire Bernard, Amber Tamblyn, Adam Lippes, Alexandra Richards, Anne Slowey, Lydia Fenet, Roopal Patel, Gilles Mendel, Lela Rose, Brooklyn Decker, Zani Gugelmann, Allison Aston, Esteban Cortazar, Jessica Joffee, at least two members of the Willis clan (Tallulah and Scout), and the man who runs the show at Whitney, Adam Weinberg. [PMc, Wireimage, FWD, WWD, VF, Style.com, ArtInfo]

Royal Rumors, Another Split for Lohan and Ronson

cityfile · 06/17/09 06:20AM

• Here's a rather unlikely rumor but an amusing one all the same: Prince William is supposedly thinking of moving to America with his girlfriend, Kate Middleton, and the two have been spotted house-hunting in Malibu. Frankly, if they were going to move to America—and they're probably not—we see them as more of a New York couple. And NYC could use a prince roaming around, couldn't it? Let's all cross our fingers and hope for the best. [E!]
• Countess (and not-so-real housewife) LuAnn de Lesseps was spotted hanging out with young men and doing tequila shots at a club in the Hamptons last weekend. And the earth continues to rotate on its own axis, too. [P6]
• That was quick. Just a couple of weeks after Lindsay Lohan and Sam Ronson supposedly reunited, the couple appears to have split up again—and it's all Nicole Richie's fault, too. Or maybe they never got back together at all? Feel free to take your pick. [E!, People, AH]