conde-nast

Late-Night Ratings, Ari Emanuel & The Crisis at Condé

cityfile · 06/10/09 12:04PM

• It's only been a week since Conan took over the top-rated Tonight Show, but David Letterman has already passed over him in the ratings. [NYT]
• Also: Dave Letterman's new contract will keep him at CBS through '12. [LAT]
• Yesterday the Boston Globe's largest union rejected the New York Times Co.'s proposed package of cuts. The NYT responded by implementing a 23 percent pay cut anyway and now the union is taking the matter to court. [NYT]
• Ratings are down for CNN's Lou Dobbs. And thank God for that. [NYO]
• It's official: Ari Emanuel is the new Mike Ovitz! Both the New York Times and The Daily Beast invoke Ovitz's name in lengthy pieces on "the pre-eminent power player in Hollywood" and "Hollywood's new don." [NYT, TDB]
• Sound the alarms! Swine flu has returned to Condé Nast! [Daily Intel]

Conan, Jay, Bravo & Condé Nast

cityfile · 06/01/09 12:07PM

• Conan O'Brien makes his debut this evening as Tonight Show host. [BN, EW]
• Bravo is ditching its tagline "Watch what happens" and replacing it with "By Bravo." We'll just have to watch and see what happens with that. [AdAge]
• More on the recent ratings meltdown at CNN. [Politico]
• The Times Magazine will be 9 percent smaller starting in two weeks. [E&P]
• DirectTV chief Chase Carey is in talks to join News Corp. as Rupert Murdoch's second-in command, taking over for Peter Chernin. [THR, BN]
• Disney's animated pic Up was No. 1 at the box office this weekend. [THR]
New York's cover story on Condé Nast, in case you missed it. [NYM]

Si Newhouse and the Droopy Conde Nast

Hamilton Nolan · 06/01/09 09:01AM

Conde Nast has always been able to afford the luxury of publishing money-losing magazines, thanks the other half of their parent company—the Newhouse newspaper chain—subsidizing them with cash. Those days are gone. Now, a cable company is all that keeps Conde afloat. And the Newhouse family's getting antsy:

Swine Flu at Vogue?

cityfile · 06/01/09 08:40AM

Condé Nast just sent out a memo warning staffers that an employee who works on the 12th floor of 4 Times Square—the floor occupied by Vogue—has swine flu. [NYM/Daily Intel]

Twitter, CNN, Fox News & Facebook

cityfile · 05/26/09 12:04PM

• How is Twitter going to make money? With a reality TV series, naturally. The show will involve "putting ordinary people on the trail of celebrities in a revolutionary competitive format," in case you were wondering. [Variety]
• The primetime lineups for next year "are chockablock with shows meant to make recession-weary viewers laugh and feel better." How encouraging! [NYT]
• Ratings are down for CNN's Anderson Cooper as well as for Roland Martin, who has been subbing for Campbell Brown recently. [Page Six]
• Bravo's next Real Housewives installment: Washington, DC. [Daily Intel]
• Fox News nut Greta Van Susteren may not be around for long. Rumor has it her contract won't be be renewed and Megyn Kelly will replace her. [NYT]
New York lost close to $5 million last year; with ad pages down 37 percent thus far in 2009, "losses are expected to be even higher this year." [NYP]
• A Russian investment firm has dropped $200 million into Facebook's bank account in return for a 1.96 percent stake in the company. [NYT]
• Ben Stiller's Night at the Museum sequel beat out the fourth installment of the Terminator franchise with a four-day pull of $70 million. [Reuters]

Ad Declines, Dowd In the Hot Seat & The New Newsweek

cityfile · 05/18/09 11:44AM

• Monthly mags continue to suffer: Ad pages have dropped by 23 percent on average, although the situation is particularly dire at Condé Nast. [NYP]
• Maureen Dowd landed in a bit of hot water after it was revealed she'd "borrowed" from blogger Josh Marshall for her op-ed column yesterday. She's since offered a (dubious) explanation and apology. [E&P, HP, Politico]
• Television networks start selling ads for the fall season today as part of upfront week, although the economy is putting a damper on things. [NYT]
• Despite few successes and many failures, NBC golden boy Ben Silverman still has a job. For how much longer, though, is anybody's guess. [NYT]
Angels & Demons was No. 1 at the box office with a $48 million haul. [WSJ]
• If you can't find Newsweek on newsstands, that may be because the magazine has totally redesigned itself. [Newsweek, WaPo, HuffPo]

Anna Wintour's 60 Minutes Profile

The Cajun Boy · 05/17/09 10:17PM

Vogue's Anna Wintour was profiled on 60 Minutes tonight, a piece in which she expressed reluctance to glam down during tough times, defended her bitchiness, and basically said she's in it for the free clothes.

S.I. Newhouse IV Settles Down

cityfile · 05/05/09 08:40AM

Hearty congratulations to S.I. Newhouse and the rest of the Newhouse family: Samuel I. Newhouse IV, the grandson of Condé Nast's mercurial chairman, got hitched this past weekend! You may remember the young heir from Jamie Johnson's 2003 film Born Rich, which featured an interview with the youthful Newhouse in his college dorm room. (See photo, left.) Much has changed since then, as you can probably tell from the before-and-after photos.

The Times Backs Down, Wolverine's Big Weekend

cityfile · 05/04/09 11:07AM

• Tense negotiations over proposed budget cuts continue between the New York Times Co. and unions that represent workers at the Boston Globe; in the meantime, the Times has postponed plans to shut down the paper. [NYT, WSJ]
• Another way the Times is planning to rake in some much needed cash: It may raise newsstand prices as early as this week. [FT]
• NBC announced several shows that it plans to add to primetime. One show noticeably missing from the lineup: Law and Order. [Variety, NYT]
• Ex-Portfolio publisher William Li has landed at Condé Nast Traveler. [NYO]
• A positive aspect to the cuts at Conde Nast? Media buyers "say that publishers and salespeople are becoming easier to work with. [Crain's]
Wolverine grossed a whopping $87 million at the box office. [Variety]