• Back from imaginary Thanksgiving with the Murdochs, Simon Dumenco is drafting imaginary decency memos at the FCC. [Ad Age]
• Hey guess what? The kids like the cable networks' late-night fare, like Jon Stewart and Family Guy. And advertisers like to go where the viewers are. [LAT]
• The Bancroft family controls Dow Jones & Co., which publishes The Wall Street Journal. But the way they've been selling their stock, the family might not for much longer. [NYP]
• The newest New Yorker writer: Former WP managing editor Steve Coll. [NYT]
• Thanks to the new Wallpaper*, you can peek inside Rupert Murdoch's fridge. [WWD]
• David Carr remakes that Observer classic, "When Rupert met Hillary..." [NYT]
• Dan Rather liked Peter Jennings, too. [NY Mag]
• For foreign-policy types, sexy pictures in the new Playboy. [Media Mob/NYO]

Last night at the Waldorf-Astoria, Dan Rather picked up "broadcast journalism's most prestigious honor," a Peabody. Jon Stewart also picked up "broadcast journalism's most prestigious honor," a Peabody. Dan won for Abu Ghraib reporting; Jon for "Indecision 2004." (Meanwhile, the entire cast of Sesame Street was honored for their in-depth expose of Oscar the Grouch's heroin habit.)

Well, Dan Rather's final broadcast at CBS news was more heartfelt than a Arkansas armadillo in a barrel of blue yarn — until he went back to that damn courage thing, couched in invocations of September 11th, soldiers and journalists abroad, and, yes, the tsunami. Everything always comes back to the tsunami.

The end may be nigh, but one can always seek comfort in comic strips.

Let's clear something up, shall we? CBS anchor Dan Rather is not retiring because of MemoGate. No, Dan Rather is stepping down because he's because he's crazier than a bobcat in a barrel full of bandsaws:

· Brokaw retires, Rather retires, and ABC's Peter Jennings is still standing. But for how long? [NYT]
· Meanwhile, will White House correspondent John Roberts be tapped as Rather's replacement? Some CBS execs are saying yes. [ChiTrib (reg. req'd)]
· Scott Pelley, a war reporter and 60 Minutes correspondent, is also being considered as Rather's replacement. [LAT]
· Apropos of nothing, is it possible to raise interesting questions about, um, journalists' hockey coverage? [Observer]

While we think it's probably the right time for old man Rather to step down as anchor of the CBS Nightly News, we still feel kinda bad for him. Especially when he's taking digs from the Times:

Our sources inside the cold halls of CBS News have informed us that veteran anchor Dan Rather will be stepping down from his post come March. Look for the official announcement very shortly.
[UPDATE: 12:20 PM, Done and done. CBS News president Andrew Heyward's announcement, which doesn't say anything about memos, after the jump.]