In your laughable Tuesday media column: Sarah Palin feuds comically with the WSJ, nobody watched the George Bush interview, Salon is (still) broke, and Gerald Levin returns to the media, for some reason.
• The cover of Vanity Fair's February issue will likely turn plenty of heads: It features a barechested Tiger Woods pumping iron. The photo by Annie Leibovitz was taken before the Woods sex scandal unfolded, however. [VF]
• Is New York Post editor Col Allan retiring? That's the rumor, although Allan says it's just "wishful thinking" on the part of the Daily News. [NYM, Politico]
• Cable spats: Fox and Time Warner reached a deal in their dispute on Friday. But Cablevision customers are still without the Food Network and HGTV.
• Dick Clark has clearly seen better days, but ABC's NYE telecast was No. 1 on Thursday night. NBC's Carson Daly-hosted program came in No. 2. [Variety]
• Disgraced ex-Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich will be one of the "stars" on the next season of Celebrity Apprentice, you'll be thrilled to hear. [UPI]
• Ten years after he presided over the merger of Time Warner and AOL, Jerry Levin now says it was all a big mistake and he's really, really sorry. [THR]
• Good news! The ad market for newspapers, magazines is looking up. [WSJ]
• Arianna Huffington and Glamour's Cindi Leive plan to sleep a lot in '10. [HP]
• Avatar was once again No. 1 at the box office this weekend. The film has now grossed more than $1 billion around the world since it was released. [THR]
• The New York Times Co. has reached a "tentative agreement" with its union to impose a 5 percent pay cut on employees through the end of the year. [NYP]
• Disney's ABC is joining Fox and NBC and taking a stake in Hulu. [AdAge]
• As expected, Time Warner said it may spin off AOL. But it may end up selling it, too. Either way, Gerald Levin, Dick Parsons and Steve Case will still be responsible for the worst merger in American corporate history. [NYT]
• Viacom reported that first quarter profit dropped 34 percent amid falling revenue at both its film and TV networks businesses. [AP]
• Related: Viacom boss Sumner Redstone is as senile as ever. At the Milken conference in Beverly Hills, he said he wouldn't comment on his competitors before lashing out at Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch, and Jay Leno. [THR]
Jerry Levin will go down in history as the man who presided over one of the most misguided mergers in history, the combination of Time Warner and AOL in 2000. Levin left the company in 2002 and later settled in California with his second wife, Laurie Ann, the founder of Moonview Sanctuary, a center that specializes in treating people with trauma, addiction and chronic pain. The former Time Warner chief eventually joined the center's faculty and helped Moonview branch out with courses designed to help executives improve their "focus and performance." Well, it seems Levin is branching out again. And just in time!
• The Times's silence on Judy Miller has become absurd. [CJR]
• Even public editor Barney Calame doesn't understand why the silence continues. Which might just put an end to it — after all, this is the man who ultimately got Geraldo his correction. [NYTimes.com]
• But the Times's op-ed columnists, at least, all have excellent reasons why they haven't written about Miller Time. [E&P]
• Beyonce is too black for the cover of Vanity Fair. Of course, so are we. [Radar]
• Men's Health spinoff Best Life ups frequency, rate base. Which is what you get from worshipping at the altar of your readers. [Mediaweek]
• Former Time Warner chief Gerald Levin helps open super-high-end spa in Santa Monica. Next month, he'll merge it with eSpas.com and ruin the company. [LAT]
• Mag bigshots should — of all things — take Jon Stewart seriously. [MarketWatch]
Two institutional shareholders have accused AOL/Time Warner Chairman Steve Case of insider trading in a related lawsuit. Also named were Vice Chairman Ted Turner, Chief Executive Officer Richard Parsons, former CEO Gerald Levin, and former Chief Operating Officer Bob Pittman. This is so...*yawn*....surprising.
Time Warner execs accused of insider trading [Reuters]
Vanity Fair's Nina Munk is following the AOL/TW saga in preparation for a book. If it's optioned for film, Munk's casting choices are as follows: "Peter Gallagher as Bob Pittman; Burt Reynolds as Ted Turner; Dustin Hoffman as Gerald Levin; James Earl Jones as Richard Parsons; and either Michael Douglas or Kiefer Sutherland (with his hair darkened, presumably) as Steve Case."
Eyeing media [IWantMedia]
What can we say, it's AOL/TW day at Gawker. Levin is everywhere; Case is everywhere. We have to.
CNBC's documentary on the AOL/Time Warner merger, titled "The Big Heist," is one big lesson in C-level schadenfreude. The big media big boys Sumner Redstone, John Malone, Michael Eisner, etc., can barely contain their glee as they talk about The Deal They Didn't Do. Levin is ultimately exhonerated for being an all-around nice guy, while Case is portrayed as the evil mastermind behind the operation. Case, according to ex-boss James Kimsey, has no intention of going anywhere.
How AOL took Time Warner
See also: Ex-TW Exec, Jeff Jarvis, on "The Big Heist":
The flim-flam spam man [Buzzmachine]
