• The bloodletting at CBS is underway. [THR]
• Macmillan Publishing and FSG are both trimming staff. [AP, NYO]
• Ad spending for the first nine months of this year fell 1.7 percent. [WWD]
• Katie Couric, Campbell Brown, and Rachel Maddow will appear in the next issue of Vogue. [TVN]
• Sean Hannity's Alan Colmes-less show begins January 12th. [NYT]
• The Disney Channel is taking its act to Russia next year. [NYT]
• The most amusing corrections published this year. [Regret the Error]

♦ No official confirmation yet, but media insiders say David Gregory has been tapped to take over as host of Meet the Press. [Politico]
♦ It's rumored Carine Roitfeld is replacing Anna Wintour at Vogue. [Gawker]
♦ A former employee of Charles Kushner is accusing him of funneling cash from his real estate empire to prop up Jared Kushner's Observer. [Daily Intel]
♦ Harvey Weinstein owes Cindy Adams $10,000. [NYP]
♦ Condé Nast has shuttered its social networking site Flip.com. [Gawker]
♦ CBS is producing a new hidden camera show with Ashton Kutcher. [NYT]
♦ Katie Couric has a new haircut, in case you haven't noticed. [HuffPo]
♦ Arianna Huffington's how-to book for aspiring bloggers. [Jossip]
♦ Ever fantasized about having lunch with Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel? You can—for $2,500. [NYO]

♦ Madonna and A-Rod are reportedly shopping for "love nests" on the Upper East Side. They're looking for something between Fifth and Park, from 60th Street through the 80s, in case you have any suggestions. Oh, and they're looking for retreats in Hamptons, too. [P6]
♦ The blame game begins: Ivana's friends say her split with Rossano Rubicondi was his fault because he's been dating a model. Rossano, meanwhile, says Ivana is to blame because she's been dating a model. [R&M]
♦ Robert and Blaine Trump are scheduled to make their first appearance in Manhattan Supreme Court this morning as the couple looks to end their 25-year marriage. Prepare for things to get "exceptionally ugly." [NYP]
♦ Uma Thurman's parents unknowingly hired one of the bookers from Ashley Dupre's escort agency to run their upstate yoga center. [NYP]

The Huffington Post reported David Gregory will take over for Tim Russert as permanent moderator of Meet The Press after beating out finalists Andrea Mitchell, Gwen Ifill and Chuck Todd. NBC told Politico, "I don't know where they are getting this," and Gregory's agent would neither confirm nor deny to the Observer. Dark-horse candidate Katie Couric is reportedly not interested. Odd that NBC News would leak to HuffPo, given the network division's apparent long-running feud with publisher Arianna Huffington, but then there have been signs that the bad feelings have perhaps been dropped.

♦ Is Naomi Campbell planning a secret wedding with her Russian boyfriend Vladimir Doronin later this month? Her reps say no, although the new emerald and diamond ring she sported in Miami this past weekend seems to suggest otherwise. [Mirror, NYDN, DS]
♦ Alex Rodriguez had a busy Thanksgiving. He spent half of Thursday with his ex-wife and kids and the other half with Madonna before jetting off to Mexico City with Madge. [NYDN, NYP]
♦ Amy Winehouse's estranged husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, says he was responsible for turning his wife into a junkie, and that he has to "let her go to save her life." [NYDN, People]
♦ Giants star Plaxico Burress, who shot himself in the leg while partying at Latin Quarter on Friday night, turned himself in this morning. [NYP, Newsday]

The flock of people following in Katie Couric's footsteps when she walks down the street? They're not adoring fans—they're just members of Katie's "posse." Allow Katie to introduce you to her make-up artist (Josie), wardrobe-stylist (Jackie), hairstylist (Dana), techie (Tony), and personal assistant (Lauren). The perks that come with a $15 million-a-year job are priceless, aren't they?

Katie Couric is on the Late Show again tonight, to try and convince David Letterman that she didn't purposely steal John McCain for her CBS Evening News that night the Republican presidential nominee infamously flaked on Letterman. Of course this is a lie, assuming Couric is as ruthlessly competitive as any network news anchor must be in order to succeed. But her exchange with Letterman is worth watching if only for all the fun bashing of Keith Olbermann, the MSNBC shouting head who filled in for McCain. Click the video icon to watch.

Greta Van Susteren and Matt Lauer were first out of the gate with lengthy Sarah Palin interviews after the election. The chats were slammed as softball jobs by some critics, and you can now add Katie Couric to that group, at least in one regard: She wishes someone had asked the former Republican vice presidential nominee why she didn't answer Couric's simple and ultimately devastating question about what newspapers and magazines Palin reads. Hopefully Lauer, who hosted Today with Couric for nine years, doesn't take the critique personally, particularly since Couric may very well end up back at NBC. Click the video icon to watch Couric explain her thoughts on David Letterman's Late Show.

♦ NBC chief Jeff Zucker is tightening making another round of cuts. This time it's CNBC, which will see its budget slashed by 10 percent. [NYO]
♦ A group of liberal activists printed up fake copies of the New York Times today to hand out to passerby in Midtown. [NYT]
♦ Gerard Baker has been named deputy editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones. [Romenesko]
♦ Katie Couric's advice for Sarah Palin: "I think she should keep her head down, work really hard and learn about governing." [Page Six]
♦ John McCain's first TV appearance since he lost the election translated into big ratings for Jay Leno's Tonight Show. [THR]
♦ Monday's interview with Sarah Palin was also a winner with Greta Van Susteren's On The Record earning its best ratings of the year. [B&C]

"I think she should keep her head down, work really hard and learn about governing." [Post]

It's just a brief item, reporting that NBC chief Jeff Zucker was spotted with "old pal Katie Couric huddling over dinner at Elio's." But Page Six's sighting of the CBS Evening News anchor with her old Today boss will inevitably stoke further speculation about the possibility she might take over for Tim Russert at NBC's Meet The Press. The alleged dinner comes barely a week after the Times reported NBC executives were bandying Couric's name as a possible anchor for the Sunday-morning interview show. Gossip aside, let's move on to speculation: Wouldn't the gig just be an awful reprise of the CBS Evening News disaster?

♦ John McCain's appearance on Saturday Night Live didn't generate Sarah Palin-like ratings, but it was still an impressive showing nonetheless. [THR]
♦ No word yet on who will take over NBC's Meet the Press. Chuck Todd, David Gregory, Gwen Ifill, and even Katie Couric all remain possibilities. [NYT]
♦ CBS is on a primetime ratings roll, although Sumner Redstone is still screwed, apparently. [NYT, NYT]
♦ Another profile of Rachel Maddow, just in case the 237 other pieces on MSNBC's rising star in recent weeks have yet to whet your appetite. [NYM]
♦ In case you missed it, the clip of Sarah Palin getting punked by a couple of Montreal radio personalities, who explain how they managed to get through to her. [ABC]

If Brooke Shields and Tom Cruise could patch things up after Cruise called her a pseudoscience-worshiping devil-thetan incubator (we're paraphrasing), then surely, we thought, Cruise and Matt Lauer could eventually let bygones be bygones. You may remember how the actor and anchorman tussled back in 2005 when Cruise accused Lauer of not personally, personally understanding either Ritalin, postpartum depression, or why the son survived in War of the Worlds. Now, we hear, the Friars Club Roast of Lauer that just concluded in New York featured a surprise, couch-jumping guest. Says KTU reporter Paul Westcott:

She spent the afternoon filming a segment with Katie Couric! Guess she'll have to wait until next year to atone for the sin of reuniting with Jimmy Kimmel. Have a photo/tip/story you'd like to share? Hit us up at tips@cityfile.com.

Although Sarah Palin said yesterday she was "impatient" and "annoyed" with Katie Couric's irrelevant questions about her book learnin' and whatnot, the CBS Evening News anchor wisely avoided firing any direct return fire when confronted with a camerman from TMZ, of all places. But it's all too easy to read — or invent? — meaning between Couric's lines, especially if you can successfully look past her usual smiling charm. Who might Couric be talking about when she says she doesn't "lie" about reading The Economist? Is "luckily I'm not running for vice president" some kind of swipe? It's harder to tell than you might think. Click the video icon to watch.

TMZ caught up with a rather cheerful Katie Couric on 59th and Fifth today and asked her how she felt about having Sarah Palin criticize her in the media last week. Katie didn't answer the question, but she did have a response when she was asked what newspapers and magazines she reads regularly: "Everyone lies about the Economist, but I actually read it." And with that the brainy anchor headed into Tiffany's. [TMZ]

Though pundits like Time's Mark Halperin are claiming that last night's vice presidential debate left Saturday Night Live little to parody (really?), it's hard to imagine that SNL would leave its ratings on the table by ignoring what was perhaps the most-anticipated Sarah Palin event of the entire election year. Now, according to EW's Michael Ausiello, SNL does indeed plan to cover the debate, which leaves it with one problem: the moderator, Gwen Ifill, was a black woman, and SNL still has none in its cast. It's the same problem the variety show has run into when covering Michelle Obama, and just as rumors flew that Lorne Michaels had approached Maya Rudolph about that role, SNL has its sights set on a very specific Ifill impersonator who's not a member of the actual cast:

Back when Rosie O'Donnell left The View, many industry watchers predicted the program would quickly return to its safe, easygoing roots (and that ratings would dive as a result). Oh, how they underestimated the Hasselbeck! The election year has provoked The View's resident Republican into a lather almost daily, whether she's obfuscating about Barack Obama or calling an unlikely moratorium on Sarah Palin discussion. In fact, things have gotten so heated lately that rampant speculation had Hasselbeck headed for Fox News, forcing her agent to issue a statement today:

♦ Last night's face-off between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden generated the highest ratings for a debate in 16 years. [THR]
♦ SNL has booked Queen Latifah to play debate moderator Gwen Ifill tomorrow night. [People]
♦ What does Palin have to say about Katie Couric? Nothing good. [HuffPo]
♦ CNN incorrectly reported that Apple CEO Steve Jobs suffered a heart attack. [Reuters, SAI]
♦ Fox Business hit a ratings high on Monday—a scant 81,000 viewers. [NYT]
♦ Google may hire an ad agency for the first time. It's had discussions with Wieden + Kennedy and Ari Merkin's Taxi New York. [WSJ]
♦ Jesse L. Martin is in discussions to star in a new NBC drama called The Philanthropist. [THR]
♦ The Economist is stamping its brand on pizza boxes. [NYT]

After Elisabeth Hasselbeck nearly brained Barbara Walters yesterday using a coffee mug filled with steaming-hot Republican rage, producers for The View wisely kept Walters away from today's show, though things were just as politically heated. Today — as it often is — the topic was Sarah Palin, and Hasselbeck's had quite enough of that issue, thank you very much!After Joy Behar ran clips of Palin's two biggest gaffes during her recent Katie Couric interview — Palin's inability to name a Supreme Court case she disagreed with or a single newspaper she read — Hasselbeck attempted to defend the vice presidential candidate, then complained that her cohosts spend too much time talking about Sarah Palin and not enough time talking about Barack Obama. Meanwhile, Joe Biden silently weeped at his exclusion, muttering, "What about meeee? I was on SNL once, too!"