Buck up, underemployed aspiring media employees who are not celebuspawn: We've found you yet another opportunity for indentured servitude masquerading as a "media job." How'd you like to be a real live Editor in Chief, eh?

• Comcast is "leaning toward" keeping Jeff Zucker as NBC Universal's CEO if it goes ahead with a deal to buy take control of the company. [Bloomberg]
• The Fine Living Network will be rebranded as the Cooking Channel—and positioned as a Food Network competitor—in the second half of 2010. [AdAge]
• Some laid-off staffers at Condé Nast are furious about the severance they've received; chances are ex-Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl isn't one of them. [NYP]
• Does NBC's decision to cancel Southland "signal an abandonment of a decades-long commitment to drama"? Some seem to think so. Meanwhile, the show's producers are looking for a new home for the cop drama. [NPR, LAT]
• Let the hair battle begin: Disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich may be a contestant on Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice next season. [CT]

Last December we heard rumors that Entertainment Weekly might be going online-only. We advocated it. But Time Inc. denied it! Now, the same rumors are back. Time Inc. is denying them again! But now, folding mags is trendier. Watch out.

The Conde Nast layoffs are proceeding not like a Band-Aid ripped off quickly, but rather like a Band-Aid pulled off all too slowly. It hurts! Today, we hear, Glamour had its own layoffs. Including a reality TV star! UPDATE: Confirmed.

Condé Nast has been busy slashing staff all this week. (It's rumored the cuts continued today at Glamour, and some suspect that other publishing companies like Time Inc. are now gearing up to follow suit.) Clearly, though, it's all part of Condé's master plan to move out of unprofitable businesses like magazines and expand into markets that do make money. Like online dating. Yes, because meeting that special someone on the Internet is like "your winter Ugg boot obsession: totally understandable and great in the comfort of your own home, but not something you would brag about at a chic cocktail party," Condé Nast has introduced TrulyMadlyDating.com in order to "unite glamorous girls with fashion-conscious GQ-reading boys to create matches made in style heaven." Yes, we did quickly check a calendar. And, no, today is not April 1st. [Vogue UK via Fashionista]

In your finally Friday media column: a sunny theory about Conde Nast, Katie Couric's words of wisdom, George Will learns exactly where to go, and the AP's crazy scheme, for money.

Most of the serious bidders for Businessweek have dropped away, leaving Bloomberg as the leading candidate. We know BW's not exactly a fountain of profit these days. But would Bloomberg really gut the magazine's entire staff?

One of this week's Conde Nast layoff victims has emailed us with a harrowing inside look at the human cost of magazine death. She seems ready to snap. Her email, in full, below:

Here, the victims of the Great Magazine Die-Off of 2008-2009. We did this once in March, and then again in April. Good lord. It keeps getting bigger. [Pic by Anna Edwards. Click to enlarge.]

In your thrashed Thursday media column: More Conde layoff rumors, Martha Stewart's evil company gets sued, media hair racism persists, and Choire Sicha declaims on the current technomedia foofaraw.

Newsweek makes an educated guesstimate that Condé Nast's 2009 revenue will shrink by $1 billion.

The death of Gourmet has prompted plenty of maudlin remembrances. And plenty of suggestions as to why we should mourn it: the food, Ruth Reichl, the jobs, the beauty. One theory to ignore: the internet is ruining smart magazines!

Popular Mechanics just named TechCrunch publisher Mike Arrington's tablet computer one of its top ten products of 2009. Which is amazing — amazingly ridiculous — given no one outside TechCrunch has even held one.

• David Letterman appears to be through discussing the little sex scandal he now finds himself in. The subject doesn't come up on tonight's show. [NYP]
• Gourmet may have gone down, but the editor of Saveur says the mag is doing well (and that she's been flooded with resumes, not surprisingly). Meanwhile, while Condé Nast is laying off staff at Brides, a brand new bridal magazine is now preparing to launch. The dream lives on, clearly. [Forbes, NYO, Gawker]
• Related: Condé Nast's digital division is facing issues, as well. [NYO]
• The remaining bidders for BusinessWeek, now that Mort Zuckerman and a private equity firm have dropped out: Bloomberg LP and ZelnickMedia. [NYT]
• Barbra Streisand has scored her ninth No. 1 album, beating out Mariah's new record. It makes her the second-oldest living artist to top the charts. [Reuters]
• Famed fashion and celeb photographer Irving Penn has died at age 92. [AP]

Press release that's right on time: A new wedding magazine is launching. How optimistic!

The big round of cost cuts and layoffs at Condé Nast isn't just being felt at 4 Times Square. The gloominess has also made its way to Paris Fashion Week. Instead of spending their days observing the action on the runway, some Condé editors have been forced to remain in their hotel rooms to take part in a "dizzying" number of "budget-related conference calls and team meetings," reports The Daily. This could be why Vogue editor Anna Wintour hasn't "been spotted since Dior on Friday." Budget cuts could also explain why poor Anna has been forced to make do with a single snakeskin coat at Fashion Week in London, Milan and Paris. [FWD]

When Conde Nast folded Elegant Bride and Modern Bride in its magazine purge this week, the company also announced it was increasing the frequency of Brides. But now tipsters are telling us that Brides is suffering its own purge.

In your crushing Wednesday media column: another media bankruptcy, the Businessweek sale draws nearer, Paula Froelich occupies her time, and the magazine industry has an idea!

The magazine bloodbath continues today. Condé Nast laid off staffers at Brides this morning, two days after shutting down Modern Bride and Elegant Bride. And rumor has it a big round of layoffs at Forbes is imminent. The good news? At least one former Condé employee got a free lunch today:

"I don't think it will be substantially more [Death, Doom, Destruction, and Layoffs]," Conde Nast CEO Chuck Townsend tells John Koblin. "It'll be a trickle." A trickle, you say? What the hey does that mean?