• New York Times union members approved a five percent pay cut last night, which takes effect today. Meanwhile, the NYT will resume negotiations with the Boston Globe's largest union at 5pm this afternoon. [NYP, E&P]
• The Onion is killing off its LA and San Francisco print editions. [Gawker, MP]
• How desperate has NBC become? Execs have announced that Jay Leno "is not afraid to experiment with live commercials and with sponsorships." [AdAge]
• Better news for NBC: It scored big with its coverage of the Derby. [NYP]
• Ad spending in the fourth quarter fell 9.2% from a year earlier. [WSJ]
• Writers gathered last night to say goodbye to the Times' City section. [NYO]

• 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]

• More trouble at Condé Nast: Ad pages at Vogue are down 31 percent this year and Vanity Fair experienced a 52 percent drop in May alone. The silver lining: Graydon Carter's lavish expense account remains unaffected. [NYP]
• The Sun really may be returning after all. As a website, that is. Seth Lipsky says "there's a business plan for the site in the formative stages." [Politico]
• This certainly isn't a good sign: It seems NBC is exploring the possibility of leasing out part of its headquarters in Washington D.C. [NYO]
• More desperate: NBC will air another season of Celebrity Apprentice. [THR]
• The Portfolio names/logos that never were (and more on its closing). [NYO]
• Al Roker will co-host a Weather Channel show called Wake Up With Al from 6 to 7 a.m. Because waking up with Al is what you've always dreamed of. [NYT]
• Oprah Winfrey's Twitter usage is way down. So much for that! [AdAge]

NBC went and sold the most blatant product placement in TV history in its show Chuck, and what do you know, it worked! Not for Chuck; that shit is getting canceled. But for Subway, yes!

• Arthur Sulzberger Jr. says he has no plans to take the New York Times Co. private, despite "brutal conditions" that threaten his paper's survival. [NYT]
• Meanwhile, Moody's has downgraded the NYT Co.'s credit rating. [E&P]
• A few theories on why Peter Kaplan departed Jared Kushner's Observer, and what's in store for Kaplan—and the paper—in the future. [WWD]
• Former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta is the new CEO of MySpace. [WSJ]
• Is GE looking to sell NBC Universal to Time Warner? It's possible! [TDB]
• Ambushing the ambusher: Staking out the home of Jesse Watters, the Fox News producer who stalks liberals for Bill O'Reilly. [Gawker]

The Tonight Show is a no-show tonight. Host Jay Leno has checked himself into the hospital, and NBC is airing a rerun instead of the planned lineup featuring actor Ryan Reynolds.

Crazy-corrupt former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich can't go to Costa Rica to take part in an NBC reality show, a federal judge told the Chicago poet-crook today. But what about the children?

• The New York Times Company reported a first-quarter loss of $74.5 million today, as advertising revenue plunged by more than 28 percent. [NYT]
• Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia's Wenda Harris Millard is stepping down as the company's co-CEO and president. [Crain's]
• One magazine that hasn't been crippled by the recession: Hearst's Food Network Magazine, which is now ramping up circulation. [AdAge]
• What's former Condé Nast star James Truman up to these days? Among other things, he's working on the in-room magazine for Ritz-Carlton. [Portfolio]
• Washingtonian magazine has a shirtless pic of Obama on the cover. [WM]

Jeff Zucker's division made about half as much money last quarter as it did the year before. So to judge by the upward-failure arc of his career, he'll be running GE in about three weeks.

• The first quarter wasn't such a hot one for NBC Universal: Earnings dropped 45 percent as the ad market continued its downward spiral. [WSJ, TVWeek]
• The world's largest newsprint maker has gone bankrupt. [NYT]
• Rolling Stone is closing up shop in San Francisco. [Portfolio]
• Ads sales figures at The New York Times Co. are looking pretty ugly. [E&P]
• Some good news, at least for impoverished porn addicts: Time Warner no longer plans to charge customers based on bandwidth usage. [Wired]

NBC has shockingly ruined the integrity of its dramatic show Chuck by allowing Subway what is perhaps the most blatant (and therefore laughable!) product placement in network TV history. Mmm, smell that chicken teriyaki.

• The Times is folding in several sections of the paper (City, Escapes); scrapping the weekly fashion spread in the New York Times Magazine, and cutting the budget for freelance writers. Grim times, indeed. [NYT, Gawker]
• NBC CEO Jeff Zucker is reportedly concerned that CNBC has become too conservative and is becoming "the anti-Obama network." [P6]
• The new Ben Silverman? That would be ABC's Stephen McPherson. [NYP]
• Bill O'Reilly tends to ambush liberals more often than he does conservatives. Could that mean he, like, has an agenda or something? How surprising! [NYT]
• Twitter on fire: Traffic is up 131 percent from February. [AdAge]
• Gannett Co. reported a 60 percent decline in first-quarter profit today. [AP]

Top GE and NBC Universal executives called a dinner meeting with CNBC bigwigs inside 30 Rock recently. This much is agreed upon. Still unclear: Whether CNBC was pressured to bash the president less.

• More bad news for the magazine biz: Ad pages fell 26 percent during the first quarter, although you probably guessed that when you used last month's issue of any number of Condé Nast magazines to floss your teeth. [NYT]
• Steve Brill plans to save journalism! Or die trying, at least. [NYT]
• Sam Zell now says his acquisition of the parent company of the Chicago Tribune in 2007 was "a mistake." And a rather expensive one at that. [CT]
• Is NBC's long ratings slump over? Jeff Zucker sure is hoping so! [LAT]
• 20/20's Bob Brown has been dismissed after 30 years at the network. Insult to injury: He was told he could freelance for the network if he wants. [P6]

Rod Blagojevich's months-long media bombing campaign has reached its inevitable climax: The disgraced former Illinois governor plans to join an NBC reality show, alongside J. Lo's ex-husband.

• Hachette is cutting salaries and asking staff to work overtime. Fun! [Gawker]
• Amazon is blaming an "embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error" for the dropping the sales rankings of thousands of gay and lesbian books. [AFP]
• Bravo has picked up four new shows, including one produced by Sarah Jessica Parker and another by Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher. [THR, THR]
• NBC's Boston affiliate, WHDH, has backed down from its threat to skip Jay Leno's new 10pm show when it debuts this fall. [B&C]
• Marriott will no longer automatically provide guests with a free copy of USA Today or the Journal. You're gonna have to ask for it from now on. [E&P]

On second thought, WHDH decided it might not go out of business if it airs Jay Leno's show at 10 pm, so the station reversed a short-lived effort to reject Leno's whatever-the-hell-it's-going-to-be at 10 p.m.

For all the talk about NBC Universal's flagship network or about its urbane Bravo cable network, it turns out the entertainment company makes its real money on the channel with professional wrestling and re-runs.

• The publisher of the Los Angeles Times is defending his decision to put an ad disguised as a news story on the front page of the paper yesterday. [LAT]
• A Fox Entertainment employee has reportedly been arrested for stealing the personal information of other Fox employees. [TVN]
• NBC is developing a sitcom based on George Gurley's Observer column. [P6]
• Angelina Jolie, Victoria Beckham and Lauren Conrad were among the "most salable cover faces" for fashion magazines in 2008. The least? Nicole Kidman, Carrie Underwood, and Rachel Weisz. [WWD]
• Dylan Ratigan talks about his departure from CNBC and move to ABC. [BI]
• Speaking of covers, are struggling celebrity tabloids paying for them? [NYP]
• The Daily Beast, Tina Brown's website, will introduce ads shortly. [AdAge]
• Fox News chairman Roger Ailes and his wife, Elizabeth, have purchased another local newspaper in Putnam County. [Portfolio]
• NBC will air a "comedy showcase" featuring Jay Leno on May 19. [NYT]

NBC is reportedly developing a sitcom called "George and Hilly" based on New York Observer writer George Gurley's columns about couples therapy with his fiancee. Here's what prime time viewers have to look forward to: