Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

This week marked the debut of The City, the New York-centric MTV reality show that follows Whitney Port flitting around town with her fellow DVF "co-worker" Olivia Palermo. New York honored the grand occasion with a feature by David Amsden, who observed that Palermo isn't the only fixture on the social scene who has been in search of reality TV stardom. There's also Debbie Trachtenberg—otherwise known as Devorah Rose—the "26-year-old editor of Social Life magazine, who recently sold an idea (currently called Social Heights) to ABC about the lives of her and her close friends, the publicist Kristian Laliberte and diamond heiress Annabel Vartanian." Props to Devorah for managing to squeeze two lies by New York's factcheckers in the same sentence. She's actually 29, not 26. And the sale of that reality TV concept? Well, that came as news to ABC, who said they'd never even heard of the show. More

♦ Anna Wintour has responded to rumors she's leaving Condé Nast: "I have no plans to leave American Vogue now or in the foreseeable future." [NYO]
♦ Chris Matthews could be seriously considering quitting MSNBC to run for Senate. Or he could be using it as a negotiating tactic. [Politico]
♦ The Grammy noms were announced last night, in case you missed it. [AP]
♦ NBC has halted production of Knight Rider. [THR]
♦ More on the changes afoot at Random House. [NYO]
♦ ABC will air Homeland Security USA, a reality show produced in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security, in January. Really. [NYT]

♦  ABC has ordered up new episodes of Life on Mars, but it has no plans to shoot new ones of Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, or Eli Stone. [THR]
♦  Penguin's Ann Godoff will be publishing pollster Nate Silver's two books as part of the deal he signed for $700,000. [NYO]
♦  Michael Phelps has signed on as a pitchman for Subway. [AdAge]
♦  Ted Turner's autobiography will make its debut on the New York Times bestseller list this week at No. 8. Also: Artie Lang, Howard Stern's sidekick, has landed a six-figure book deal. [NYP]More

♦  ABC appears to generated the highest ratings as the election results rolled in last night. NBC came in second and CNN ranked third. [TV Decoder]
♦  Time is rushing to produce a commemorative issue of the mag by the end of the week. [HuffPo]
♦  Both People and Us Weekly will feature Obama on the covers of the next issue.  [NYP]
♦  Can The Daily Show survive an Obama presidency? and how will other media outlets deal with the post-election dropoff? [Politico, AdAge]
♦  An explanation of that holography thingie on CNN last night. [YouTube]More

♦  Teen Vogue is opening a retail outlet at the mall in Short Hills, New Jersey. It'll be called "Teen Vogue Haute Spot" and, no, this is not a joke. [NYT]
♦  More than 20 percent of American households watched Barack Obama's infomercial on Wednesday night. [NYT]
♦  Joe the Plumber is pursuing a country music deal and could have an album out by Inauguration Day, although we're going to assume this won't be Barack's musical choice for the big day. [Politico]More

♦  Rachael Ray's mammogram is scheduled for tomorrow. And you'll be able to watch it go down if you tune into her show. [NYDN]
♦  The New Yorker just issued its endorsement of Barack Obama. Bet you're really surprised. [NYer]
♦  CNBC hit an all-time record the day the Dow dropped 777 points. [MCN]
♦  ABC's lineup of new shows isn't off to a very good start this season. [THR]
♦  Why Microsoft's ads with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld was a flop and Apple's "I'm a PC" ad has been a success. [AdAge]
♦  Newark's Star-Ledger is hanging on, but barely. [AP]
♦  As the economy turns south, marketers are turning up the volume and going after their competitors. [WSJ]
♦  Donna Tartt is leaving Knopf for Little, Brown. [Galleycat]
♦  The new, ad-covered subway cars... revealed! [NYT]

♦  David Letterman ripped into John McCain once again last night, which he'll probably continue to do as long as he gets this much attention for it. [NYT]
♦  Sarah Ivens is out as the editor-in-chief of the moneylosing tabloid OK! And, no, Bonnie Fuller is not taking over. [NYP]
♦  CNBC's David Faber is writing a book about the Wall Street meltdown, too. [NYO]
♦  ABC won the Thursday night ratings war thanks to the two-hour season premiere of Grey's Anatomy. [TV Decoder]
♦  Brigitte Quinn and Page Hopkins are leaving Fox News. [TV Newser]
♦  The Magazine Publishers of America will announce the winner of the cover of the year on Monday; here are the three finalists. [Jossip]

• The premiere of Saturday Night Live with Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin and Michael Phelps as guest host generated the show's best season debut since 2001. [THR]
• Not exactly the most auspicious timing, but Slate's new finance site, The Big Money, launched today. [NYT]
• A redesigned WSJ.com will debut tomorrow morning. [NYT/Bits]
• Joel and Ethan Coen's Burn After Reading was the No. 1 movie at the box office this weekend with $19.4 million in receipts. [THR]
• David Carr on Katie Couric's surprising election season rebound. [NYT]
• Levi's new ad campaign is focusing on the gay market. [NYT]
• ABC's generated solid ratings on Friday night with part two of Charles Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin. [TVDecoder]
• Fox has signed a "mega-renewal" deal with Gordon Ramsey. [Variety]
  

• Arianna Huffington says her website is not for sale, but that's probably just because no one is interested in paying $200 million for it. [Gawker]
• Jann Wenner has tapped Will Schenck as the new publisher of Rolling Stone. [Mediaweek]
• The John Edwards scandal provided a nice boost to the National Enquirer. [WWD]
• ABC has five new shows for the fall. [AdAge]
• ESPN has a late-night talk show in the works. [NYP]
• Rising cable news star Rachel Maddow drives a pickup truck and doesn't have a TV in her NYC apartment. [WaPo]

• Hachette is shuttering Home magazine. [Mediaweek]
• A redesigned Interview will be unveiled next week. [Folio]
  
• ABC's Supernanny is switching genders in a new spinoff called (naturally!) Supermanny. [THR]
• NBC is witnessing its highest ratings in years, while competitors like Fox, CBS, and ABC have been at all-time lows. [THR/Live Feed]
• Kent Brownridge is stepping down as CEO of Alpha Media Group, the parent company of Maxim and Blender. He'll hang around as chairman. [MinOnline]
• News outlets like CBS News and the New York Times reported today that congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones had died when in fact she's still alive. [E&P]

Take a Week Off, At ABC's Request | Hope you don't already have anything important planned for the end of September: ABC just announced that the week of September 21st is "National Stay at Home Week." How convenient, especially since it's premiere week, too! We're just hoping that Regal Cinema's "National Go-to-the-Movies Week" doesn't conflict! [Variety via NYM]