Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• Lou Dobbs is leaving CNN! Tonight's his last show! Happy Wednesday! [NYT]
• Condé Nast magazines have lost a collective 8,359 pages of advertising in 2009, which represents a 31 percent decline from a year earlier. [NYT]
• One thing that Hearst has going for it: lots of cash in the bank. [NYP]
• Banker-turned-media investor Jimmy Finklestein is reportedly buying the Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, Adweek, and a few other Nielsen titles. [Wrap]
• Current TV is keeping current with the times and laying off 80 staffers. [LAT]
• TV: Joss Whedon's Dollhouse has been canceled by Fox; meanwhile, ABC has decided that Kelsey Grammer comedy series Hank will exist no longer.
• Détente? President Obama has agreed to give Fox News an interview. [HP]
• The New Yorker sure has lots of writers and editors! [NYO]
• Reality TV is slowly killing us. So says Vanity Fair's James Wolcott. [VF]

• It's been two days since Condé Nast announced plans to shut down four of its magazines, but the bad news continues to trickle in. According to some number-crunching by Newsweek, the magazine giant could see ad revenue drop by $1 billion in 2009; rumor has it additional layoffs went down today; and the decision to shutter Gourmet is still generating controversy.
• CBS execs must be breathing a sigh of relief. Despite the insane media attention focused on David Letterman's sex scandal over the past week, Late Show advertisers appear to be sticking by him. [NYT]
• TV news: NBC has canceled the cop drama Southland. And ABC is picking up three show for the full season: Modern Family, Cougar Town, and The Middle.
• A Project Runway videogame is coming to the Wii next spring. [Variety] More

• Barack Obama's appearance on David Letterman's show last night helped the Late Night host score his second-highest ratings ever. [NYT, WP]
• Dan Rather scored a couple of victories in his suit against CBS: A motion by the network to dismiss the case was denied by a judge; and Rather's lawyers will be permitted to question Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone. [Reuters]
• Yesterday, activists handing out fake copies of the Post outside its offices were detained by cops. Today, the paper says it was "flattered" by it. [NYP]
• Book deals: Jenny Sanford, the estranged wife of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, is writing "inspirational memoir" for Random House. And Andrew Young, an aide to former Senator John Edwards, has landed a deal with St. Martin's Press' Thomas Dunne Books to publish his tell-all memoir.
• In an effort to keep more viewers tuned in, ABC plans to reduce—yes, reduce—the number of commercials in the premieres of its new shows. [LAT]
• Fox won the opening night of the fall season, a first for the network. [THR]More

• Who's going to replace Diane Sawyer now that she's leaving GMA? No one knows, really, but expect the changes to the show to be significant. [NYT]
• Time is shutting down its fashion-centric spin-off, Time Style & Design. Editor Kate Betts will remain with Time; six other staffers have been let go. [WWD]
• Magazine publishers are bending over backwards and offering to design ads themselves in order to keep their advertisers from fleeing. [NYT]
• A frontrunner may have emerged to acquire the Boston Globe. [NYP]
• ABC and CBS have agreed to air President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress next Wednesday. Fox, however, probably will not. [THR]
• Hollywood writers just aren't earning the cash they used to, it seems. [NYT]
• Simon Fuller, the man who brought you American Idol, now has his sights set on fashion: He's one of the people behind a new site called Fashionair. [VF]
• One more reason to hope Jay Leno's new nightly show on NBC fails: If it succeeds, you can expect every other network to dump pricey one-hour dramas and replace them with crappy live events and even crappier reality TV. [Time]

• All is not well at ABC. The hoped-for comeback of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? didn't happen and ratings have been so low, the network is now occasionally falling behind Univision. Yes, Univision. [NYT, B&C]
• The owners of Uptown magazine are in talks to acquire Vibe, which shut down in June. What they plan to do with it is anybody's guess. [AdAge]
• Tina Brown's Daily Beast is on the move: She's planning to launch a U.K. version of the Barry Diller-funded website within months. [Telegraph]
• Not every magazine in America is struggling, apparently! [Newsweek]
• Is MTV planning to leave Times Square? Quite possibly. [NYP] More

• Two years after he was booted from MSNBC and CBS Radio for making racist comments, Fox Business is now in talks to team up with Don Imus. [LAT]
• Is Hachette selling Elle? The company seems to be hedging. [AdAge]
• Magazine publishers are allowing advertisers to slap their ads just about any place they want these days. They're also planning to keep printing those annoying subscription cards until the end of time. [NYT, AdAge]
• ABC is planning a big programming push for the fall with seven new series set to debut, which is roughly double what NBC and CBS have planned. [USAT]
• CNBC's ratings are down big, in case you haven't heard. [Guardian]
• G.I. Joe was No. 1 at the box office this weekend, grossing an estimated $56 million. Julie and Julia came in second place with $20.1 million. [Variety] More

• Keith Olbermann took Times reporter Brian Stelter to task last night for reporting that News Corp. and GE had worked out a deal to tone down the rhetoric between MSNBC and Fox News. But he didn't disagree with everything Stelter reported. Conveniently, only the bad stuff about him was wrong. [NYM]
• More bad news for Olbermann: MSNBC now admits it made a mistake by not disclosing that Countdown fixture Richard Wolffe is a paid lobbyist. Naturally, Olbermann had absolutely no idea about any of this. [Politico, Salon]
• Condé Nast is shedding more staff. This time around it appears the media giant's receptionists will be paying the ultimate price. [Gawker, NYM]
• Reps for Bruce Wasserstein met with BusinessWeek execs yesterday to discuss a bid for the magazine. Joe Mansueto, the founder of Morningstar and owner of Fast Company, may be a potential bidder as well. [BW]More

• The Sci Fi Channel is now called Syfy. It's pronounced the same way, except it's less science fiction-y, which is why it was changed to begin with. [THR]
• Justin Timberlake has tapped lit agent David Vigliano to sell publishers on the notion that Timberlake is just the person to write a book about golf. [NYO]
• After a heated, two-year battle, big record labels and online radio stations have finally agreed on new royalty rates for streaming music online. [NYT]
• Who says embattled media companies are doing their best to spend money more wisely? The soundstage for Jay Leno's new primetime show will be "specially fitted to accommodate his passion: expensive cars." [THR]
• "Online predators" have hit Twitter. Paging Dateline's Chris Hansen! [LAT]
• A new study finds that kids are spending more time online. Surprise! [AP]
• Equally shocking: Breaking the Jackson story has boosted TMZ's traffic. [AP] More

• Both NBC and ABC plan to pre-empt regular programming this evening to air specials devoted to coverage of the Jackson story. E!, MTV, and CNN (among others) have specials airing over the next few days, too. [NYT, THR]
• Time is publishing a special Jackson "commemorative edition" on Monday. For its part, Rolling Stone has a "bookazine" in the works. [NYT, NYT]
• How newspapers around the world covered the Jackson news. [Guardian]
• And how the Jackson story kind of broke the Internet. [ABC News]More

• ABC and NBC will face off on Thursday night with competing tributes to Farrah Fawcett, who died today. But you probably expected that, no? [NYT]
• David Letterman beat out Conan in the ratings last week, the first time the Late Show has dominated the weekly ratings since 2005. [THR]
• Rosie O'Donnell will debut a new show on Sirius XM this fall. [NYDN]
• Rumor has it Ben Silverman's tenure at NBC may be ending soon. [DHD]
• Fox News now averages the same number of viewers as CNN, MSNBC, and HLN combined. Cue an evil grin across Roger Ailes's face. [THR]
• Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson's new book contains material he ripped from Wikipedia. But he's really, really sorry about it, okay? [NYP]More

• The bleak outlook for network news is getting bleaker: Both the CBS Evening News and ABC's World News suffered all-time ratings lows last week. [HuffPo]
• CBS chief Les Moonves's compensation was slashed by 76 percent last year. He still earned $13.6 million, though, so don't feel too bad for him. [Crain's]
• Depressing: Monday's breakup episode of TLC's Jon & Kate Plus 8 was the most-watched episode of the show ever with 10.6 million viewers. [THR]
• MySpace is closing four of its international offices and cutting two-thirds of its staff abroad advertising falls and Facebook and Twitter take over. [NYT]
• A woman in Massachusetts has filed a lawsuit against Elisabeth Hasselbeck for allegedly ripping off her self-published book on celiac disease. [BH]
• Bravo honcho Andy Cohen is going to be hosting a live show once a week called Watch What Happens. You can watch what happens on July 16. [LAT]More

• Advertisers are asking (demanding) that TV broadcasters cut prices by as much as 15 percent. The networks? They're not so happy about it. [LAT]
• Jared Kushner's Observer is launching a supplement for "stroller-wheeling New York City moms." The glossy is set to debut in September and "will address family-friendly topics for the society set and celebrity parents." [WWD]
• Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has sold off The Weekly Standard magazine to Denver-based media mogul (and fellow conservative) Phil Anschutz. [AP]
• ABC is changing up its executive management structure. [THR]
• Conan O'Brien was victorious in his second week up against Letterman. [NYT]
• Speaking of Letterman, Olive Garden—the "Italian" chain restaurant that you should never eat at even if you're dying of starvation—is canceling all of its spots on Letterman's show in solidarity with Sarah Palin. [Politico]

• The curse of Gisele: Both Vanity Fair and Harper's Bazaar put supermodel Gisele Bundchen on the covers of their mags this year, and both have turned out to be their worst-selling issues thus far in 2009. [NYO]
• Can Forbes survive the downturn? The Forbes family thinks so. [NYT]
• Jared Kushner's New York Observer has acquired Very Short List, the struggling email newsletter owned by Barry Diller's IAC. [Gawker, NYP]
• The Huffington Post has a new CEO, ex-Ziff-Davis CEO Eric Hippeau. [PC]
• BusinessWeek is the latest mag to test a paid online subscriptions. [MW]
• Barack Obama's half-brother landed a book deal with Simon & Schuster. [AP]
• The Hangover and Up were the top-grossing films this past weekend. [LAT]
• The Boston Globe is up for sale—and a handful of people appear to be interested—although just how much they'll pay is anybody's guess. [NYT]
• ABC's Lost is the most watched TV show on the Internet. [Variety]

• How are things going at the Cannes Film Festival? It depends on who you talk to. The Journal says it's been "conspicuously less frenzied" and business has been "slow." The Hollywood Reporter says it's beating expectations and "doomsayers" have been "proven wrong." Take your pick. [WSJ, THR]
• NBC is dropping Medium and My Name Is Earl for the fall, but bringing back Chuck. It's also renewed Law & Order for a 20th season. [NYT, AP, NYT]
• What can you expect on ABC this fall? More Dancing With the Stars. [THR]
• CBS is ditching Without A Trace, but has renewed Numb3rs. [EW]
• Time Warner Cable is dropping HDNet and HDNet Movies as May 31. [MC] More

• Execs at CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox are supposedly "seething" that the president's three news conferences have cost them $30 million in ad revenue. [THR]
• Is the New York Times Co. heading towards bankruptcy? [E&P]
• More budget cuts at the Star Ledger and San Francisco Chronicle. [E&P, HP]
• The LA Times introduces a new weekly magazine this Sunday. [Folio]
• Star Trek is off to a fast start. The pic grossed $7 million last night alone. [EW]
• It looks like television and radio advertising is rebounding a bit. [MLM]
• Former Radar editor Maer Roshan is now the editor of TheWeek.com. [NYP]
• The Simpsons got its own series of postage stamps yesterday. [Reuters]