Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• Miramax's chief, Daniel Battsek, has been forced out of the company. [LAT]
• The Washington Post Co. reports revenue and profits were up in the third quarter, not that it had anything to do with its newspaper division. [AP]
• Sony posted a loss for its most recent quarter even though it says it's sold 9 million Michael Jackson albums since his death in June. [AP, Wrap]
• The Travel Channel may fetch $1 billion as part of a bidding war. [NYT]
• Shepard Smith is Fox News' man of reason, according to Lloyd Grove. [TDB]
• Related: Jon Stewart ripped Fox News apart again last night. [TDS]
• Will new talk shows hosted by Wanda Sykes, George Lopez, and Mo'Nique revive the late night format? Probably not, but they're going to try. [WSJ] 

• There may be other suitors for NBC in addition to Comcast. Like News Corp. And Liberty Media. And Time Warner. Or maybe not. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, for one, says he isn't interested. [THR, DHD, Gawker, AdAge]
• More on the sale of BusinessWeek: "Knowledgeable sources" say Bloomberg is paying $2-$5 million in cash for the mag. And another source reports the mag will be changing its name to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Naturally. [BW, NYT]
• The war between the White House and Fox News goes on. [NYDN, ABC, CJR]
• If you notice TV commercials seem more upbeat than usual, it's because the advertising world has decided to be cheerful and optimistic again. [NYT]
• The Atlantic has determined that NBC CEO Jeff Zucker and New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. are "Brave Thinkers," for some reason. [NYO]More

Spotted | Kate Winslet walking in the meatpacking district with her son ... Donna Karan eating lunch outside with a friend in SoHo ... Jon Stewart walking with his wife and son in Tribeca ... Mischa Barton running errands with her dog ... Brad Pitt with son Maddox catching a flight at JFK ... Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg shooting scenes for The Other Guys in Chinatown ... Gerard Butler walking downtown ... David Byrne riding his bike near the West Side Highway ... Model Kara Young walking home from the gym in the West Village ... Sarah Jessica Parker leaving the Serge Normant Hair Salon in the meatpacking district, and later arriving at Barbra Streisand's performance at the Village Vanguard ... Clive Owen walking with a friend in SoHo ... and Jay-Z leaving dinner with a bunch of bodyguards.

• Ted Kennedy's death late last night sent the media into a predictable scramble. Some newspapers stopped the presses in the wee hours to change out the front page; every news network has been busy mobilizing its troops and planning various TV specials; Time announced plans to publish a commemorative edition; and the publication date of Kennedy's forthcoming memoir has been moved up to September 14 from early October.
• Some people watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's shows because they think it makes them look cool, according to a new research report. [NYT]
• The premiere of True Blood on Sunday night reeled in more than 5.3 million viewers and generated HBO its biggest audience in years. [MCN]
• Because The View is determined to provide a home to the most insufferable women on earth, Kate Gosselin has signed on to guest host the show next month, joining the likes of Meghan McCain and LaToya Jackson. [E!] More

Dear Mr. Leibowitz | Jon Stewart pokes fun at politicians who don't tell it like it is and fudge the truth almost every night. Now it looks like the tables have turned. Slate's Ron Rosenbaum has penned an open letter to Stewart. And he's asking the comedian to stop living a lie:More

• BusinessWeek's Jon Fine reports that New York owner Bruce Wasserstein may be in the running to break out a dollar bill and buy BusinessWeek. [BW]
• ESPN banned New York Post employees from appearing on the network yesterday after the paper ran (blurry) pics of a nude Erin Andrews. [AP]
• Will will happen with McKinsey consultants now infiltrating Condé Nast? How should you behave if you work there? Some answers and tips. [NYM, Gawker]
• Martha Stewart loves Twitter, doesn't particularly care for Facebook. [TDB]
• Kate Major, the Jon Gosselin-loving, publicity-seeking reporter for publicity-seeking Star magazine, has resigned from the junky tabloid. [Star]
• Ad revenue fell precipitously, but the New York Times Co. reported second-quarter profits of $39.1 million, up from $21.1 million a year ago. [NYT]
• Related: Is the Times Co. planning to hang on to the Boston Globe? [E&P]
• America's most trusted newscaster? That would be Jon Stewart. [Time] More

• The Boston Newspaper Guild, the Boston Globe's largest union, narrowly rejected a package of pay concessions and benefit cuts last night. [NYT]
• David Letterman is close to signing a new, 3-year contract with CBS. [THR]
• Conan O'Brien has beat Letterman in the ratings every night since his show debuted last week. But that may very well change pretty soon. [Vulture]
• Rachael Ray's talk show has been renewed for two more seasons. Alas. [THR]
• Glenn O'Brien is out as Interview's editorial director. [Daily Intel, FWD] More

• Olivia Palermo's imaginary career is on fire. The City star is reportedly leaving her "job" at DVF to "work" in the publicity department at Elle. So if you see anything in Elle that seems to have been ripped from another magazine, now you know who to blame. [P6]
• Jay-Z demanded a Maybach, champagne, "good quality" peanut butter and jelly, 12 shot glasses, and a pack of Marlboros—along with $750,000—before agreeing to perform at the University of Arizona last month. [SG, P6]
• Jesus Luz's dad says his son and Madonna "definitely" plan to tie the knot in a Kabbalah ceremony shortly. But Jesus won't have to bother signing a prenup since the marriage won't be legally binding. [NYDN]
• The good news for Amy Winehouse: She's reportedly no longer addicted to drugs. The bad: She's supposedly traded the drugs for booze. [OK!]
• Man of the people: Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein was spotted flying coach on a flight from New York to DC. [P6]More

The Robin Hood Foundation's spring fundraiser took place last night at the Jacob Javitz Convention Center and some 3,200 people turned up to munch on grilled shrimp and chicken Milanese, mingle with the likes of Oprah and Anne Hathaway, and open their wallets and give to the non-profit that funnels millions of dollars a year to worthy causes across the city. The mood was a bit subdued this year, which isn't surprising considering Robin Hood remains the charity of choice for a big bunch of Wall Street chiefs and hedge fund titans like Dan Och, Steve Cohen, and Paul Tudor Jones. To reflect the mood, the lavish auction items that were a staple in previous years weren't part of the program this time around. But emcee Jon Stewart managed to keep the crowd laughing with Bernie Madoff jokes, and George Soros gave the evening a big boost by making a $50 million pledge. (The organization collected a total of $72 million last night, up from $56 million last spring.) Coverage of the event can be found here, here, and here. For a slightly more informal take on the evening, a brief dispatch from the wife of a hedge fund manager is below.More

• Star Trek reeled in $76 million at the box office this weekend. [WSJ]
• Metro is selling off its collection of free (and money-losing) newspapers to Seabay Media, a company controlled by Metro's former CEO. [WaPo]
• Playboy says it's planning to make "radical changes" to the mag, and may raise prices as well as reduce the number of issues it prints every year. [Folio]
• Jon Stewart is creating a two-hour special for the History Channel. [B&C]
• Lit agent Larry Kirshbaum is shopping a memoir by Rafael Nadal. [Crain's]
• More speculation the Sulzbergers will be forced to give up the Times. [NYP]
• Speaking of the Times, a San Francisco organization paid columnist Tom Friedman $75,000 for a speech he's given before (and which is online). [SFC]
• Brit chef Jamie Oliver and Ryan Seacrest are working on a new reality show for ABC that will "give healthy makeovers to an entire city." Be afraid. [THR] More

Spotted | Marisa Tomei walking with her boyfriend, Logan Marshall Green ... Jon Stewart shopping with his wife and kids on 8th and Broadway ... Christy Turlington and Ed Burns crossing the street with their kids in Tribeca ...  ... Lauren Conrad leaving JFK ... Joy Bryant holding a baby during a lunch at Gemma ... Anderson Cooper walking by himself ... Jay-Z and Beyonce shopping in Soho ... Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber walking to Pinkberry with their son and dog ... Rachel McAdams and Josh Lucas getting out of a car in front of their hotel in Soho ... Heidi Klum and Seal arriving at LaGuardia with their kids ... Josh Hartnett walking with a friend in Soho ... and Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott leaving dinner at Cipriani Downtown. 

Spotted | Jon Stewart jogging across the street with his son ... Sienna Miller arriving at JFK ... Kiefer Sutherland walking in the West Village with his girlfriend ... Taylor Momsen going to church with her mother and sister ... Katie Lee Joel taking her dog for a walk in the Village ... Michelle Williams pushing daughter Matilda in a stroller ... Sarah Jessica Parker walking in the rain in the West Village with son James ... Hilary Duff and Mariska Hargitay hanging out on the set of Law & Order: SVU ... Sheryl Crow carrying her son Wyatt in a car seat ... and Sean Penn walking around on the set of his new movie Fair Game in Brooklyn.

• Bill O'Reilly is already threatening to totally ruin 2010: He says he's working on a book about Barack Obama which will come out next year. [NYP]
• Twitter fan Gary Vaynerchuk is getting seven figures to write 10 books about Twitter. And some think the publishing world doesn't "get it"! [WSJ]
• Hollywood is cutting back on the big pay packages for A-list stars. [WSJ]
• Ed Schultz is taking over the 6pm slot on MSNBC with a new show. [HP]
• No joke: Delta will soon sell its in-flight magazine on newsstands. [WWD]
• More on the recent round of layoffs at Condé Nast Digital. [PaidContent]
• Ad man Peter Arnell's disastrous rebranding of Tropicana also led to a 20 percent drop in sales in January and February. Nice work. [AdAge]
• Jon Stewart had a few words of advice for Rush Limbaugh last night. And Stephen Colbert went to town on Glenn Beck. [HP, Buzzfeed]
• NBC will air the final episode of ER tonight with a three-hour "event." [NYT]

• A new poll finds that one-third of Americans under 40 think The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are replacing "traditional" news outlets.  [HP]
• Nickelodeon is asking kids to unplug their TVs and gadgets for a minute on Earth Day to signal "a commitment to helping the environment." Just a minute, though! Then they can go back to filling their heads with mindless junk. [AP]
• CNBC's Larry Kudlow will not be running for the Senate. Crushing! [NYT]
• Ratings for President Obama's telecast last night "showed some audience slippage compared with his two most recent live events." [THR]
• The Chicago Tribune and LA Times are combining their foreign reporters into one unit. Meanwhile, the AJC is cutting 30% of its staff. [E&P, AP]
• How is Twitter going to make money? Good question! [WSJ] 
• William Morris is likely to seal a deal with Endeavor this week. [TDB]
• Verizon says it plans to launch its own local TV channel in NYC this summer. It will be just like NY1, minus the incomparable Pat Kiernan, of course. [WSJ]

• Former president George W. Bush has signed a deal with Crown to publish a memoir. Rumor has it he landed a $7 million advance for the book. [AP, NYP]
• For his part, Barack Obama has two books in the works with Crown. He plans to release an abridged, youth-oriented version of Dreams From My Father as well as write a nonfiction book once he leaves office. [CBS News]
• CNBC's keeping it classy. Larry Kudlow set a dollar bill on fire today. [CJR]
• Jim Cramer is still rattling on about Jon Stewart. [Gawker]
• NBC is planning to launch a "singing competition series" that sounds a lot like—yes, you guessed it—Fox's American Idol. [THR]
• CBS is keeping Two and a Half Men on the air through 2012. [NYT]
• The finalists for the Man Booker International Prize include E. L. Doctorow, V. S. Naipaul, Joyce Carol Oates, Mario Vargas Llosa and Alice Munro. [NYT]
• The noms for the National Magazine Awards are out. [AdAge]
• The cable channel Starz would like to remind you that it exists. [NYT]
• How screwed is the newspaper biz? Here's a pic that sums it up nicely. [BI]