Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

AOL Cuts Deep | AOL announced today that it plans to shed one-third of its workforce, or 2,300 jobs, as it prepares to be spun off by its parent company, Time Warner. The most ironic part? The man most responsible for uniting AOL and Time Warner in what has since turned out to be the most ill-advised merger in history, is the happiest he's been in years. Steve Case, AOL's co-founder, just sold his Paypal also-ran, Revolution Money, yesterday to American Express for $300 million. [Bloomberg, NYT]

Time Warner started cutting costs across its Time Inc. publishing division this week and is hoping to save as much as $100 million by paring back expenses and slashing several hundred jobs. One way the company could have made up the difference without sacrificing any of its employees? By selling off the three Gulfstream jets it owns! More

• Nell Scovell, a writer on Dave Letterman's show in the late '80s, has stepped forward to detail the show's "hostile, sexually charged atmosphere." [VF]
• Layoffs: Yesterday's cuts at Forbes claimed 30-40 people; reality TV-focused Teen Vogue laid off half a dozen staffers today; the cuts continue this week at W; and a big round of cuts could go down at Time Inc. sometime next week.
• Sarah Palin's memoir, which comes out next month, had already earned her $1.25 million even before she stepped down as Alaska's governor. [AP]
• Michael Jackson's This Is It debuts in theaters tonight. [NYDN]
• How's Jay Leno's new show doing more than a month in? Not so good. [NYT]More

Ever since McKinsey & Company finished up its three-month review at Condé Nast a few weeks ago, the publishing giant has been busy cutting costs, closing down four magazines and laying off staff at most of its remaining titles. But perhaps instead of hiring the pricey consulting firm, Condé should have traveled to the front lines to talk to one of the guys who sells magazines for a living? To gain some insight into the future of printed media and find out what sells (and what doesn't), we headed over to a newsstand on Third Avenue to chat with a kind gentleman named Naseer. You'll find his thoughts on the layoffs and career advice for unemployed journalists below. More

Ax Falls at MTV | Hot on the heels of last week's news that MTV had ousted top exec Brian Graden—part of a reorganization, according to the company—comes word that the network laid off another 75 employees today. [B&C]

There's a new game in town: misery poker. Perhaps you've played? In these dreary days of recession, it's all the rage. The rules are simple: Anytime someone complains about their day, you try and trump it, explaining why yours was worse. Your brother got yelled at by his boss? You got yelled at by your boss, your boyfriend and the doorman. Your friend lost her job? At least she gets eight weeks severance, you're cut off. Your wife spent all day taking care of the kids? At least she has a nanny to help out. You're on your own 80 hours a week. "Instead of sharing our misery, we seem to be using it as a competitive weapon," observes the Wall Street Journal. Damn straight.More

Black Friday at the Observer | A bloodbath at Jared Kushner's New York Observer is unfolding this afternoon. Gawker has the details. [Gawker]

Bank of America Keeps It Classy | Bank of America has informed fired employees that they cannot accept job offers from competitors for three months unless they give up deferred compensation or waive their right to sue the bank. An outrageous demand, clearly, and certainly not the wisest PR move for the struggling bank. Although it's not as if it's going to pose much of a problem for most people given the likelihood of finding a new job in banking in three months or less is, oh, about nil. [Reuters]

Jerry Seinfeld's Epic Struggle Will Ease the Pain | It's hard to cheer someone up who recently lost his or her job on account of the economic downturn. Perhaps a few stories of rich, famous people who lost their jobs once upon time will help? Okay, perhaps not, but it is nice to see that Jerry Seinfeld's dismissal as a mail boy on the set of Benson in 1981 is being used to lift the spirits of a nation. [WSJ]

• All those layoffs at Forbes yesterday? They continue today, sadly. [NYP]
• Times executive editor Bill Keller has a few words for Marc Bowden, who wrote the Vanity Fair piece about Arthur Sulzberger Jr. Also? He thinks VF should really beef up its factchecking department. [Romenesko]
• The biggest media company in America? That would be Disney. [BN]
• Nine of the top 10 cable news programs belong to Fox News. [HP]
• The winners of the 2008 Peabody Awards were announced today. [AP]
• Wanda Sykes is getting her own talk show. [B&C]
• Video from Bill O'Reilly's chat with David Letterman last night. [MM]
• Guiding Light is done. The final episode airs Sept. 18. [THR]

WNBC Drops Berman | Chuck Scarborough has yet to be given a pink slip by WNBC, as per the rumors making the rounds yesterday, but the same can't be said for sports anchor Len Berman. The 20-year veteran of Ch. 4 will stick around for the next 30 to 60 days before bidding goodbye to his $1-million-a-year salary. Whether his "Spanning the World" bit lives on without him is unclear, although on a positive note, he'll no longer have to commute home to Long Island at 11:30pm every night. [Newsday]

It's a Bad News Day at Forbes | Forbes has busy been laying off staff today. But the magazine is facing other problems, too. Billionaire Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev now says he plans to sue the mag for reducing his net worth on its recent list of the world's richest people. "Forbes magazine claimed that I lost $2.5 billion in the global financial crisis," he told the Russian news agency, Interfax. "That's absurd. I will demand compensation of material and moral damage caused by this defamation." [Guardian]

• Washington is now playing hard ball: The Obama administration has forced out GM CEO Rick Wagoner and now says the company has 30 days to finalize its alliance with Fiat if it expects to get more bailout cash. [NYT, WSJ]
• UBS plans to lay off as many as 8,000 more employees worldwide. [Reuters]
• Working at Goldman Sachs has its perks: The bank spent tens of millions bailing out several senior execs facing a personal liquidity squeeze, including former COO Jon Winkelried and general counsel Gregory Palm. [NYT]
• Bank of America plans to increase some bankers' salaries by as much as 70 percent to offset reduced year-end bonuses. [BN]
• The Blackstone Group turned down a request from regulators to disclose the performance of its buyout and hedge funds; Fortress, however, caved. [BN]
• Timothy Geithner says some financial institutions will still need a lot more government aid in the future. You're stunned by that, we're sure. [BN]

• NBC is chopping 6 shows, including, yes, the Chopping Block. [THR]
• It's rumored Budget Travel has, yes, cut its budget. [Gawker]
• Another stain on Jim Cramer, not that he needs it: In '07, he called Andrew Cuomo a "communist" for proposing mortgage industry regulation. [NYT]
• The Times's Bill Keller sheds some light on yesterday's cuts and layoffs. [E&P]
• Condé Nast's Chuck Townsend sheds light on his staff changes. [AdAge]
• Lionsgate slashed 8 percent of its staff today. [THR]
• Newspaper ad revenue dropped 17.7% in 2008. [E&P]
• Americans spend 8.5 hours a day consuming video content. [NYT]
• Facebook needs a (generous) friend: It's trying to raise $100 million. [PC] 
• Cable company Charter Communications is officially bankrupt. [NYT]

Further evidence that instead of taking a tour bus to visit the suburban homes of AIG execs, taxpayers would be better off channelling their rage by staging a noisy protest outside the Beresford: After the Times reported this morning that Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit signed off on tens of millions in retention bonuses to nine top execs at the firm—Pandit, himself, received a stock grant worth $2.5 million—comes word from Daily Intel that Citi is now laying off 65 janitors. Janitors. (Presumably not the same ones, though, who will be expected to clean up after Pandit in the new $10 million office, which he's currently constructing.) Two other big advantages to a Pandit protest: Unlike AIG, you won't have to make the trek to Connecticut. And PETA protesters have been there for months now, so they can show you the ropes. [NYM]