Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• Condé Nast is now swinging into damage control mode: It's retained Michael Sheehan, a "crisis manager and media coach" who's faced some steep PR challenges in the past having worked with President Clinton and AIG. [NYP]
• So is Oprah moving to cable? The discussions continue, reportedly. [AdAge]
• Kyle Pope doesn't seem to have been Jared Kushner's first choice to serve as editor-in-chief of the New York Observer. Times star business reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin turned Kushner down twice over the past year. [NYM]
• More than 100 people were laid off at Lifetime and A&E today. [Variety]
• Philip Gourevitch is stepping down as editor of The Paris Review. [NYO]
• Time Warner chief Jeff Bewkes discusses the future of the media biz. [TDB]
• MTV did not rebuild the Berlin Wall for U2, in case you were worried. [UPI]

• Is Oprah preparing to leave her syndicated show behind and take her act to OWN, her long-delayed cable network? That's the rumor anyway. [DH]
• The new editor of the Observer is Kyle Pope, formerly of Portfolio. [NYO]
• Cable meets kindergarten: Fox News will stop being mean to MSNBC only if MSNBC first stops being mean to Fox News, reports Rupert Murdoch. [NYT]
• Fortune and Time are expected to be hardest hit by layoffs at Time Inc. [NYP]
• Scripps has beat out News Corp. for control of the Travel Channel. [BN]
• Susan Plagemann has been named the new publisher of Vogue. Meanwhile, Tom Florio will now oversee Vogue, Bon Appétit and Traveler. [WWD]
• Bloomberg BusinessWeek (or BBW for short) has its new team in place. [NYT]More

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

• The cuts continue at Time Inc. Fortune Small Business was shuttered today. And as many as 500 employees may lose their jobs when all is said and done. Meanwhile, parent company Time Warner reported a drop in revenues and earnings in the third quarter, as expected. [NYT, WWD, AdAge, NYP]
• Profits were up at News Corp. thanks to its film, cable, and book units. [BN]
• The publisher of Marie Claire has jumped over to Vogue. [NYO]
• Fox News came out on top in the ratings with its election night coverage. CNN performed miserably, dropping down to fourth place. [NYT, Politico]
• WNET is giving employees off between Christmas and New Year's. It's not to be nice; it's designed to cut costs since the days off are unpaid. [Crain's]
• A theory as to why Tom McGeveran quit the Observer. [Daily Intel]
• Highlights from last weekend's Tribeca Film Festival, Doha edition. [Vulture] More

• The Wall Street Journal has the Times in its sights. The paper is hiring a dozen reporters to cover local news and will launch a NYC edition next year. [NYT]
• As expected, a big round of layoffs at Time Inc. is underway. [Gawker, NYT]
• Harvey and Bob Weinstein may be looking to buy back the Miramax name from Disney now that it's being disbanded. That's the rumor anyway. [Wrap]
• Bloomberg plans to make BusinessWeek "bigger, glossier, and more international." Oh, and it may start charging for access to the BW site. [MW]
• The Oscars will have two hosts: Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. [LAT]More

It's been a brutal few weeks at Condé Nast as the magazine giant has shut down four magazines and slashed hundreds of jobs. The pain, however, isn't limited to the rank and file. A prized piece of art from the collection of Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse goes up for auction tomorrow at Sotheby's and despite the fact he stands to lose much as $10 million by selling now at the market abyss, Newhouse has opted to try and unload the piece anyway. Desperate times call for desperate measures, it seems.More

• Comcast is "close" to a deal to take control of NBC Universal. [NYT]
• Scripps Networks, which controls the Food Network and HGTV, is close to taking over the Travel Channel for the low, low price of $1 billion. [NYT]
• The critically-acclaimed cop drama Southland is coming back. Although NBC canceled the show, TNT now plans to air the remaining episodes. [LAT]
• It's been a rocky road for Jay Leno since moving to 10pm, which may explain why he says he'd go right back to his old time slot if NBC requested it. [B&C]
• Oprah has signed on to narrate a new Discovery Channel nature series. [NYT]
• Universal Music is bringing in a successor to CEO Doug Morris. [BW]
• The Jackson doc This Is It was No. 1 at the box office this weekend. [THR]
• Did you know that in the '80s, Sue Simmons used to knock back a couple of cocktails and hit the clubs before the 11pm newscast? How scandalous! [NYO]

• 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] 

• Time Inc. is expected to announce plans to slash $100 million in costs next week; naturally, lots of layoffs will be involved in making that happen. [NYT]
• The Wall Street Journal is closing its Boston bureau. Also in Beantown: The Boston Globe's publisher has announced he's stepping down. [BW, NYT]
• The war between the White House and Fox News is over. For now. [DF]
• Esquire's latest bid for relevance: Its December issue will be tricked out with "an emerging technology called augmented reality." Sounds hot. [WSJ]
• Lou Dobbs says someone fired a shot at his New Jersey home/horse farm. He's yet to blame the population of Mexico. But just give it time. [CNN]More

Did someone really think it would be a good idea to have Katie Couric dress up in various ball gowns for the socialite rag Avenue? Apparently so!

Looking sexy is not my goal when I'm at work. In fact, I find it disconcerting when anchors on cable look like they're going clubbing or just won a VMA award. I have nothing against them, but it's kind of an over-sexualization that I find a little weird. I don't know if their male bosses are pushing it, but there's a fine line between attractive and tarty, and sometimes I look up and and think, "She's wearing a cocktail dress. Why is she doing that?"

Ironically, "Why is she doing that?" is exactly the same question we had, too, as we looked at the photos of bejeweled anchor and read the accompanying interview conducted by renowned journalist Mariska Hargitay. [Avenue]

• Tom McGeveran took over as editor of the Observer after Peter Kaplan made his exit this spring, but now he's headed out the door as well. [NYO]
• Layoffs: The cuts at Condé Nast continue though they should end soon; the layoffs at Forbes this week were deep ones: 1 in 4 editorial staffers were let go.
• Newsday's website erected a pay wall today. Good luck with that. [E&P]
• The Michael Jackson movie This Is It sold $2.2 million in tickets on its opening night, which is pretty good considering it was a Tuesday. [LAT, NYT]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

• Bad news for CNN: The network now occupies fourth (and last) place in the cable news ratings. Not only did it fall behind Fox News and MSNBC in October, it also dropped below its sister network HLN as well. [DF, NYT]
• More bad news for newspapers: Sales were down 10 percent between April and September; the New York Times' weekday circulation has now fallen below 1 million for the first time in two decades. [AP, NYT, AdAge]
• As rumored, Forbes carried out a round of job cuts today. [NYT]
• Ricky Gervais will be the host of the 67th Annual Golden Globes. [LAT]
• If you love Top Chef and Top Chef Masters, you'll be pleased to hear that a third iteration, Top Chef: Just Desserts, will debut on Bravo next year. [THR]
• Rosie O'Donnell's new Sirius XM show debuts next week. Get excited! [USAT]
• Self editor Lucy Danzinger has no need for the Town Cars normally provided to Condé Nast editors. After she's finished running six miles in Central Park in the morning, Condé's bravest editor straps on a helmet and bikes to work! (Except when it's snowing or she has an important meeting, of course.) [NYT]

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

• The job cuts at Condé Nast continue. (Apparently laying off everyone at once would have just been too easy.) Yesterday it lowered the boom at Vanity Fair and GQ, although VF editor Graydon Carter managed to shield his eyes from carnage since he'd jetted off on vacation earlier that morning. [NYP, WWD]
• News Corp. appears to be the front-runner to buy the Travel Channel. [NYT]
• NBC has picked up Community, Parks and Recreation, and Mercy for the full season. It's also signed Adam Carolla and Don Cheadle to each do a show.
• Last night's premiere of The Jeff Dunham Show set a new record for Comedy Central, which, if you've seen Dunham, is a sad statement indeed. [Wrap]
• Silliest rumor of the day: Politico reported this morning that friends were urging Fox News chief Roger Ailes to run for president in 2012. But that's not going to happen, of course, so a few hours later Politico posted Ailes' denial.
• The first official portrait of the Obamas was taken by Annie Leibovitz. [VF]
• A few early predictions for Best Picture, if you're interested. [LAT]