Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• Is New York magazine up for sale now that Bruce Wasserstein has died?  There's no reason to assume so, but that isn't stopping people from tossing around the names of some very unlikely "contenders." [NYP, AdAge, DF]
• Related: David Carr of the Times details how Wasserstein benefited the magazine; Daniel Gross of Slate focuses on his commitment to journalism; and New York's editors offer up their own heartfelt tribute to the mag's late owner.
• The cuts at Condé continue: Golf World felt the pain today. [Gawker]
• SNL has cut a deal with Anheuser-Busch to stick beer ads into the show. "Maybe if we drink enough the show will actually seem funny." [LAT] More

• Controversial right-wing columnist Robert Novak is dead at 78. [NYT]
• Sunday's hyped-up premiere of Mad Men attracted lots more viewers, as expected. Some 2.8 million people tuned in, up 33% from last year. [Reuters]
• Struggling studio MGM has dumped its CEO and hired a new one. [WSJ]
• Is Sam Zell going to walk away from Tribune? That's the rumor. [NYP]
• The president will speak at next month's Walter Cronkite memorial. [NYT]
• Steven Spielberg's new movie studio now has $825 million in the bank. The company says it plans to make 21 movies over the next four years. [WSJ]
• It looks like MySpace is buying the site iLike for "around $20 million." [DB]
• Newsday is under fire after rejecting an ad by the Tennis Channel that happened to be critical of the newspaper's parent company, Cablevision. [NYT]
• Irony alert: BusinessWeek, the struggling business mag desperately seeking a buyer, just launched a new website called "The Case for Optimism." [BW]

• Looking to buy a struggling business magazine that's losing advertisers right and left? You're in luck. McGraw-Hill has put BusinessWeek up for sale.  [BN]
• The hottest interview in TV-land right now? Bernie Madoff, naturally. [B&C]
• Not such great news for the television biz: Most networks are experiencing a double-digit drop in summer ratings compared to last year. [USAT]
• MySpace is no longer a "place for friends." (That's what Facebook is for.) It's a Web site "for accessing entertainment and related information." [WSJ]
• Former Observer reporter Gabriel Sherman takes a look at Observer owner Jared Kushner in this week's issue of New York. Among other things, Kushner says he found the paper "unbearable" until he bought it. [NYM]
• Brüno's $30 million gross made it No. 1 at the box office this weekend. [THR] More

• Despite unkindly reviews from most critics, the Transformers sequel racked up $112 million at the box office over the weekend, bringing its five-day gross to more than $200 million. [THR]
• Don't worry too much about the New York Times going under. AdAge reports the paper should be in business until at least 2011. [AdAge]
• Viacom is not going to buy MySpace from News Corp., alas. [Reuters]
• NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker is so concerned about the situation at the company's film division, he's sending his CFO to LA to crack skulls. [NYP]
• More bad news for the TV biz: According to a new report, the industry faces a $2 billion ad slump over the next four years. [FT]
• Not only did the New York Times keep news of reporter David Rohde's kidnapping a secret, the paper kept it off of Wikipedia, too. [NYT]
• MSNBC's is hoping broadcasting in HD boosts ratings. [B&C]
• Kate Gosselin's next book has been postponed; you can guess why. [NYP]
• VH1 has two new hip-hop-themed reality shows in the works. [THR]

• 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

• It's an ugly day at MySpace. The News Corp.-owned social network is slashing nearly 30 percent of its staff, or 400 people, due to a decline in sales. [BN, PC]
• Protesters in Iran have been using Twitter to keep up with developments on the ground. Now the State Department is stepping in and asking the company to put off a planned upgrade so service isn't disrupted. [Reuters]
• MTV entertainment president Brian Graden is departing the network. [NYP]
• It's official: NBC is dumping Live at Five and replacing it with an hour-long "daily information, lifestyle and entertainment show." [NYO]
• Interview dropped editorial director Glenn O'Brien last week. Now the magazine's parent company, Brant Publications, is suing him for allegedly breaking the terms of his confidentiality agreement. [WWD] More

• Arthur Sulzberger Jr. says he has no plans to take the New York Times Co. private, despite "brutal conditions" that threaten his paper's survival. [NYT]
• Meanwhile, Moody's has downgraded the NYT Co.'s credit rating. [E&P]
• A few theories on why Peter Kaplan departed Jared Kushner's Observer, and what's in store for Kaplan—and the paper—in the future. [WWD]
• Former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta is the new CEO of MySpace. [WSJ]
• Is GE looking to sell NBC Universal to Time Warner? It's possible! [TDB]
• Ambushing the ambusher: Staking out the home of Jesse Watters, the Fox News producer who stalks liberals for Bill O'Reilly. [Gawker] More

This photo of JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon holding up his fists ready to throw down? It's not just for show. If Chase loans you money to, say, buy a Mercedes SUV and you don't pay the bank back, Dimon will use any means necessary to insure you follow through. At least that's what a man named James Ricobene claims, who is now suing JPMorgan Chase for allegedly resorting to dirty tactics to collect the collateral on a car loan. Ricobene says Chase hired a shady collection outfit to harass him and posted a threatening message on his daughter's MySpace page vowing to report the 2007 Mercedes GL450 as stolen and put him in jail for two years if he didn't come up with the goods. We can't imagine Dimon would condone such unethical conduct, if only because he probably doesn't even know what MySpace is. But Ricobene probably shouldn't have been in this position to begin with, especially since he happens to be the president of a company called Cash Flow Consultants Inc. The full suit after the jump!More

Paula Hits Twitter, MySpace | Paula Froelich's debut novel, Mercury in Retrograde, doesn't come out until June, but the Page Six gossip already has MySpace and Twitter accounts set up for two of the characters in the book, along with illustrations by Marisa Acocella Marchetto. And they're both a bit fiesty! One recent tweet from "society writer" Lena Lipppencrass who goes by "LpstickCarcrash" on Twitter: "Ran into Dori Cooperman on the street—she's glowing." That she is! [Twitter, MySpace]

After decades of cultivating poshness, eurotrashy jeweler Cartier has joined the modern age with a MySpace page! It doesn't have too many friends yet—3,800 or so—but it shouldn't be embarrassed. Being an "exclusive" brand means weeding out a lot of the hoi polloi. According to the Times, people, for example, "whose photos show them guzzling a beer at a party" won't be approved. Good call. But for some reason this rigorous selection process has failed to weed out Good Charlotte, whose lead singer and guitarist are sleeping with Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton, a significantly grubbier association than "guzzling" beer, no? Don't be put off from trying to join this elite club, though: It's full of fascinating people who leave messages about their mom wearing Paris de Cartier—which, frankly, is a far more powerful marketing tool than any glossy ad campaign or sponsored polo match in St. Moritz. Right?