Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• Get ready for the Spider-Man ride at Disney World: Walt Disney has agreed to pay $4 billion in cash and stock to acquire Marvel Entertainment. [NYT, WSJ]
• Because she was clearly the very best person for the job, Jenna Bush has signed on with the Today show. The daughter of the former president will be contributing stories "about once a month on issues like education." [THR]
• The Final Destination was No. 1 at the box office this weekend with a $28.3 million take; Inglourious Basterds came in No. 2 with $20 million. [THR]
• Newsstand magazine sales continue to fall. Single-copy sales fell 12 percent during the first half of the 2009 compared to the same period in 2008. [AP]
• NBC's new slogan for its fall marketing campaign? "More colorful." [Variety]More

• Cablevision is planning to launch an entire cable network devoted to nothing but wedding shows. So now you'll be able to watch Bridezillas 24/7. Yay. [B&C]
• It may not be over for Vibe. Quincy Jones, who founded the magazine in '93, says he's looking into buying it back and keeping it alive as a website. [Ebony]
• Spin reportedly laid off 20 percent of its staff yesterday. [Gawker]
• Gannett Co., the largest newspaper publisher in the U.S. by circulation, is reportedly cutting between 1,000 and 2,000 jobs at the company. [WSJ]
• More bad news for CNN: MSNBC is now in front on weeknights and Campbell Brown's nightly show continues to plunge in the ratings, too. [NYT, TVBTN]
• CNBC's Dennis Kneale doesn't like it when bloggers mock him. Will acting like a nut on TV fix that? No, but it sure makes for amusing TV. [Dealbreaker] 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

• The first quarter wasn't such a hot one for NBC Universal: Earnings dropped 45 percent as the ad market continued its downward spiral. [WSJ, TVWeek]
• The world's largest newsprint maker has gone bankrupt. [NYT]
• Rolling Stone is closing up shop in San Francisco. [Portfolio]
• Ads sales figures at The New York Times Co. are looking pretty ugly. [E&P]
• Some good news, at least for impoverished porn addicts: Time Warner no longer plans to charge customers based on bandwidth usage. [Wired]More

♦  Gordon Gekko will live again: A sequel to Wall Street is in the works, although Michael Douglas has yet to sign on to the pic. [Variety]
♦  The downturn has been good for financial news sites: CNNMoney.com and BusinessWeek.com have both experience record growth. [WWD]
♦  The new issue of Rolling Stone is shorter and skinnier than issues past. [AP]
♦  Andy Lack, the former president of NBC News (and, more recently, the relatively unsuccessful CEO of Sony Music) is joining Bloomberg L.P. as CEO of the company's multimedia group. [NYO]
More

• Arianna Huffington says her website is not for sale, but that's probably just because no one is interested in paying $200 million for it. [Gawker]
• Jann Wenner has tapped Will Schenck as the new publisher of Rolling Stone. [Mediaweek]
• The John Edwards scandal provided a nice boost to the National Enquirer. [WWD]
• ABC has five new shows for the fall. [AdAge]
• ESPN has a late-night talk show in the works. [NYP]
• Rising cable news star Rachel Maddow drives a pickup truck and doesn't have a TV in her NYC apartment. [WaPo]

Finally, a silver lining to the declining economy! This month you won't need to put in extra time at the gym in order to be fit enough to carry the fall issues of Vogue and W home from the newsstand (nor will it take 20 minutes of flicking until you reach any actual content): ad pages in both mags (as well as other fashion and beauty titles) are way down, reports the WSJ today, as advertisers, especially mid-tier brands, scale back. (Anna Wintour won't be hanging up her Chanel couture just yet, however: The September Vogue still has 674 pages of ads.) Similar shrinkage will soon take place at Rolling Stone, news that actually may be welcome to the mag's core readership of aging rock fans, since they probably have difficulty raising their arms anyway. Founder and publisher Jann Wenner has decided to shave a few inches off the mag's size, although he's quick to point out that the mag is going to spend more on production, with glossier paper and a flat, glued spine instead of staples, in the hopes of attracting new advertisers and younger readers. What, slapping the Jonas Brothers on the cover to appeal to ten-year-old girls wasn't enough?

• Did Uma Thurman and Arki Busson get secretly married during their engagement party earlier this month? If so, does that mean the European vacation they're on right now is really a honeymoon? [Page Six]
• Frances Bean Cobain is supposed to be interning at Rolling Stone this summer. But it seems she isn't doing her job: She's been calling in sick, wearing funny outfits, and not getting coffee. [Page Six]
• Alex Rodriguez's "friends" say his soon-to-be ex Cynthia used her psychology degree to brainwash and emotionally abuse him. Also, she refused to let him eat Spanish food because she didn't want him to seem like a Latin player. [Rush & Molloy]