Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• It's official: Oprah says she plans to call it quits in September 2011. [ABC]
• Layoffs: The BusinessWeek cuts continue (and include a handful of the mag's more notable names); meanwhile the AP body count now stands at 90.
• Sarah Palin sold 300,000 copies of her book the first day, alas. [TDB]
• Condé Nast and Adobe are teaming up to bring Wired to electronic reading devices. Digital versions of Vogue, VF, and the NYer will follow. [WSJ]
• Vogue's design director is exiting the magazine after a four-year run. [WWD]
• In other Anna news, her de facto stepdaughter, Alexis Bryan Morgan, is leaving the Condé Nast family to take Nina Garcia's old job at Elle. [NYM]
• Cable mogul John Malone isn't happy about the idea of Comcast and NBC teaming up. Meanwhile NBC chief Jeff Zucker is staying mum about the deal.
• Another rumored Playboy bidder is denying interest in an acquisition. [NYT]
• Does Bonnie Fuller's new website stand a chance? [NYP]

• It's official: Will Ferrell is the most overpaid man in show business. [THR]
• Layoffs: BusinessWeek's cuts kicked off today; layoffs now loom at Time Inc. as the company awaits word on how many volunteers will accept buyout packages; and there's a bit more detail on this week's cuts at the AP.
• MSNBC's Joe Scarborough isn't exactly on fire at the moment. [NYO]
• Palinitis: The ex-governor's sit-down with Oprah on Monday generated the talk show queen her highest ratings in two years; Fox News clowns Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity are now at war over their respective Palin interviews; and people are still talking about that Palin Newsweek cover, for some reason.
• Vivendi has tossed a last-minute complication into the NBC deal. [NYT]
• Times reporter Jodi Kantor has landed a seven-figure book deal. [NYO]
• Breaking! The Emmys are moving from September to August. [THR]
• CNN's Candy Crowley is speaking out about her weight loss. At last! [LAT]

Dobbs Keeps the Door Open | Lou Dobbs appeared on his pal Bill O'Reilly's show last night in his first interview since leaving CNN $8 million richer last week. And O'Reilly asked him the question that's been on many minds in recent days: Is Dobbs thinking about running for a U.S. Senate seat? More

• The feud between Al Roker and America's most despicable couple continues. After the Today show canceled an interview with Spencer and Heidi Pratt, Spencer took to Twitter to air his rage: "I thought you were out of town getting your stomache [sic] staped [sic] again... Do you always look like your [sic] about to die?" One thing that's clear here: Spencer should have paid more attention in English class. [Us]
• Brat Packer Anthony Michael Hall—who is about to kick off a guest stint on NBC's Community—has been ordered to stay away from his ex, Diana Falzone, a "relationship expert" who writes for the Huffington Post and hosts a show on Sirius. Falzone was granted a restraining order after Hall allegedly broke down her door last week and "bashed her head against a wall." [P6]
• Nicole Richie and Joel Madden secured a restraining order against two paparazzi who Richie says have been harassing her. Is it just us, or are restraining orders becoming all the rage? [TMZ]
• MTV has premiered Beyoncé's new video for "Video Phone" featuring a special guest appearance by Lady Gaga. In a surprising twist, it's Lady Gaga who looks fairly normal and Beyoncé who looks a little freaky. [MTV, NYP] More

• Oprah's interview with Sarah Palin aired today, as you know by now. [AP]
• The deal between GE and Comcast to give the cable giant control of NBC Universal could be finalized in the next few days/weeks, although approval from Washington could take some time. [DF, THR, WSJ]
• Lou Dobbs didn't walk away from $9 million when he departed CNN. He reportedly got paid $8 million in severance to walk out the door. [NYP]
• The largest gay newspaper publisher in the U.S. has shuttered. [NYT]
• Budget Travel may be the magazine to die. [Daily Intel]
• The cost-cutting McKinsey consultants have landed at Dow Jones. [Forbes] 
• 2012 destroyed the box office this weekend, reeling in $65 million. [THR] More

• In what may be the weirdest celebrity extortion attempt ever, a German male model named Edis Kayalar has been arrested for trying to blackmail Cindy Crawford and her husband Rande Gerber with a "sexy" photo of the couple's then 7-year-old daughter "in revealing clothing, bound to a chair and gagged." Apparently, the pic had been taking by the girl's former babysitter during an innocent game of cops and robbers and she used to date Kayalar. [NYDN, People]
• All those phone calls that Michael Lohan recorded may ultimately land him in jail (again). A 2005 protective order obtained by Dina Lohan banned him from communicating with her by email or phone until 2011. [TMZ]
• Spend enough time on Twitter and you, too, may find yourself dating a beautiful young starlet! Emmy Rossum says her relationship with Counting Crows singer Adam Duritz "began with a Tweet," believe it or not. [People]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

• The New York Times Co. reported a $35.6 million loss for the third quarter as ad revenue plunged 30 percent. But it was better than what Wall Street analysts were predicting, so the stock shot up 22 percent today. [NYT]
• New York magazine's chief says there are no plans to sell the magazine following last week's death of owner Bruce Wasserstein. [AdAge]
• Newsday plans to charge $5 a week to access to its website. [NYT, [E&P]
• Fortune is cutting back on the number of issues it publishes. And Time Inc., Fortune's publisher, is planning another round of job cuts. [WSJ]
• On the same day Sarah Palin's memoir is published, the Nation will release Going Rouge, an identical-looking book that mocks the ex-governor. [Politico]
• As if losing billions of family money wasn't enough of a punishment, France says it plans to put Warner Music chief Edgar Bronfman Jr. on trial for insider trading in connection with the 2000 merger of Vivendi and Seagram. [NYP] More

• It's Tuesday, which means fresh job cuts at Condé Nast have been revealed. In addition to the dozen Glamour staffers laid off yesterday, Style.com will cut Candy Pratts Price. And 200+ more layoffs could be ahead. [WWD, NYP, FWD]
• Maybe Condé Nast's fancy iPhone application, which was announced today, will stem the red ink? Maybe not. But it certainly can't hurt either. [AdAge]
• BusinessWeek editor-in-chief Steve Adler says he will step down once the sale of the magazine to Bloomberg LP is completed in about a month. [BW]
• Sarah Palin will be Oprah's guest on November 16 as the former governor embarks on her book tour. Many of her fans aren't happy, unsurprisingly. [CT]
• The search for a Good Morning America co-host continues at ABC News. The front-runner at the moment seems to be George Stephanopoulos. [LAT]
• Malcolm Gladwell says journalists shouldn't go to journalism school. [Time]
• Harvey Weinstein's book publishing company is giving up its independence. It will be combined with Perseus Books starting December 1. [WSJ] More

• Time Inc. is "not for sale," says Time Warner boss Jeff Bewkes. [DF]
• Meanwhile, Time Inc., Condé Nast, and Hearst are looking to team up and create a "Hulu for magazines." Another winning idea, clearly. [FT, ATD]
• Miramax is fast approaching non-existence. Disney, Miramax's parent, is cutting 50 jobs at the company, leaving it with just 20 employees. [NYT]
• The pros and cons to a marriage between Comcast and NBC. [AdAge]
• The Washington Post and Bloomberg are launching a joint news service. [AP]
• TV Guide dismissed several execs yesterday, including its publisher. [NYP]
• Former Warner Bros. and Yahoo! chief Terry Semel was interested in buying the Nets, but he couldn't compete with Russian mogul Mikhail Prokhorov. [P6]
• Will the David Letterman drama ultimately hurt the show's ratings or send skittish advertisers running for the exits? That's unlikely, say observers. [THR]
• The cover of Sarah Palin's forthcoming (and already best-selling) memoir, Going Rogue, has been revealed. Try to contain your excitement. [AP]

• Who hasn't looked at buying BusinessWeek by now? Daily News and US News owner Mort Zuckerman appears to be the latest mogul to join the party. [BW]
• The wave of job cuts at Condé Nast could begin in a few weeks or in a few months, depending on who you ask. But either way, it's going to be ugly. [NYO]
• Fox News continues to trounce the competition: Both CNN and MSNBC experienced big declines in ratings during the third quarter. The situation appears to be especially bleak at CNBC, however. [B&C, HuffPo, ZH]
• Simon & Schuster is shaking things up at a couple of its imprints. [Crain's]
• The New York Times is planning to introduce a Chicago-centric edition of the paper. That's in addition to the San Fran edition launching this fall. [NYT]
• Related: Is the New York Times going to start charging readers to access its website? That's still unclear, but the answer should be coming soon. [NYO]
• "Print is undead," reports the undead print newspaper the Village Voice. [VV] More

• Things are heating up between Justin Timberlake and Rihanna. "Hot grinding sessions," "steamy private after-parties," "impromptu lap dances," and non-stop texting sessions have all been on the agenda in recent days, at least if you're buying what the Star's "sources" are selling. [Star] 
• Madonna will do anything for the young Brazilian man in her life, Jesus Luz. And if that means taking him to the downtown gay bar Easternbloc so he can "get some DJ experience in her old hood," well, then so be it. [P6]
• Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman's play, A Steady Rain, has set a record for the "highest weekly sales of a non-musical play." We're guessing their good looks, not just their acting talent, may have something to do with that. [Reuters]More

• It's all over for Dan Rather and his long-running legal campaign against CBS. A state appeals court dismissed the ex-anchor's lawsuit today. [Reuters, NYP]
• At least four parties are still in the bidding for BusinessWeek. But Bloomberg LP remains the most likely acquirer of the struggling magazine. [BW, Reuters]
• An "unbelievably conscientious" Sarah Palin has finishing her memoir in less than four months. You can not buy the book beginning on November 17. [WP]
• Michelle Obama will appear as guest on Sesame Street's season debut. [NYT]
• TLC announced today it's dropping Jon Gosselin from Jon & Kate Plus 8. This news calls out for name change, obvs, so it'll be Kate Plus 8 from now on. [THR]More

• 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

Big Mac Attack | It's not bad enough that eating fatty foods will turn you into a fat ass. According to a group of British researchers who conducted a study with lab rats assigned to high and low-fat diets, eating fast food can lead to memory loss and impaired brain function, too. That certainly explains a lot, doesn't it? [NYDN]