Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• 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]

Last week, MTV announced its newest series, Jersey Shore, which it promises will feature the "hottest, tannest, craziest guidos" in the Jerz. (Think The Hills, but starring people who are tanner and have a whole lot more confidence.) What you can expect to see: all the fist pumping, pecs, and hair gel you can handle, naturally. So how close will it be to reality and how much of it will be the product of imaginative MTV producers? To separate fact from fiction, we reached out to the world's leading expert on guido-dom, Anthony Moussa, a 30-year-old Jersey native who founded the website NLSociety.com (formerly the infamous NJGuido.com), and asked him to explain to us what the lifestyle is really all about. Join us as he discusses man-jewelry, the origin of the fist pump, and how some guidos today are disgracing the culture that so many hold near and dear.More

• A big round of layoffs landed at the Associated Press today. [BI, NYT]
• Budget Travel isn't shutting down, contrary to rumors. But its owner is looking to sell the magazine or find new investors, however. [AdAge]
• Time.com's managing editor, Josh Tyrangiel, will become the editor of BusinessWeek when Bloomberg LP takes over next month. [BW, WWD]
• The NYPD raided four newspapers as part of a union corruption probe. [AP]
• Is Newsweek's new Sarah Palin cover sexist? Or just funny? [HP, Wrap]
• Because print media is booming and newspapers will be around forever, Mort Zuckerman's Daily News spent $150 million on a new printing plant. [NYT]
• A documentary about media reporters at the Times? Oh, yes, indeed. [NYO]
• Bonnie Fuller's new Web venture launched today. [HollywoodLife.com]
• TV: Oprah GBF Nate Berkus is getting his own daytime show; and Bob Saget will host an A&E reality series in which he'll "explore strange subcultures."
• Rupert Murdoch probably isn't very popular with the blind today. [Gawker]

• George Stephanopoulos will probably replace Diane Sawyer on GMA. [TDB]
• Now that Bloomberg LP is talking over BusinessWeek, columnists Maria Bartiromo and Jack Welch are both parting ways with the mag. [NYP]
• CNN is laying off four of its web anchors since it no longer plans to produce live video on CNN.com. The good news? With Lou Dobbs no longer on the payroll, it should save $9 million over the next few years. [NYT, [NYP]
• Euna Lee, one of the two CurrentTV reporters who was imprisoned in North Korea earlier this year, has scored herself a six-figure book deal. [NYT]
• Shares of Playboy jumped yesterday after it was reported the apparel conglomerate Iconix was in talks to acquire the (struggling) company. [NYP]
• Another senior Observer editor is bidding goodbye to the paper. [Politico]
• Fashion mags are expecting their fortunes to improve in 2010. [WWD]
• Is the Fox Business Channel a lost cause at this point? [VF]
• Television is more getting more and more obscene, supposedly. [NYT]

• Lou Dobbs is leaving CNN! Tonight's his last show! Happy Wednesday! [NYT]
• Condé Nast magazines have lost a collective 8,359 pages of advertising in 2009, which represents a 31 percent decline from a year earlier. [NYT]
• One thing that Hearst has going for it: lots of cash in the bank. [NYP]
• Banker-turned-media investor Jimmy Finklestein is reportedly buying the Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, Adweek, and a few other Nielsen titles. [Wrap]
• Current TV is keeping current with the times and laying off 80 staffers. [LAT]
• TV: Joss Whedon's Dollhouse has been canceled by Fox; meanwhile, ABC has decided that Kelsey Grammer comedy series Hank will exist no longer.
• Détente? President Obama has agreed to give Fox News an interview. [HP]
• The New Yorker sure has lots of writers and editors! [NYO]
• Reality TV is slowly killing us. So says Vanity Fair's James Wolcott. [VF]

• Comcast and GE have reportedly agreed that Jeff Zucker will remain the CEO of NBC Universal as part of their proposed $30 billion joint venture. Well done, gentlemen. Good to see things get started on the right foot. [Reuters]
• In related news, Zucker's totally brilliant plan to move Jay Leno to 10pm is paying off beautifully. Leno sank to a brand new ratings low last night. [NYT]
• Anita Dunn, the White House communications director who started the administration's war with Fox News last month, is stepping down. [WP]
• Hey, it's not all bad news for Condé Nast. Self is doing pretty well. [WWD]
• The creators of Will & Grace are working on a Twitter-inspired show. [THR]
• The nominations for the 2010 People's Choice Awards were announced today, just in case you happen to be care about that sort of thing. [LAT]
• Aerosmith is looking for new lead singer, in case you're job-hunting. [LAT]
• George Lopez and Wanda Sykes' debuts this week scored solid ratings. [NYT]
• Simon Cowell made $75 million last year, earning him the top spot on Forbes' list of primetime's top-earning men. Ryan Seacrest exploded in tears when he heard he came in No. 3 with $38 million. Or so we'd like to think. [Forbes]

Marc Jacobs TV: Unlikely | Marc Jacobs isn't doing a reality show for Logo, as we reported a few weeks ago. But he hasn't closed the door to doing a TV program of some sort, provided the perfect opportunity came along. But it probably wouldn't fall into the reality genre. "Well, I really would just want it to be a really great project, not just another reality show," he tells The Cut. "Not that there's anything wrong with them, but, for me, there's nothing really exciting about doing another anything, you know?" Also? He's never see the Real Housewives, but has seen a couple of episodes of The Rachel Zoe Project "because she's my friend." [The Cut]

• 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

• Rupert Murdoch and John Malone are "interested" in a deal with NBC Universal, but have yet to pick up the phone and do anything about it. [THR]
• Condé Nast cut sales staff at W and Vanity Fair today and proved that no one is safe by dismissing the wife of a Newhouse family member. Some good news: magazines are reporting that automotive advertising is way up, so maybe the auto industry will end up saving print media! Crazier things have happened.
• The Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger is running into trouble in DC. [WSJ]
• The Fox News-White House brouhaha continues, not surprisingly. [THR]
• Fox Reality, which is going off the air next year, will be replaced by a new channel called Nat Geo Wild. Think less Cesar Millan, more Jeff Corwin. [NYT]
• Were you dismayed that yesterday's little balloon incident generated so much cable news coverage? Wait till you see what's in store next week! [CJR]More

Bravo announced today that it plans to add not one, but two new ladies to the cast of Real Housewives of New York: In addition to Sonja Morgan, a former hostess and the ex-wife of J.P. Morgan's great-grandson, the network is also tossing in an event planner named Jennifer Gilbert. Some fresh blood can't hurt, sure, but the much more exciting New York-centric reality TV news today has nothing to do with the Housewives. Page Six reports that a reality show about bizarro fashion designer Lloyd Klein is now being pitched to networks. The show would be about Klein and "his clients," which may not sound like the best premise for a program, particularly since his most famous client these days is LaToya Jackson. But any show about Klein would almost certainly have to include appearances by his BFF, Jocelyne Wildenstein, the woman who holds the title of most over-surgerized New Yorker. Join us in saying a little prayer that a gutsy TV exec out there takes a chance on Klein's show. (Are you paying attention, Animal Planet?) This could be huge!

Jon Bon Jovi has a fancy new title to add to his illustrious resume. And NBC has an "artist-in-residence," along with a bottomless pit of crappy programming. Just when you begin to worry that Jeff Zucker's creative mojo has started to wane, the NBC chief amazes the world once again: More

• Comcast is "leaning toward" keeping Jeff Zucker as NBC Universal's CEO if it goes ahead with a deal to buy take control of the company. [Bloomberg]
• The Fine Living Network will be rebranded as the Cooking Channel—and positioned as a Food Network competitor—in the second half of 2010. [AdAge]
• Some laid-off staffers at Condé Nast are furious about the severance they've received; chances are ex-Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl isn't one of them. [NYP]
• Does NBC's decision to cancel Southland "signal an abandonment of a decades-long commitment to drama"? Some seem to think so. Meanwhile, the show's producers are looking for a new home for the cop drama. [NPR, LAT]
• Let the hair battle begin: Disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich may be a contestant on Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice next season. [CT]More

Today's Timewaster | If you're looking to kill a few minutes as the workweek finally comes to a close, Buzzfeed has an excellent round-up of the "10 best things that have ever happened behind a news reporter's back." Do enjoy. [Buzzfeed]

Law & Order's Two-For One Special | You expected to hear Law & Order would be ripping the Jon and Kate Gosselin saga from the headlines to base an upcoming show on, didn't you? The episode airing on Oct. 16 revolves around a reality show called "Larry Plus 10" and "chronicles the struggles of a single dad who's raising 10 adopted special needs kids by himself—after his wife, Joy, is bludgeoned-to-death." But are budget cuts now taking a toll on the long-running series? The other main character is a woman who had 10 kids by in-vitro fertilization and is a stand-in for Nadya Suleman. [NYP]

• The Condé Nast shake-up continues: A day after the company shuttered four titles, it's ousted the publisher of Details. And rumor has it the Condé cuts may now "inspire" similar such moves at Hearst and Time Inc. [AdAge, NYT, NYP]
• Ruth Reichl says she was completely surprised by the news Gourmet was closing. (She says she's planning to write a book about her years there.) And Gourmet's offices have since been completely cleared out. [NYT, Gawker]
• David Letterman should apologize on his show every night. His latest mea culpa generated better ratings than anything NBC aired during primetime. [AP]
• CBS is talking to Nancy Grace about hosting a Judge Judge clone. [B&C]
• The only big media company hiring and not firing? Bloomberg LP. [Crain's] More