Michael Phelps Is Gold for NBCPlus, lawyers make criminals sing (to ‘Don Giovanni’), another spectacular apartment you can’t afford hits the market, and more, in our daily industry roundup.
company town
Jeff Bewkes Starts Cleaning House at Time WarnerMEDIA
• At least 75 Time Warner layoffs are expected to be announced today. The layoffs are among CEO Jeff Bewkes’s first public tasks since taking the helm of the company from Dick Parsons last month. Earlier today, Time Warner announced a 41 percent decline in fourth-quarter earnings. [MSNBC & AdAge]
• Maybe some of those Time Warner folks can hang their hats over at Condé Nast. The Observer evaluates Portfolio’s recent spending spree, during which it recruited top talent from The New Yorker, the Post, and the Times. [NYO]
• (Product)Red, the love child of Bono, iPod, and the Gap, has raised more than $22 million for fighting HIV and AIDS in Africa. But considering the big advertising bucks spent during the Super Bowl and elsewhere, some are arguing that it’s not enough. [NYT]
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Adriana Lima Has Really Big … EyesFASHION
• Victoria’s Secret is featuring Adriana Lima in its Super Bowl ads because of her “spectacular eyes.” Right, her eyes. [WWD]
• Diane Von Furstenberg has launched her first line of shoes. [FWD]
• John Bartlett is joining Tim Gunn at Liz Claiborne. He’ll be designing a men’s sportswear line. [Investor’s Business Daily]
company town
Kent Brownridge Still Stealing Silverware From the House of WennerMEDIA
• Kent Brownridge picked a new fight with his old boss Jann Wenner, poaching ten-year Rolling Stone vet Joe Levy for the top spot at Blender. Brownridge already stole Men’s Journal editor James Kaminsky to take over Maxim. [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
• The OK! issue with the Jamie Lynn–pregnancy exclusive sold only 900,000 copies on the newsstand, well short of the roughly 1.5 million the mag had predicted. [WWD]
• Steve Cohn on the Condé shake-up following so fast on Steve Florio’s death: “It sort of reminds me of The Godfather. They go to the funeral and then they blow everything up.” [NYP]
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Cravath’s Good Ol’ Boys Miss the Good Ol’ DaysLAW
• One old lawyer reminisces about his time at Cravath in the fifties and speculates on why big law used to be — used to be? — such a man’s world: “Obviously, male bigotry played a major role. But I think something else was involved — an attempt to protect certain values that mattered greatly to the practitioners of that time. They wanted a workplace free of the messiness of male-female relations. They liked to say, ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘No, sir,’ and be done with it. Women might bring distractions: flirtations, gossip, dating. No more male bonding.” Aw ! [American Lawyer]
• Everyone’s talking about Robert Morgenthau stepping down after 33 years as Manhattan D.A.— except Robert Morgenthau. [NYT]
• NYU Law School listserv smackdown! First e-mail: “I decided to compile a list of the easiest professors at NYU Law for those of us who: 1. Want an easy A, and 2. Don’t care about the grade and just want a B without doing a thing.” Second e-mail: “Does your mom still teach here? Because I heard that she’s REALLY easy.” Third e-mail: “If you came to NYU Law school thinking to take shortcuts to get easy As as opposed to taking classes that you would find challenging and helpful to your understanding of law practices, here’s my nugget of advice: save the money and go to a state law school.” Fourth e-mail: “We come to NYU to take made-up classes like ‘Jesus & the Constitution,’ ‘Inter-Animal Contracts,’ and ‘International Law.’ Coming to NYU for anything other than intellectual masturbation or an easy job is a waste of money.” [Above the Law]
company town
Did Aaron Charney Only Get 100K From Sullivan?LAW
• Will Aaron Charney ever have to work again? More than likely — he may not have gotten more than $100,000 in his sexual-harassment settlement with Sullivan & Cromwell. [PrawfsBlawg via Above the Law]
• Should law schools be more like business schools? One law prof thinks so, and he looks a little like Justin Timberlake, so he must be right. [Law Blog/WSJ]
• Do Cravath’s two rounds of bonuses signal Big Law strength and more money for associates, or is the firm just hedging so they aren’t locked in to paying the same amount next year? [NYT]
company town
Editors Give Zinczenko Bombast an ‘F’MEDIA
• Participants at the American Magazine Conference revolted against “The Magabrand Revolution,” the ostensible theme name cooked up by Men’s Health editor David Zinczenko. One editor commented, “I usually have to use ‘magabrand’ with a modifier in front of it, and that modifier starts with the letter ‘F.’” [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
• Jeff Zucker can’t stop denying those NBC sale rumors. Wethinks the lady [Reuters]
• When they ran into each other at the Jessica Seinfeld book party, Rupert Murdoch asked Arianna Huffington how many hits HuffPo was getting. Huffington told him 3 million a month; Murdoch politely noted that MySpace, which he owns, ran closer to 70 million. [Fortune]
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Former Cravath Associate Pleads Guilty to Sex CrimesLAW
• James Colliton, the former Cravath associate embroiled in a sex-crimes suit, got a lighter sentence after he admitted to paying a mother for sex with her two teenage girls. [Law Blog/WSJ]
• Debevoise and Plimpton’s marquee new hire, the former attorney general of the U.K., has a few scuffs on his highly polished shoes: He carried on an affair while in office with a leading woman barrister. [Above the Law]
• When $1,000 an hour isn’t enough, premium billing — a kind of law-firm tip for a job well done — is the best way to really start raking in the profits. [DealBook/NYT]
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Even Iraq Can’t Save KatieMEDIA
• Jon Stewart will get another chance to piss off Old Hollywood — the Academy just decided to let him host the Oscars again. [NYT]
• If you thought Katie Couric’s Iraq trip was nothing but a ratings stunt, you might want to check the numbers: The week-long tour tied her previous record for the lowest CBS viewership in over two decades. [AP]
• The Wall Street Journal’s softball team celebrates its last season as an “independently” owned team by printing up a cute little fake story. No mention whether Murdoch plans to fire the lot of them and bring in juiced replacements. [Radar Online]
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It’s Expensive Being Rupert MurdochMEDIA
• Did Dow Jones cost Rupert Murdoch an extra $1 billion just because he’s Rupert Murdoch? [Slate]
• Rik Hertzberg to blog for The New Yorker. From YearlyKos. And without fact-checking. [