Competing TV stations have been sharing resources since January as they respond to a financial train wreck that has local TV broadcasters across the country reeling. Despite the excitement of the presidential election -- or maybe because it moved viewers to cable news -- ratings for local evening news shows nationwide dropped 11.4% from November 2007 to November 2008, per Nielsen.

In Philadelphia, for instance, nearly $200 million in revenue, 25%, vanished from the TV market between 2004 and 2008, and an additional $50 million will be missing by 2012, say forecasters. "The situation is more dire than I have ever seen in my 59 years of experience," says veteran TV executive Lew Klein, who once was executive producer of "American Bandstand."

As a result, viewers are seeing a lot more direct-response commercials in programs. "The big success has been the Snuggie. You'll see more ads like that, and hanging tomato plants, and watering globes. You'll see more products like that in areas and day parts [where] you wouldn't have traditionally seen them," says media buyer Bernie Shimkus. Read the whole story...

For years, ABC seeded its prime-time schedule with shows produced by the company's production studio. But times are tougher now, and the Disney-owned network is breaking with tradition. This week, ABC announced that most of the new shows on its slate come from outside suppliers.

Warner Bros. Television is producing five of the new shows. 20th Century Fox Television is providing two, and one comes from Sony Pictures Television and producer Mark Burnett. The move might even save ABC money because most shows fail, losing millions for the studios that produce them. Even successful programs typically lose money until there are enough episodes to sell as syndicated reruns.

In contrast, NBC has adopted a more inward-focused philosophy than it had previously. Six of its seven new programs, including the prime-time "Jay Leno," will be produced by NBC's Universal Media Studios. Similarly, CBS picked up six new shows this week, and four of them will come from CBS Paramount Television. Read the whole story...

Only 51% of marketers rated magazines as "highly effective" for building brand equity, per the Association of National Advertisers. That's down sharply from 67% in February 2007. The April ANA survey found that TV, radio, newspapers and outdoor all slipped in marketers' eyes, along with magazines, but brand building is supposed to be magazines' strong suit.

How do magazine publishers respond? Basically they say you can't look at magazines alone anymore -- it's all about the media mix. Sally Preston, group publisher at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, maintains that the fascination with everything new, along with digital media's emphasis on metrics such as clicks, is overshadowing magazines' influence on readers. Sabine Feldmann, publisher of Shape, says the results reflect the diminishing power of any individual channel. Magazines that are cornerstones of brands that also use digital and social media are better at brand-building than ever, she says.

Howard Mittman, Wired publisher, sums it up. "Since most of our programs are integrated, we evaluate our effectiveness across a variety of mediums we offer our clients. Looking at the mediums individually and assuming that all brands have the same needs seems to undermine the potential usefulness of the data." Read the whole story...

The Tucson Citizen can remain dead as a print newspaper, a federal judge ruled this week, saying the Arizona attorney general's office had not shown that folding the daily was a violation of antitrust law. U.S. District Court Judge Raner Collins says there is no evidence that there is a "ready and willing buyer to pay the fair and reasonable liquidation value of the paper's assets."

On Saturday, when the Gannett-owned Tucson Citizen published its last print edition, Gannett terminated its joint operating agreement with Lee Enterprises' Arizona Daily Star. But Gannett said the two would remain partners, sharing profits and expenses in Tucson.

Arizona's attorney general argued the move violated terms of the Newspaper Preservation Act and antitrust law generally, and that Stephen Hadland, a newspaper publisher in California, had offered $400,000 for the assets of the Tucson Citizen, not including a stake in the JOA. Gannett's lawyer argued the offer was too low, and that the company could not be compelled to sell at just any price. Read the whole story...

The companion Web site of Condé Nast Portfolio, the 2-year-old business lifestyle magazine experiment, is coming back to life. The site will become part of American City Business Journals' site Bizjournals, which is owned by Condé Nast parent Advance Publications.

Portfolio folded with its May issue. "At the time, we knew we had a good asset in the digital property," says David Carey, group president at Condé Nast. "The question was, where would be best to operate it, because we needed to replace all the content produced by the Portfolio team." Most of the magazine's print and online staff was let go when the title was folded.

Starting in July, Portfolio.com will be produced by the staff of Bizjournals, the umbrella site for ACBJ's 40 publications. The site will continue to share content with other Condé Nast Web sites. Despite the change in staff, the basic look, feel and tone will stay the same, says Carey. Read the whole story...

NBC offered its 8 p.m. timeslot to Oprah Winfrey before deciding to put Jay Leno in prime time. NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker says NBC talked to Winfrey about two years ago. She passed, but said she might have considered it earlier in her career, he says.

NBC also discussed an 8 p.m. show with David Letterman when the "Late Show" host's contract was coming up at CBS. Zucker told affiliates on Wednesday, that even back in 1981, research was done on moving the "Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson to 10 p.m.

The most popular show at 10 p.m. now is TiVo, Zucker says, referring to the amount of time-shifted viewing at that hour. NBC and ABC average less than a 2 rating among adults 18- to 49 in the time period year round; CBS averages somewhat more than a 2. "The Tonight Show" often beat NBC's 10 p.m. shows, especially with reruns, and Leno is expected to be doing original shows 46 weeks a year. Read the whole story...