Felix Dennis, the British magazine mogul who has been so successful in bringing his brand of lad journalism to the U.S., is said to be leaving our market.  If so, this would be read as an acknowledgement that the lad titles, white-hot only a couple of years ago, have cooled significantly, and that it's better from Dennis' view to get out now than ride the market down.  In addition to Maxim, his American flagship, Ad Age reports that Dennis is preparing to put Blender and Stuff up for sale.  (He's thought to want to maintain ownership of The Week, …

Good news, bad news for the newspaper industry, which daily must wrestle with the widely held presumption that the entire business is just one step away from extinction.  A new study by Scarborough Research reveals that newspaper franchises are very healthy indeed, and that readers still care deeply about them--but that increasingly those readers are connecting with papers online. "Scarborough continues to find that when online readers are considered, the story of newspaper readership for many papers transforms from one of slow and steady decline to one of vibrancy and growth," the firm said this week.  Added Gary Meo, …

Acknowledging that New York City was too costly, American Media Inc. has decided to move its tabloid unit back to South Florida, where it had been based for many years until CEO David Pecker thought it made sense to relocate it to the country's media capital.  The decision to send the National Enquirer and its siblings packing is but the latest sign that AMI is under pressure from its board to produce better numbers.  At the same time it made the announcement concerning its tabloid unit, AMI said it was shuttering Celebrity Living, a weekly magazine it launched just a …

A series of just-released studies say constant exposure to media may be harmful to individuals, especially children.  Kansas City Star writer Alan Bavley provides a good summary of what researchers are telling us: "This week, the medical community is releasing a stack of studies linking TV and video games to a host of modern ills among America’s youth, including obesity, sexual activity, consumerism and antisocial behavior. 'Media need to be recognized as a major public health issue-- as they are among the most profound influences on children in this country,' researchers Dimitri A. Christakis and Frederick J. Zimmerman write …

Jon Friedman is as focused on the Couric Watch as anyone.  Right now, he's betting on the “Today” anchor jumping to “CBS Evening News,” and he wonders if this is really what the onetime Tiffany Network truly needs in its post-Rather era.  First of all, he points out, CBS News has been stone cold for some time, having fallen behind both NBC News and ABC News in the ratings.  "You know something? It occurs to me that a Couric-anchored evening news program would be a huge success if only CBS's audience for it could equal the number of media …

As if his audience didn't already know, David Lee Roth, who replaced Howard Stern on a number of CBS stations earlier in the year, this week said on-air that his show "sucked."  At one point, he resorted to reading comics.  "Admitting his show sucked, Roth blamed local and corporate management, accusing them of neutering his program by firing much of his on-air support team, taking away his cherished music beds and restricting the topics he can talk about," reports Billboard Radio Monitor.  Roth has lately resorted to attacking CBS Radio executives by name, suggesting they were making his life …

Blogger Phillip Swann, whose TVPredictions.com Web site offers thoughtful and sometimes provocative opinions on the future of television, says in his lead commentary this week that interactive TV is a great idea that will probably never grow into the huge phenomenon its backers hope for.  Why?  Because only teenagers have both the time and interest to interact with TV--particularly via their mobile phones --and that, as they grow into busy, productive adults, those viewers will no longer have the opportunity to interact with TV to as great a degree. Who votes for “American Idol” contestants? asks Swann.  For the …

Bank of America's recent Media, Entertainment and Telecommunications investor seminar attracted 37 percent more attendees than it did in 2006, a possible sign that media companies are of greater interest to investors than in the recent past, says The Hollywood Reporter. But if that's the case, the jump in their stock price will need to occur beginning sometime in this second quarter; for the most part, traditional media companies did not impress Wall Street in the first quarter of the year. Radio stocks in particular were under pressure. Time Warner, the biggest media conglomerate of all, went nowhere, as …

The Food Network, which has been building a strong presence in daytime, is planning to move some of its biggest names to prime time.  At the same time, the cable network is planning to make several of its franchise programs increasingly available on multiple platforms.  (It has deals with Sprint, Time Warner, Comcast, MSN, and Yahoo)  In sum, it's doing what every smart content company is doing these days--undergirding and extending its valuable brand. According to Broadcasting & Cable, Food Network "plans to premiere at least three new prime time entertainment series before this fall, trying to capitalize on …

While other magazine publishers have moved somewhat more adroitly into the Web business, Condé Nast has for a long time been a notorious laggard, showing little enthusiasm for the new medium. Finally, things are beginning to change at the New York-based company that produces so many of our best titles. The New York Times chronicles the company's recent and upcoming Web launches, saying they "reflect the new reality in the magazine industry: The Internet is an indispensable companion to print." Steven Newhouse, chairman of Advance.net, which oversees Condé Nast's Web sites, all owned by Advance Publications, says, "You gain a …