The seventh season of the WB holdover "Gilmore Girls" has barely started, but many are speculating that this year will be the show's last. Two things have sparked the rumors. Stars Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel have been coy about whether they'll return when their contracts expire next spring. Meanwhile, creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel Palladino exited at the end of last season after a contentious and ultimately failed contract renegotiation with Warner Bros. Whether "Gilmore" works without them will become clear in the first episode, which was written without them. Although the show received good early reviews, …

Members of the union that represents newsroom staff of The Baltimore Sun have asked Tribune Co.'s CEO Dennis FitzSimons to either make sure the newspaper gets the resources it needs to maintain quality or sell it. FitzSimons was in Baltimore to talk to the staff about possible changes, amid plans for the company to overhaul itself by year's-end. The Sun has been owned by the Chicago-based company since 2000. "We ask that Tribune treat those of us who work here with the respect we deserve and make sure that Sun has the resources it needs to maintain the quality that …

When it hits newsstands in April, Conde Nast's Portfolio will feature lavishly illustrated journalism by some of the world's best business writers. But the new title may also stand out in another way: as the last of the multimillion-dollar magazine launches. With the Internet sucking the life out of print, the number of magazine launches is expected to drop 17 percent in 2006, says Samir Husni, a University of Mississippi journalism professor who tracks the industry. That would be the first decrease since 2001. And the percentage of magazines launched by major publishers will fall to 3 percent of the …

Esquire wants to fill what it sees as a void in the luxury men's market, and it is trying to do it with a Big Black Book. On Oct. 3, the Hearst magazine will launch its coffee-table-book-magazine merger, a style manual for modern men. With more editorial than most magazines, the black book will not have a celeb on the cover, nor an ad on the back. Instead, it will offer style tips, etiquette and stories and histories on luxury brands. "It's an extension of the brand in a very simple way," says Kevin O'Malley, Esquire's vp-publisher. "The Big Black …

With titles like "Vanished" and "Kidnapped," it is no wonder that new hit shows have gone missing so far this season. And that is particularly true at Fox Broadcasting. If that network is a bellwether of viewer interest for first-year series, early indications aren't so good: It is again flagging with all five of the new series it launched in August. And with post-season baseball beginning Monday, Fox is making schedule changes, including the pre-emption of "Happy Hour," which is a possible sign that the show will not be back after the World Series. Apart from Fox, none of the …

Fox News Channel defies the skeptics as the nearly 10-year-old operation seeks an increase in fees paid by cable operators. As it tours the nation to celebrate its birthday, Fox News has its sights set on lucrative new deals. It currently gets an average of 27 cents per subscriber each month, but the net has proposed bumping that amount to a full buck while talking with cable companies about carrying a new business channel. But some industry watchers think the channel is bluffing the $1 demand, and will probably settle for less. "Going from 25 cents to a dollar is …

PBS is looking for a new sponsor for "Antiques Roadshow" after Toyota decided to drop the long-running series. The Sponsorship Group for Public Television wants a replacement to join Liberty Mutual and Lunesta, both of which back the show--the network's highest-rated offering--on air and online. "Antiques Roadshow" is just one of a number of programs being touted by the Boston-based PBS sponsorship group. For $1.5 million, PBS will allow co-branded video shorts that promote the documentary "American Experience." The shorts, which will run nationally, mark the first time PBS has allowed advertiser-tagged interstitials to appear on its affiliates. Marcia Hertz, …

The founders of a new magazine hope to turn Harvard into a national brand--and build a business around it. They are starting with a magazine--02138--which was mailed this week to 50,000 alumni. In addition to profiles, there's a gossip section called "Vanitas," described by the magazine's marketing literature as "a Page Six for the Harvard set," as well as other features--all focused on alums. President and founder Bom Kim and co-founding editor Dan Loss--both class of 2000--see the Boston-based publication as a kind of Vanity Fair for the Harvard grad. The first two issues will be mailed free, but Kim …

Viacom's Sumner Redstone and News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch are both sons of strong women, and have both have sparred publicly with their heirs. And both are plotting to conquer China while viewing immortality as the best succession plan. But what really unites the two is that they can do as they please--a rarity among heads of public companies these days. Redstone and Murdoch are of a line of autocratic media titans in the mold of Ted Turner, Henry Luce and William Randolph Hearst. Their power comes not just from their controlling stakes in the companies they built, but from an …

If Houston is any indication, the "Monday Night Football" habit is a tough one to kick. And ESPN may be scoring even bigger audiences than its record-breaking numbers show. Arbitron has been testing its portable people meters in the city, which measure out-of-home viewing with results for cable-only sports broadcasts that suggest a chunk of the broadcast audience moves to where the action is--a bar or restaurant. For the Sept. 17 Cowboys-Redskins game, broadcast on NBC, out-of-home viewing in the 18-49 demo was 17.8 percent--a little above average--while about one-quarter of viewing of the next day's ESPN "Monday Night Football" …