Cartoon Network is reaching beyond animation and getting into the live-action reality business. Executives announced a slate of six reality shows at Cartoon's upfront presentation this week. The cabler's programming lineup also includes seven new animated series and four original animated telepics. In addition to the reality shows, Cartoon has launched a partnership with the NBA with the program "My Dad's a Pro," starring Jalen House, son of Celtics player Eddie House. The NBA tie-in is likely a response to Disney XD's partnership with ESPN, designed to wrest 6-to-11-year-old boys from Cartoon, traditionally the most lucrative kid demographic …

Shortsighted strategies, timid management and the recession have hit traditional celebrity media hard, according to a new DeSilva + Phillips report. Among celebrity media, magazines "have the most to lose in the years ahead" in terms of audience and revenues, says the report. The nine magazines covering the celebrity space is too many and consolidation is inevitable. People is perhaps the only brand to prove itself as a multiplatform leader-accounting for 24% of the category's print circulation, 28% of its ad pages and "an eyebrow-raising" 43% of its revenues. The fear for magazines is that when the economy eventually …

Telephone and cable companies have found a simple marketing weapon: local-television news, traffic alerts and weather. Verizon Communications plans to launch its own local TV channel in New York City this summer, as a response to the round-the-clock local news channels of rivals Cablevision and Time Warner Cable. A version of the local Verizon channel is already available in Maryland and Northern Virginia and it ranks in the top 20% by viewers among 350 channels. Verizon's FiOS1 channel features regular traffic and weather updates, as well as original news content shot by citizen journalists. Verizon is considering …

Former Time Warner chairman and CEO Richard Parsons will step down from the board by its next annual general meeting. Parsons, who has been on the Time Warner board since 1991, helped the company negotiate the difficult aftermath of its controversial merger with AOL in 2000. As chief executive and later chairman, he also helped soothe activist investors, such as Carl Icahn, who were seeking to break up the company in a bid to boost value. Parsons stepped down as CEO in December 2007 and relinquished the role of chair last December. As the recently appointed chairman of …

Bertelsmann AG, Europe's largest media company, will refrain from large acquisitions as it predicts profit will decline this year. The degree that profit and sales will drop this year will depend on the "intensity and duration of the economic downturn," says CEO Hartmut Ostrowski. As a result, Bertelsmann, which competes with Vivendi and Time Warner, will refrain from "bigger acquisitions" or divestitures. Last year, net income fell 34% to $193 million, while adjusted sales were little changed. As a result, the company sold under-performing assets, such as club businesses, while bolstering services and television. In November Bertelsmann …

Marking the first time Showtime has used a major retailer to promote one of its shows, Macy's is offering displays touting "The Tudors", a Showtime show based on Henry VIII. This week, six Macy's flagships, including its New York City's Herald Square store, will exhibit table settings and window scenes that conjure up the opulence of the Tudor king's reign. Gourmet magazine orchestrated the multiplatform deal for Showtime. The campaign includes a four-page gatefold in the April issue, with photos of an elegant table overflowing with platters of food. At a companion microsite, visitors who feel inclined to recreate …

The NBC affiliates board has launched an exhaustive study of viewers regarding Jay Leno's new show at 10 p.m. A committee that includes Scripps TV senior vice president Brian Lawlor and Post-Newsweek Stations CEO Alan Frank ordered the research and is hoping to use it for unprecedented input into Leno's fall program. Affiliates were split on the idea of Leno taking over the 10 p.m. slot, fearing it will never be a ratings smash and won't be a good lead-in to the local news. The study asks viewers about their favorite elements of "The Tonight Show With Jay …

One part of the traditional media has continued to grow robustly: National Public Radio. The audience for NPR's daily news programs, including "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered," reached a record last year, hitting 20.9 million a week, a 9% increase over the previous year. The weekly audience for all the programming fed by Washington-based NPR -- including talk shows and music -- also reached a record last year, with 23.6 million people tuning in each week, an 8.7% increase over 2007. NPR's surge continues a trend that goes back to the fall of 2000. Its audience has grown …

In the aftermath of CNBC's recent image calamity via Jon Stewart, rivals Fox Business Network and Bloomberg Television could win by capitalizing on CNBC's misery. With about 355,000 total viewers, CNBC looks like an appealing target for investors who are depressed and furious. Fair or not, the network suddenly represents everything that is evil about capitalism. The priority for Fox Business and Bloomberg is to become the anti-CNBC and strengthen their own identities. Fox Business is well-suited to serve the interests of the outsider of the stock market, the "little guy." Its commitment to impressing Main Street underlays its …

Many of Comcast's regional owned-and-operated sports networks are now offering on-demand daily sports news, local sports interview shows and repeats of live sports games. Several CSN channels began experimenting with on-demand content last season. With baseball season around the corner, for instance, Comcast SportsNet services in Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area will offer Cubs, White Sox, Giants and Athletics baseball games on an on-demand basis this season. Regional sports networks in the past have been reluctant to offer game replay content on demand for fear that it would siphon off viewers who watch such replays …