Longtime TV host Montel Williams started a daily show on Air America radio this week. He says he intends to present both liberal and conservative points of view on the liberal-skewed network. He'd also like to modify the tone of talk radio. "There's so much anger behind it. It brings the discussion down to a playground level," he says. Williams is also fine-tuning "a new kind of infomercial" he calls "talkmercials," because they're formatted like a talk show. The radio show is called "Montel Williams Across America" and the audio and video feed are available live daily, 9 …

The CW will be home of The 36th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, which will air from Los Angeles on August 30. Dawn Ostroff, president of entertainment at The CW, says the show will provide the network with a valuable promotional platform as it launches its fall 2009 schedule. "It is a terrifically entertaining show with a core female following similar to our own," she says. The annual event is a collaboration between Associated Television International, NATAS and MGM Worldwide Television, which is responsible for the worldwide distribution of the program. Nominations for The Daytime Emmy Awards will be …

The Associated Press unveiled rate cuts Monday to help member newspapers reeling from declining ad revenue. But what really got the online buzz going all day was the AP's threat to sue Web sites that use its members' articles without permission -- primarily Google. The AP said it would "pursue legal and legislative actions" against sites that do not properly license news content. It plans to develop a new system to track its members' and its own news distributed online to determine whether it is being legally used. "We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off …

At this week's annual meeting of the Newspaper Association of America, newspaper executives are holding private talks about the possibility of charging for their online or mobile content. The under-the-radar discussions include a sit-down among several CEOs held separately from the convention. A lawyer is on hand to ensure the talks don't stray into inappropriate antitrust territory. The main topic is whether and how to charge for the expensively produced newspaper content that today is available for free at most newspaper sites. Insiders say other topics include: how to recover some of the classified advertising business that has …

The Wall Street Journal's managing editor Robert Thomson and his team see opportunity where others in the newspaper business see pain. They have boosted circulation and doubled the number of visitors to the WSJ site while other major U.S. newspapers cut back and shut down. Thomson sees the demise of other papers as a benefit. "Our core circulations are rising so strongly because papers around America are diminishing," he says. In San Francisco, Los Angeles or Detroit, the turmoil "helps us gain readers who are increasingly internationally aware and aware of their need to be well informed about …

At this season's upfront Bravo is pitching a slate that includes an unscripted gloss on the teen soap "Gossip Girl." The lineup offers projects like "NYC Prep," a docu-series that follows six real-life young women living it up on New York's Upper East Side. It's Bravo's first concerted effort to reach the 18-34 demo. All told, Bravo counts some 20 new projects in various stages of development, of which a handful will be housed under the network's new "Fashionality" genre. The first series in the genre is "The Fashion Show," hosted by Isaac Mizrahi and Kelly Rowland, targeting …

To help finance its programming, The Documentary Channel is now partnering with Don Q Puerto Rican rum and oil giant Exxon. Don Q is supporting a jazz series that will includes a premiere screening at Lincoln Center in New York. Called "Icons Among Us" it features interviews with the biggest names in jazz. "Speed Dreams," a series sponsored by Exxon brand Mobil One, follows three different types of race cars and their drivers. Oil is discussed in the film, but the essence is about the passion for speed, says Tom Neff, Documentary Channel CEO. "We found that …

It turns out that Michelle Obama is not general-interest magazines' new Princess Diana, whose face on the cover regularly helped boost newsstand sales. A Michelle Obama cover doesn't hurt a general-interest magazine, the numbers suggest, but it doesn't produce more than an occasional lift, either. The most positive exception may be O, The Oprah Magazine, whose April cover showed the first lady with Oprah Winfrey. On newsstands, the issue is tracking 25% higher than average 2008 sales. On the other hand, New York March 23 issue looks to have produced only average sales. People's March 9 issue with …

Days after parent The New York Times Co. threatened to shut down The Boston Globe, the newspaper is launching a branding and subscription campaign. New ads use "One Story" as their tagline and focus on the Globe's photography and range of storytelling. TV spots will run on NESN, a sports network partly owned by the Times Co., during Boston Red Sox games. More than two dozen print ads will also run in the Globe and the free-distribution commuter daily Metro.

Thanks to the economy, nearly every type of media can be had for a relative bargain. Media outlets, under more pressure than ever to fill ad inventory, will turn somersaults to keep advertiser money flowing through the door. To find the best deals, marketers should "follow the footprints of the sectors that are most affected," says Steve Calder, chief media officer at Mullen. He recommended tracking ad vacancies left by autos, financial services, retail and travel clients. "These are the places with the biggest gaping holes in coming ad inventory, where you're going to find your best opportunities." …