After a month-long stalemate, the television upfront marketplace is starting to move. NBC Universal and GroupM are close to finalizing a major deal for broadcast and cable inventory for next season. Under the deal currently being discussed, GroupM will pay an average CPM of minus 7%, compared to last year for its prime-time inventory, say insiders. For its cable deals, the buying conglomerate is said to be paying an average CPM between flat and minus-2%. It's not clear the amount of dollars in play. NBC took in an estimated $1.85 billion in the 2008/09 upfront. None of …

Pop icon Michael Jackson died yesterday afternoon, not long after being rushed to UCLA Medical Center. It was the site of a syndicated newsmagazine, TMZ.com, which first reported the news of his hospitalization and also broke word of his death. The TV networks then scrambled to pay tribute to Jackson with specials on his life. ABC News -- which had scored several exclusive interviews with Jackson during his career-- aired a 9 p.m. special. NBC expanded its previously announced Farrah Fawcett tribute to 9-11 p.m. and devoted it to retrospectives on both pop icons. CBS decided to air a …

Cablevision, Major League Baseball and the New York Yankees cable network have reached a multiyear deal for live streaming of online Yankees games in the team's home market. Cablevision Internet customers who receive the Yankees' YES Network will be able to buy a package to see the games live on the Internet starting July 8. It will cost fans a one-time fee of $49.95 for the remainder of the season or $19.95 for any 30-day period. A price for a full season for next year has not been set. Up to now baseball fans have not been …

It looks like Vogue might be slipping. Rival Elle banked more advertising pages than Voguein the first half of the year. It's the first time the 24-year-old Elle has outshone its more elite competitor. The most recent six issues of Elle held 970 advertising pages, a 22% decline year-to-year, compared to Vogue's 956 pages, a 32% decline. In comparison, Vogue had 10% more advertising pages than Elle last year. Time Warner's InStyle remains the leader, posting 1,151 ad pages year-to-date. Elle, Marie Claireand similar magazines now enjoy larger profiles thanks to their involvement …

Setting aside their competitive urges, Comcast and Verizon have agreed that Comcast will sell advertising for Verizon's FiOS television service in 10 markets where they both operate. Comcast's advertising sales division, Comcast Spotlight, will sell spot cable ads for Verizon starting in the fall. Comcast says the Verizon deal is its largest ad sales agreement. The five-and-a-half-year deal covers Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Fort Wayne, Ind., Harrisburg, Pa., Pittsburgh, Portland, Ore., Richmond, Va., Seattle and Washington, D.C. In January, Comcast Spotlight reached an ad sales deal with another rival, Dish Network Corp. Comcast sells ads for Dish's ten …

The New York Times Co. and the Boston Newspaper Guild have reached a tentative deal over wage and benefit cuts at the Boston Globe. Underlying pessimism over the inevitable cuts has been an unspoken assumption that downward trends in print readership and ad revenue will continue until they converge at zero. But it looks like that's not going to happen, writes Dan Kennedy, Northeastern University assistant professor. Somewhere there's a stabilization point. Boston Herald publisher Pat Purcell has proven that it's possible to get small enough to break even or earn a small profit. Surely the Globe can …

American Idol's Simon Cowell is setting up a global entertainment company with U.K. retail entrepreneur Philip Green. The joint venture, to be based in Los Angeles and London, would encompass TV production, talent management and merchandising. Cowell's talent show "X Factor" may bow in the U.S. as one of the enterprise's first ventures. Cowell also runs entertainment company Syco, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment. The new venture would co-exist alongside Syco, with Cowell taking care of creative matters while Green handles the business side. The two tycoons aim to take on "Hollywood moguls and U.S. entertainment corporations …

The top 10 travel and hospitality brands boosted their product placements on prime-time broadcast television by 34% last year, per Nielsen. Most of the brands were hotels, mixed in with the JFK and LAX Airports. Of the hotels, three Las Vegas resorts posted the most product placement occurrences: The Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, MGM Grand Hotel & Casino, and New York New York Hotel & Casino. Among broadcast network TV shows, Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance" was tops, with 534 placements for the travel and hospitality category. The show's backdrop of the Las Vegas …

You can see why other news magazines, such as Newsweek, have Economist envy. The British magazine bucked the trend of steep publishing industry declines with a 26% increase in operating profit for the fiscal year ending March 31. The company reaped approximately $92 million in operating profit and $514.2 million in revenue, up 17% compared to last year. Chairman Robert Wilson attributed the growth in part to a "flight to quality" among advertisers. However, he added, "We cannot expect to match the record results we have seen this year, while so many of the world's major companies, on …

ESPN is getting a long-sought boost in Britain by buying U.K. broadcast rights to several soccer games from England's Barclays Premier League. ESPN is buying the right to televise 46 games next season and 23 matches in each of the three following seasons. Over the years ESPN has drawn tiny ratings in Britain, where it has only two channels: ESPN Classic, which shows old sporting events, and the flagship ESPN America channel. Premier League games, in contrast, attract large audiences in Britain. ESPN's deal also puts the network in the odd position of competing with British Sky …