Comedy Central has acquired the off-network syndication rights to NBC's "30 Rock" and will begin running it in 2011. It will share the cable window of the series with WGN America for a combined license fee estimated at $800,000 an episode, surpassing cable sales of other comedy hits. NBC's other Emmy-winning Thursday comedy, "The Office" was sold to TBS in 2007 for about $750,000 per episode as well as in broadcast syndication. A broadcast syndication deal for "30 Rock" is pending. "30 Rock is a perfect DNA match for our viewers," says Comedy Central's David Bernath, who, influenced …

New York Times Co. delayed accepting bids for its Boston Globe until at least July 20, when the newspaper's largest union is scheduled to vote on a new contract. The New York-based publisher had set today as the original deadline for preliminary offers for the newspaper.

Several digital out-of-home ad networks, including Akoo, Danoo and Adcentricity, have added a mobile platform to extend their dialogue with increasingly mobile consumers. The promise of combining the two fastest-growing media is hard to resist: Catch the consumer when they are most receptive to messaging; engage them with special promotions and offers close to the point of purchase; and continue the dialogue by building a database of loyal and receptive customers. Digital OOH networks are making it easier for advertisers to harness both media by bundling them together. Interest among advertisers is definitely increasing. Since Adcentricity partnered with …

Cable, satellite and other pay TV companies are likely to gain 653,000 subscribers this year thanks to the June 12 transition to digital TV. Cable will benefit the most, adding 475,000 subscribers, followed by satellite with 137,000 subscribers and the telecommunications companies with 41,000 subscribers, per Wells Fargo Securities. About 368,000 over-the-air households switched to pay TV during first quarter. Broken out by provider: Comcast's subscribers from the transition will total 169,780; Time Warner will gain 150,190; Cablevision 3,265; and other cable companies 151,496. DirecTV stands to add 78,770 and DISH 58,770.

Jay Leno's new show will come from a soundstage specially fitted to accommodate his expensive autos. Leno's new 10 p.m. show will be taped in a studio that is even larger than the 17,000 square-foot garage that houses Leno's car collection. The stage for Leno's former "Tonight Show" was about 5,000 square feet smaller than the new stage. Leno might be using his car collection as a Trojan horse to position his show as the place to advertise automobiles. If so, "it would be a natural product placement because Leno is such a car freak; people know and like …

The Printed Blog newspaper has failed to attract outside investment capital and has been shuttered six months after its launch. Blog's founder and one-man financier, Joshua Karp's idea was to get content from local bloggers with their permission and, eventually, some kind of payment. The content was put in a highly templated format and distributed by hand at mass transit stops. Cheap ads were to be sold to sustain the paper. The first issues featured stunning photography on a rich paper stock. The content was as eclectic as the blogosphere, and occasionally was R-rated. All told, the paper …

The City of New York yesterday introduced a multi-pronged initiative to help its struggling media sector. It offers a variety of plans that focus on innovation, research, retraining and new technology. "With the media industry undergoing profound changes it's incumbent on us to take steps now to capitalize on growth opportunities and ensure New York remains an industry leader," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The effort includes the formation of the New York City Media Lab, a research center for media companies, universities and others to collaborate on research and share findings. The center provides a physical center for …

The world of "augmented reality" or AR is quickly becoming part of in-store promos and advertising. Lego is already at it. In some of its toy stores you can now pick up one of the special Lego boxes and hold it up to an interactive kiosk to see yourself holding a 3D animation of what the fully constructed toy will look like. AR is a way of combining real-time images with computer-generated ones to create a new version of reality in full 3D. So you can sit in front of a webcam and watch yourself on your PC screen, …

WE TV senior vice president of programming Steve Cheskin is returning to his Discovery Communications and TLC roots, as executive vice president of programming for the TLC. In the newly created post, Cheskin will lead TLC's scheduling and acquisition team, as well as its bicoastal development team. Cheskin was most recently at WE TV, where he was responsible for all aspects of programming, including development, original production, acquisitions and scheduling. Cheskin has previously held various roles at Discovery Channel, where he was one of those responsible for inventing the "Shark Week" franchise. His Discovery ties include stints …

TV networks like Disney, ESPN and Nickelodeon have all recently made aggressive moves into the mobile gaming market. Nickelodeon just launched the AddictingGames iNetwork, a mobile offshoot of its AddictingGames.com casual games portal. Meanwhile, ESPN has upgraded its entire casual games roster at ESPN Arcade. The networks have a number of advantages over independent mobile game developers: They have budgets big enough to fund well-coded apps that should deliver a premium user experience. They also have stronger ties to brand advertisers, meaning they can offer a greater variety of free games, while still monetizing the users. In …