ABC's telecast of the American Music Awards enjoyed a dash of MTV-style morning-after buzz by generating several talked-about moments, including Adam Lambert's racy dance routine and J. Lo falling on her tush. The Awards drew 14.2 million viewers and a 5.5 preliminary adults 18-49 rating. That's the largest overall audience for the show since 2002 and its biggest rating since 2004. The AMAs stand as the third-highest-rated awards show of the year, behind only the Oscars and the Grammys and have posted gains the last several years.

Crown Imports has chosen independent Horizon Media's Los Angeles office for planning and buying chores across its portfolio. The assignment includes Corona Extra, Corona Light, Model Especial, Negra Modelo, Pacifico, St. Pauli Girl and Tsingtao. The company spent slightly less than $60 million on ads through the first two-thirds of 2009, per Nielsen. A review for the media account began this summer. Ad chores had mainly been handled by Chicago-based independent shop Cramer-Krasselt and strategic and creative duties on Corona Extra will stay with C-K despite the media shift. Creature in Seattle has handled media chores on Pacifico; …

CNN's executives say that the low ratings for "Anderson Cooper 360" and Campbell Brown are not as important as industry observers might think. Advertising on prime-time shows accounts for only 10% of the company's total revenue, they say. A widely distributed international network and a top news Web site now help drive profits at CNN. "The U.S. network is a very high-profile part of what we do, but we have experienced growth around the world and digitally," says Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide. The company's global strategy depends on maintaining an impartial news voice, which is why controversial …

Rupert Murdoch is currently in talks with Microsoft about a pact in which News Corp. would de-index its news sites' content from Google, and make them visible to much smaller search competitor Bing, owned by Microsoft. In exchange, Microsoft would pay News Corp. some unknown amount of money. The deal would let Murdoch finally strike a blow at Google, and the small amount of ad revenue he loses from reduced traffic would probably be covered by the fees paid by Microsoft. For Microsoft, such a deal would represent a huge upgrade over the thin offerings currently featured on …

Washington Times editorial page editor Richard Miniter is filing a lawsuit against the Times. An affidavit in his suit provides a detailed picture of the inner workings of the troubled newspaper. In recent weeks, three executives have been fired from the paper and its top editor resigned. The document says the newspaper relies on a roughly $40 million annual subsidy, delivered weekly, from the Unification Church. The affidavit also says Miniter was made to attend a Unification Church religious ceremony earlier this year. Miniter, who at the time was serving as a consultant for the paper, felt pressured …

The ABC-owned TV station group is relaunching its 10 station Web sites in an effort to make content easier for users to find. The former iteration, unveiled two years ago, featured a prominent video box in the middle of the home page, which was designed to make the sites look like television, according to ABC executives. The new sites feature a smaller video player and a neater content layout, along with a "Programming Note" banner at the top touting a local story to be seen on air. The redesigned O&O sites have also added an ABC News tab offering …

McClatchy is announcing on Facebook that five of its papers are available on the Kindle: The Sacramento Bee, The Charlotte Observer, the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram in Texas, the Anchorage Daily News and the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. The Kindle editions are delivered wirelessly once a day in the early morning, but will not be a complete version of the print edition or even the Web site of each paper. The editions will not have advertising and are free for a two-week trial. The monthly subscription price is $6.99 a month. Amazon is said to take a 70% …

The St. Petersburg Times in Florida is in the midst of selling a magazine they own in Washington, D.C., to a Scientology publisher located in Folsom, Calif. The St. Pete's title, Governing, is being acquired by e. Republic, which has four publications, including one called Government Technology. The Web site that included the story about the sale in last week's St. Petersburg Times also included a video ad for Scientology that cost an estimated $1 million. Interestingly, the St. Petersburg Times has been running several hard-hitting exposes about abuses in Scientology this year. "What the heck is going …

Bill Moyers will be retiring from regularly weekly reporting on TV next year. Moyers, 75, received the highest award bestowed by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 2006 -- it's Lifetime Achievement Emmy. His weekly show on PBS, "Bill Moyers Journal," will end on April 30, 2010. Early in his career, Moyers worked as press secretary for fellow Texan Lyndon Johnson when Johnson was president. Since then, he has done thousands of hours of TV programming, many of them focusing on various aspects of the humanities, such as his famous interviews with Joseph Campbell about …

Comcast's plan to take control of NBC Universal this month has encountered a roadblock. The cable operator's acquisition of a 51% stake in NBCU is being held up because Vivendi and GE, the joint owners of NBCU, are $500 to $900 million apart in agreeing on a value for Vivendi's stake. General Electric owns 80% of the company, and France's Vivendi owns 20%. GE needs to reach an agreement with Vivendi before it can sell majority control to Comcast. GE has placed a value on NBC Universal of $27 billion to $30 billion, say insiders. Negotiations could …