The cable network's prime-time lineup of Campbell Brown, Larry King and Anderson Cooper continued to struggle big time. CNN's prime-time audience fell 54% to 534,000 viewers, and the number of adults 25-54 was off 57% to 147,000 people compared with February 2009, according to Nielsen. The TW brass isn't just looking at ratings; the channel remains a cash cow due to its global presence. MSNBC's numbers were also off from a year ago if one takes out the cable network's coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics. In prime time, the network averaged 709,000 viewers, a 25% drop, and …

Viacom will remove "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," "The Colbert Report" and other Comedy Central programs from the online Hulu next week. The decision highlights the large gulf between the expectations of consumers wanting free and easily accessible content on the Internet and the media companies seeking a more profitable business model online. Still, the 3-year-old Hulu dominates the mushrooming market for online full-episode TV viewing, with more than 44 million monthly visitors, according to comScore. The site's monthly video view totals have surged in recent months, from 580 million last September to 1.01 billion last December. But …

TiVo, with 1.5 million subscribers, introduced a television set-top box that simplifies finding videos from Web outlets like Netflix and YouTube in addition to local program listings, but the device may not spark a rush of new subscribers to TiVo. The "Premiere" box -- available in April starting at about $300 -- allows users to locate various video offerings from disparate services via a single system. Cable companies offer the DVR boxes free; subscribers pay a monthly fee, often lower than TiVo. "It's easier to make the decision to go with the cable providers, and it's easier to stay with …

Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired praised the possibilities for the magazine industry with Apple's iPad and other future tablet-computer platforms at the 4As conference. Wired staffers have been working to create a tablet version of the title for six months, with the goal of having it ready in May. Tablets offer impressive functionality, such as 360-degree views and iPhone-like screen sliding, plus collapsing and layering -- all of which make the user experience vastly more compelling than the Web, notes Anderson, who predicts the iPad will sell tens of millions soon and take "less than 10 years for …

MTV Networks International is buying additional master control equipment from Miranda Technologies for its Amsterdam operation, including two Kaleido-X multi-viewers and an NVISION 8576 enterprise class router, as part of a project to consolidate a number of MTV Networks International operations and eliminate the cost of outsourcing playout to third parties. The expansion of MTVNI Amsterdam, which is located in Amsterdam's Media Wharf and shares playout of the MTV and Nickelodeon channels with MTVNI London, will allow playout of up to 75 channels as of July 2010.

Regional publisher Emmis Publishing reports that Gary Thoe is stepping down as president and will be replaced by Greg Loewen, who will continue to serve as chief strategy officer. Thoe, who served as president for 12 years, is leaving Emmis to concentrate on his family business, MidCountry Media. Previously, Loewen served as vice president of digital media and strategy at Canada's Toronto Star newspaper. Indianapolis-based Emmis publishes a number of big city magazines, including TTexas Monthly, Los Angeles, Atlanta. Texas Monthly, the only Emmis title tracked by the Publishers Information bureau, saw ad pages decline 18.5%t in 2009. The …

Bloomberg BusinessWeek has kicked off an ad campaign promising it will "reinvent the business magazine." The campaign debuted in Advertising Age, in conjunction with the 4As conference taking place in San Francisco. The campaign includes print and online insertions in other media brands. The ad offers a free copy of the "first issue" of this reinvented magazine, which hits newsstands April 23. The campaign was created in-house and by John Kenney + Partners. Carl Fischer, head of global marketing and communications for BusinessWeek said it is much more than a new design, adding there will be more stories, …

CBS and Viacom have regained their strength in the marketplace and neither company will be selling any more stock, says Sumner Redstone, Viacom and CBS chairman. Last October, after the stock market collapsed, the company had to sell stock in CBS to pay down $1 billion worth of debt. In the next few weeks National Amusements, the parent company of CBS and Viacom, will be entirely out of debt to its current creditors, Redstone said. Redstone said he has no plans of retiring any time soon but when he does the trustees, including daughter Shari Redstone, president of National …

Despite a sharp cutback by automaker General Motors, CBS has sold more than 90% of the available ad time for its coverage of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's men's basketball tournament, known as March Madness. Ad prices for the tournament escalate sharply from the opening round, where spots can be had for under $100,000, to the championship game, where 30-second units cost a little over $1.2 million. GM has cut its commitment to the tournament, which runs from March 16 to April 5, by roughly half to $25 million, per sources. Toyota, Mercedes and Audi have all re-upped, while …

Freescale Semiconductor, whose products power about 90% of electronic book readers, said a new chip will help drive down the price of the devices to less than $150 this year. The company will begin offering samples of a new processor soon. Amazon.com Inc. and Sony Corp., both Freescale customers, dominate the market for electronic tablets, which the companies predict will eventually replace paper books. Sales in 2010 are expected to double from last year's 4 million units. Amazon's Kindle readers carry retail prices of $259 and $489, while Sony's three models range from $199.99 to $399.99. Apple's iPad, which …