It's one of news journalism's most coveted gigs, and always influential in terms of Hollywood coverage. Now the Grey Lady is expected to announce that Gerry Marzorati will exit his post as editor of The New York Times Magazine before the end of the summer. Already, names of his replacement are circulating, most prominently former Timesman James Bennet, who has been editor-in-chief of The Atlantic since 2006. Insiders say morale had sagged at the magazine under Marzorati, that the articles had lost their edge, and that little attempt was made to bring in younger readers. Sources say Marzorati will …

Sony Corp. is close to an agreement to carry a paid TV service from Hulu LLC, operator of the second-largest video site, on its PlayStation 3 game console, sources say. PlayStation 3 owners registered for the console's free Web service, the PlayStation Network, would be able to subscribe to a Hulu service that provides on-demand access to current and past seasons of prime-time TV shows from NBC, Fox and ABC. Playstation has 50 million registered users. Hulu, is ownd by Disney, NBCU and News Corp. The site lets users watch shows for free and gets its revenue from advertising. …

As consumers ignore traditional online banner ads, Web publishers have tried to replace them with higher-impact and more lucrative ads. In one of the latest examples, Hearst Magazines is launching next-generation ad units that will let advertisers serve HD streaming video in real time. The ads, which also are large-format units, tap into a greater interest among advertisers to eschew the traditional pre-roll ad for spots that look more like editorial content. Hearst will launch the units with Gillette, which will promote its Venus Bikini Kit via custom videos that will run on Cosmopolitan.com.

For much of the past year, Current TV has been quietly undergoing an overhaul that will change just about everything but the struggling channel's name. It's a revitalization project Gore & Co. embarked on after exhausting a more lucrative possibility: selling the channel. Now the focus has shifted to fixing Current, perhaps with an eye toward a sale down the road. Last July, Hyatt was replaced as CEO by Mark Rosenthal, the former MTV Networks COO who is rebuilding the channel in the traditional mold Gore avowed to avoid, only to suffer the consequences. Rosenthal has brought in …

Unilever will be double spending on digital marketing this year, Chief Marketing Officer Keith Weed told the International Advertising Festival. He says the company is looking to make its digital presence proportionate to the amount of time people spend with digital media, noted Ad Age.  "Now, in the U.S., where people are spending 25% of their time in some sort of digital engagement, then you should be proportionate. ... You will find that we will be in the 20% areas in markets like the U.S. And you will find we'll be in the single [digits] in markets that are …

Extreme Reach, which sells a digital platform that advertisers can use to deliver their video ads to TV stations and Web sites, has raised $9 million in a second round of funding. Since it's founding in 2008, ER says it has delivered ads from "several hundred" ad agencies and brands to more than 12,500 media properties, including 4,500 TV stations. The company says its system eliminates delays between when an ad is produced and actually airs, due to digital advances. Extreme Reach says that speed is especially useful for advertisers with time-sensitive spots, such as political campaigns.

Fox Audience Network, the ad sales company that handles the bulk of advertising sales for News Corp. properties like MySpace and IGN, will let around 5% of staff go today, or roughly 15 people. All are presumed to be in direct sales. A sign that FAN's ad sales business is crumbling? Maybe not. Apparently, the self-serve part of the business is booming and already in the hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue per year. The self serve network first launched in late 2007; it lets advertisers "hyper target" display ads against aggregated user information gathered mostly …

ESPN is estimating 99.2 million people have "consumed" 2010 FIFA World Cup content across all ESPN platforms during the first 10 days of the tournament. The data, compiled by ESPN research, working with data from Knowledge Networks and Nielsen, shows those who have consumed content on ESPN and ABC, 97% watched TV, 27% used the Internet, 11% listened to radio, 6% used mobile and 4% read ESPN: The Magazine. The data also shows the multiplatform user spends the most time following the Cup competition, averaging 4 hours and 9 minutes per day, compared to one hour and 26 minutes for …

"The idea of a magazine that looks at the week, wraps it up and puts a little forward spin on it, that's pretty much an anachronism," says Alan D. Mutter, a former newspaper editor and current digital consultant. Yet Time editors putting are sanguine about their fate. "In terms of our category ... we're the only guy standing," says Rick Stengel, Time's managing editor, its most senior editorial post. "We convert information into knowledge. Knowledge is what people want. Information is the commodity." Time pursued its own reinvention in 2007; it changed its publication date to Fridays, ginned up …

Miranda Technologies has partnered with Quest Research & Development Corp. to offer on-air graphics systems that let broadcasters display comments from viewers sent via Twitter and other social networking sites. The first system has been installed at a New York City station, says TVNewsCheck. "We believe it's the first system of its kind in the country, with viewer comments fully integrated with the station's channel branding. Approved comments are entered into a queue, ready to be keyed on-air in a 'speech bubble' graphic," says Clinton Ash, Quest president. Many stations now have a large following of viewers on …