A deal struck last January between Time Warner Cable and News Corp. included a precedent-setting condition to allow TWC to carry Fox's network programming if retransmission negotiations with Fox affiliates break down. Many TV execs likened Fox's move to throwing its non-owned Fox affiliates under the bus. Just how much leverage Fox affiliates could lose in retrans negotiations is getting tested as Sinclair Broadcast Group and TWC try and hammer out a deal. If the deadline passes without a deal, TWC will pay Fox a fee for network programming. If more TV networks bypass affiliates and do retransmission …

Keeping Howard Stern removed one of the big question marks facing Sirius XM. The company, which has weathered a difficult two years of financial uncertainty, needed to keep the controversial talker to signal to the financial community that its momentum is continuing. Wall Street drove up the company's stock about 20% Thursday, after Stern announced on his morning show that he would stay through 2015. The stock price has more than doubled this year as the company's finances have improved and closed Monday at $1.38. Another milestone Monday: The company passed 20 million subscribers.

The first iAd for iPad will launched Tuesday for the upcoming Disney blockbuster "Tron Legacy." The format, designed to maximize the ad potential of Apple's tablet computer, will be launched widely in early 2011 when other ads start flowing onto the platform. The full-screen "Tron" ad, which will run in iPad apps such as TV Guide, includes close to 10 minutes of video, images from the movie, a theater locator with show times, and a preview of the movie soundtrack with the option to purchase on iTunes -- all without leaving the ad. For the first time in …

Despite layoffs and cutbacks in the broadcast news business, CBS News writers are getting a slight bump in pay. Members of the Writers Guild of America overwhelmingly ratified a new three-year contract that provides 2% annual increase in pay to CBS News writers working in television and radio on local and national levels in New York, Chicago, Washington and Los Angeles. Guild members voted 83% in favor of the contract, which in addition to the pay raises, for the first time makes CBS News employees eligible to join the guild's pension fund and provides negotiated minimum pay levels for …

News Corp. has become one of the biggest players in the increasingly crowded field of corporate investors chasing the next technology to transform American education. Company executives say the foundation of the media conglomerate's push will be Wireless Generation, a Brooklyn, N.Y., maker of software and other tools to help schools evaluate and monitor student performance and tailor teaching plans accordingly. News Corp. plunked down $360 million last month for 90% of the company. Sources say News Corp. is interested in making other acquisitions and investments in technologies designed to change the way children learn, though it expects …

Hearst Television Inc., parent company of New Orleans NBC affiliate WDSU-Channel 6 and 28 other stations around the country, is warning viewers that the station's signal could go dark for DirecTV subscribers on Jan. 1. "Satellite distributors are prohibited by law from carrying broadcasters' signals without their consent," the Hearst e-mail stated. "The removal of WDSU-TV from the DirecTV system will only result if negotiations between representatives of Hearst Television Inc., WDSU's parent company, and DirecTV are unsuccessful in reaching a conclusion before December 31st, 2010." The e-mail and later post, which mirrors notices posted on websites at several …

The new syndicated talk show hosted by Anderson Cooper will officially be called "Anderson." Allbritton's ABC affiliate WJLA Washington (DMA 9), has committed to air the new syndicated talk show hosted by Anderson Cooper, which will be called Anderson, at 4 p.m., where it will replace Oprah when it debuts in fall 2011. The Warner Bros. Domestic Television series will also replace "Oprah" on KFMB San Diego and KBAK Bakersfield, Calif. "Anderson" has picked up 15 additional stations and is now sold in 40 markets. Cooper will continue to anchor CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," the network's evening newscast which …

Thomson Reuters Corp has launched a news service for U.S. publishers and broadcasters in a bid to win business from the Associated Press and CNN. The new service, Reuters America, provides text stories, photos and video by Reuters journalists for newspapers, television stations and online publishers. Newspaper publisher and broadcaster Tribune Co, publisher of the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, is its first customer. As part of the service, Reuters America also will offer sports and entertainment news from six partners: the Wrap, SportsDirect Inc, the Sports Xchange, US Presswire, SB Nation and Examiner.com. Reuters is hiring journalists …

Media Matters has obtained leaked emails that show how a top Washington editor at Fox News directed his journalists not to use the phrase "public option." Instead, Bill Sammon, Fox News' Washington managing editor, told staffers to use the phrase "government option." This happens to be the exact phrase that Republican pollster Frank Luntz had advised Republicans to begin using to describe the public option -- on Sean Hannity's show. Speaking to Hannity in August 2009, Luntz said: "If you call it a 'public option,' the American people are split," but that "if you call it the 'government …

What began as a search for a new North American creative chief at JWT has ended with the appointment of a New York chief creative officer. Peter Nicholson, most recently CCO at Redscout and a former JWT executive creative director, was named CCO of JWT New York. The appointment, effective January, ends a yearlong search to fill the N.A. leadership role left vacant when co-president and CCO Ty Montague left in June to start his own shop with president Rosemarie Ryan. Nicholson, however, assumes a title previously held by Harvey Marco, who left JWT in August to serve as …