Sounds like "Mad Men" creator Matt Weiner is getting close to a deal with AMC and Lionsgate for the hotly anticipated fifth season of the show, according to Deadline.com and Variety. With negotiations still proceeding slowly, there's a good chance the show may not have its usual mid-summer timeline and could even air on a different night than Sunday, speculates HitFix's Alan Sepinwall. He updates his story with the news that completed negotiations would include a sixth season as well. If that's the case, hooray!

As a way to induce more sampling of, and eventual subscriptions to, its digital editions, the Wall Street Journal tomorrow will begin selling downloads of single issues in the iTunes App store for $1.99. Previously the company offered some free content to those who downloaded the free WSJ app on the iPad.

Interesting analysis of the news that Netflix has confirmed its deal to distribute the new TV series "House of Cards." While most folks were asking "Could Netflix be the next HBO?," Video Nuse's Will Richmond asked instead, "Could HBO be the next BLOCKBUSTER?"-- meaning, could HBO become increasingly irrelevant in the wake of competition from Netflix, as Blockbuster has? Richmond thinks the answer to that question is "yes." "Tops on the list of similarities [between HBO and Blockbuster] are distribution and how changing technology can affect entrenched ways of doing business," Richmond writes.

Tomorrow Disney is set to announce the launch of several glossy children's magazines in the U.S., including pubs themed to Marvel movies such as "Thor" and "Captain America" -- and Phineas and Ferb, a bimonthly tied to the animated television series of the same name. Disney's move is a gamble in the U.S., where the kids' subscription pub business has generally died out, though the model is prospering in Europe, according to the New York Times' Brooks Barnes.

Soap stalwart ABC -- which kept up its schedule of three daytime dramas while the two other major broadcast nets pared its lineup -- may be ready to cut at least one of its soaps, according to Deadline Hollywood's Nellie Andreeva. Most likely to go: "All My Children," which in its 41st year on the air, "recently posted two weeks of back-to-back all-time lows in the key Women 18-49 demographic," writes Andreeva. Word is a talk show could replace the veteran Susan Lucci vehicle.

Have you noticed that news about Libya seems to have pushed any mention of Japan off U.S. news broadcasts? That may be because of some budget cuts -- but "broadcasters, quick to promote their globe-trotting troupes lately,... are sensitive to suggestions that they are stretched too thin," according to The New York Times' Brian Stelter.That piece focuses on the spate of television coverage of foreign events this year, up from an average of 20% of national news outlets coverage in the past four years to 45%, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism.This trend …

Here's an update to the story we linked to on Friday about how a Detroit News auto critic left the paper after his editors changed the wording of a sharply critical review of the new Chrysler 200. Detroit News Editor and Publisher Jonathan Wolman published a readers' note saying "our decision to make these changes after fielding an advertiser's complaint was a humbling mistake."

A nice feature in Women's Wear Daily/Media profiles several women editors who first moved to the Web after their print pubs folded, but have since returned to print. Why the move back to traditional publishing? asks writer John Koblin. For example, there's Deborah Needleman, formerly editor of the defunct decorating magazine Domino, who tried to start an ecommerce site, but ultimately decided she was more interested in an editorial product, becoming editor of the Wall Street Journal's glossy supplement WSJ. "Could it possibly be any more old-school?" Needleman asks in the piece. "It's practically 19th …

"The plan to share the March Madness basketball games with a batch of Turner cable channels has fallen like an off-balance, ill-advised three-point attempt for some CBS affiliates--and their viewers--around the country," begins Broadcasting & Cable's Michael Malone in a thorough piece on how CBS affiliates, viewers and CBS itself view this issue. "I think all hell is going to break lo[o]se," is one quote from Tom Griesdorn, president and general manager at CBS' Columbus, Ohio affiliate, WBNS. But Turner Sports President David Levy calls it a "non-issue."

Jalopnik's Ray Wert investigates why Scott Burgess recently resigned his post as auto critic at The Detroit News. Wert assumes it's because "his editors bowed to a request by an advertiser to water down his negative review of the Chrysler 200." Burgess won't confirm the reason for his resignation, but his editor responds by saying the "changes did not fundamentally change the thrust of [Burgess'] piece." Wert obviously doesn't agree with the editor -- but he also posts the original full story, along with the changes, so you can decide for yourself.