The Atlantic appears to have hit upon a winning formula for print/digital magazine hybrids, with ad revenues in both areas up in the third quarter, 3% and 41% respectively.  If that first figure seems low, writes Lauren Indvik, consider that print revenues dropped 10.4% at The New York Times Company during the same period.  Also, The Atlantic’s overall ad revenues were up 19%; ad revs from iPad and iPhone apps accounted for 2% of total reps, and traffic to its three Web properties more than doubled compared to a year earlier, to 10 million per month  

Could a sitcom for the Kardashians be in the works?  NBCU-owned E!, best known for its reality fare, has just hired Kevin Plunkett, former senior vice president of comedy development at ABC Studios, as its first senior vice president of scripted programming.  Plunkett’s credits include “Scrubs,” “Cougar Town,” “Samantha Who” and “Happy Endings.”

Bubble, bubble -- here's a list of 10 TV shows that are in trouble ratings-wise, from critical darlings that have failed to pick up enough of a an audience ("Community") to new shows that may soon be on the chopping block ("Pan Am"). Actually, we're surprised that more new shows aren't on the list -- less than half, four out of ten, fit intto that category, including "Unforgettable and "Prime Suspect." The rest have been around at least for a prior season.

Forbes Media hired a new COO, Mike Federle, formerly publisher and president of competing publication Fortune. He is one of the first non-Forbes family members to hold a key position; another was Mike Perlis, named CEO last November. "The arrival of Federle is another sign that the Forbes family, which technically still owns the media company, has been forced to turn over control to non-family executives at the behest of minority partner Elevation Partners," writes Keith J. Kelly.

Reader's Digest Association is exploring the possible sale of another food-related property -- the 14-year-old site AllRecipes -- shortly after it announced the impending sale of foodie pub Every Day With Rachael Ray. These moves all part of a process to refine the brand, writes Stephanie Botelho. "RDA considers Reader’s Digest, Taste of Home and The Family Handyman to be among its core brands, according to newly named president and CEO Robert Guth." And all of this "streamlining may or may not be in preparation for a potential sale: in July, The Wall Street Journalreported RDA was on …

One more fight over carriage fees that could mean channels going dark! This time the squabble is between News Corp. and DirecTV over more than two dozen channels, ranging from FX, the National Geographic Channel, and 19 regional sports network -- but not Fox News or Fox broadcast network. Deadline to reach agreement is Nov. 1. Hear the clash of swords as both sides weigh in with angry quotes: DirecTV says News Corp. is asking for a 40% increase in subscriber fees, which it calls  "unfair and unwarranted." Meanwhile, News Corp. says the claim that it's demanding a 40% raise …

Apple Genius Corp has oh-so-brilliantly  partnered up with Snooki from "Jersey Shore" to launch a series of up to eight social games and nobile apps, starting next month. It's hard not to be snarky about the news, and this piece (bylined "IB Times Staff Reporter" -- come on, when you show an editorial voice, you deserve to have your own name out there) does not resist that temptation, calling Snooki "...the New York  Times' bestselling author. The New York Times bestselling author. That had to be repeated because you know you didn't believe it the first time."

New York City's The Village Voice just laid off two editorial staffers --Ward Harkavy, a senior editor, and columnist Harry Siegel. This comes on the "late end of a wave of layoffs affecting all New Times papers that has now claimed more than twenty editorial positions," writes Kat Stoeffel.

The road to print pubs' successful digital paywalls has been bumpy -- but perhaps no other magazine has suffered the thumping bump The Economist just did. The pub  just realized it's been mistakenly letting some digital subscribers have a free ride for up to five years. That's a loss of $110 a year for each customer. Oops! The free-loading subscribers have been notified, and the pub is moving on to a new app it hopes will be work better than its old, mistake-prone database.

Here's a quick report by Lindsay Powers on how the media. social and otherwise, rushed to cover the news that Libyan dictator Col. Moammer Gadhafi had been killed -- from first unconfirmed reports on the Web, to having "multiple spellings of Gadhafi's name instantly bec[o]me Twitter trending topics," to cable news channels airing a "gruesome cell phone video" of the dead guy. All of which provides insight on how a major breaking news story goes public these days. As for us, we turned to the New York Times Web site for official confirmation in bold, all-caps headlines.