Condé Nast has raised its rate base for four publications, two of whose circulations -- The New Yorker and Wired  -- are being upped "by 25,000 each on the strength of their tablet businesses," writes Erik Maza. Allure and Details, meanwhile, are experiencing increases "because of sponsored promotions with retailers — the chain Ulta in the beauty magazine’s case." Maza also takes a look at the bigger picture of digital business for Condé Nast and its  major consumer publishing competitors Hearst and Time Inc.

Jim Bell, who spent seven years as executive producer of the "Today" show, will become full-time exec producer of NBC's Olympics coverage, NBC Universal announced. "'Today' will also announce a new executive producer from within NBC’s own ranks," according to an unidentified source cited by reporter Alex Sherman.

"After almost two years of contentious negotiations with management," the New York Times staff ratified a new contract yesterday, writes Jack Mirkinson. The deal, good through March 2016, "institutes modest bonuses and pay raises, and introduces a controversial and less generous pension plan."

Here's a strange media-related wrinkle to the Broadwell/Petraeus scandal -- or maybe not? There's been speculation that a letter written to the New York Times Magazine's "Ethicist" column in July could have been written by Scott Broadwell, since it began “My wife is having an affair with a government executive..." We remember reading the column then and being fascinated, especially because "Ethicist" Chuck Klosterman noted that due to the Times' visibility, "I halfway suspect you’re writing this letter because you want specific people to read this column and deduce who is involved and what’s really going on behind closed doors …

Wow, what a totally random group of "important people" made up the panel of folks meeting to help decide what is, admittedly, an ultimately trivial if mediacentric question: Who will be Time magazine's person of the year? Judges ranged from, among others, Newt Gingrich to Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter to actor Bryan Cranston to "Top Chief" host Padma Laskshmi (god forbid a Bravolebrity should be left out!) Actually, sounds like Laskshmi had some substantive ideas, including "Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot for advocating for women’s rights," and "Burmese opposition leader Aun San Suu Kyi," writes Jeff Bercovici. But "better …

In another example of a print company diversifying in a bid for more dollars, Johnson Publishing Co., which publishes African-American-targeted Ebony and Jet magazines, will be selling copies of 2,000 photos from its private archives to the public. In the past such photos were only available for licensing to businesses. Among the selections: a shot of Sammy Davis Jr. backstage; Martin Luther King Jr. "reading a copy of the International Herald Tribune in Oslo before an event at which he received the Nobel Peace Prize," writes Lynne Marek.

Top-of-the-masthead shuffle at the Washington Post: Martin Baron will take on the job of executive editor starting Jan. 2, moving on from the editorship of the Boston Globe, where he has held the top spot since 2001. He will replace Marcus Brauchli, who is resigning to become  vice president of The Washington Post Company, "with responsibility for evaluating new media opportunities," writes Paul Farhi.

The Wall Street Journal is debuting two sections on its website to cover startups and entrepreneurs: Startup Journal, which will include all coverage of that topic in one place, and The Accelerators, which will be "anchored by contributions from a diverse group of mentors" such as investors and entrepeneurs "who will address a different question each week," according to the site.

There are several mitigating factors to this statistic, but, yes, Google's ad revenue for the first six months of 2012 -- $10.9 billion -- seems to top the ad revenue from print (both newspapers and magazines) media: $10.5 billion, according to Statistica. Here are the caveats: the Google figures are global while the print data is just from the U.S., and does not include revenue from newspapers' websites. Those caveats seem to us fairly significant, but you can't beat the fact that  "Google is operating at close to parity with the print industry in ad revenues," and 'Google is just …

In another "wave of  belt-tightening" at NBCUniversal after some Los Angeles-based cuts two weeks ago,  New York-based network staffers  have been let go, though "at some networks, the layoffs involve as few as a handful of employees," writes Nelli Andreeva.  "I hear the cuts, which don’t appear to be very deep, are the result of a corporate decision and virtually all networks are affected to some extent including NBC; Syfy; USA; G4, which recently cancelled two long-running shows, E! and Bravo."