Internet use is catching up to TV watching, with respondents to a recent Temkin Group study noting that "they spend an average 3.9 hours per day watching television, compared to 3.8 house per day going online on the computer outside of work," writes Toni Fitzgerald. "Both numbers are the same as last year, but they represent a stark change from just a few years ago, when TV time doubled the amount of time people used the computer."

"The Ellen Degeneres Show" is using social media and YouTube to add younger fans and program the show with YouTube performers, writes Meg James.  "DeGeneres and her producers at Warner Bros. have been leaders in figuring out how to mine the Internet to benefit a television property."

"Meredith Corp. CEO Stephen Lacy says the media industry will be split into two categories: the consolidated and the consolidators," writesDes Moines Register's Marco Santana.  "There’s no confusion about the role" the company will take," with  future  acquisitions  focused on "our very, very large female consumer base," Lacy says further. He's still hungrily eyeing Time Inc., which Meredith was close to merging with in February. "We’ll see if ... there is any part of their portfolio they would like to do something different with," he tells Santana. Meanwhile, "Time Inc. may need to rethink its brands …

The New York Observer let go 11 staffers last week, all from the business side, "as part of a reorganization of its sales team," writes Erik Maza. "The entire classifieds department was scrapped, and two ad directors were let go, including Michael Woodsmall, a former managing editor who had moved to the sales staff to develop the group’s real estate titles, like the Commercial Observer."

Despite an early lead in taking its brands online, Time Inc. "has always appeared to be more victim of the web than vanquisher," writes Joshua Macht. "Why has it never been able to fully reach its potential online? And more specifically why wasn't the web an amazing opportunity for Time magazine in particular to grow the brand around the world?" Macht attempts to answer this question in this piece, noting, for example, that, "For Time, the challenge wasn't just the weekly print cycle; it was the weekly print cycle plus a crushing load of fixed costs."

Ratings-challenged CNN plans to revive its political debate show "Crossfire" -- last seen in 2005 -- in June, according to "network insiders" cited by Dominic Patten. "(Get To) The Point," "All In," and "The Lead With Jake Tapper,"  all recently launched by new President Jeff Zucker, appear to be sinking significatnly.

Two takes on cord-cutting, both from the New  York Times: Jenna Wortham discusses how video subscription services are handling the current trend of sharing password information, which "appears increasingly prevalent among Web-savvy people who don’t own televisions or subscribe to cable." Most subscription services don't allow more than one account holder to watch at one time, but they should wise up and allow family plans, for example, so "entertainment companies’ business models evolve in tandem with users’ habits," writes Wortham. Vikas Bajaj explains how he was able to survive without cable or satellite TV for several months …

"Key Time Inc. staffers may receive bonuses if they stick around through the company's planned spinoff from Time Warner," writes Nat Ives. However, this move is still in the planning stages: "Top brass have not decided how widely to cast the bonuses or how lucrative to make them," according to sources cited by Ives.

Two YouTube video channels, Wig and Machinima, have been advertising on TV -- on Fox and AMC respectively. "It might seem counterintuitive that companies built around the YouTube platform are looking to market through more traditional channels," writes Natalie Javery. But "more of these partnerships will form in coming years because the YouTube channels can create quality content on the cheap and the TV studios can generate an audience for those shows." Also, according to one of Javery's sources, "The relationship between the web-based world and the traditional world will dissolve in the next few years.”

The Cleveland Plain Dealer, "whose reporters organized one of the industry’s most active opposition movements against its parent company’s plans for cutbacks," expects "to cut more than a third of its newsroom staff," trim home delivery to three days a week, and start a new digital division, according to The New York Times' Christine Haughney. Dean Starkman pokes holes in this strategy, and also criticizes what Newhouse's Advance Publications, the paper's parent company, has done for other pubs like the New Orleans Time-Picayune  -- all steps "much more likely an 'orderly liquidation' of Newhouse assets cynically …