Vincent Laforet/The New York TimesThe New Orleans Times-Picayune, which distinguished itself amid great adversity during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, is about to enact large staff cuts and may cut back its daily print publishing schedule, according to two employees with knowledge of the plans.Newhouse Newspapers, which owns the Times-Picayune, will apparently be working off a blueprint the company used in Ann Arbor, Mich., where it reduced the frequency of the Ann Arbor News, emphasized the Web site as a primary distributor of news and in the process instituted wholesale layoffs to cut costs.A request for comment late Wednesday night from the newspaper’s editor, Jim Amoss, was not returned.The plans have been kept under wraps, but the newspaper will likely publish two or three times ... Continue reading →

By Nadia Damouni and Soyoung Kim NEW YORK | Fri May 11, 2012 1:52pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - LinkedIn Corp (LNKD.N) and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners are among a number of parties that have expressed interest in a potential deal for Monster Worldwide Inc (MWW.N), according to people familiar with the matter, as the Internet jobs-search company is preparing data for potential buyers. Monster, which runs Monster.com and HotJobs.com Websites, said in March it has retained Stone Key Partners and Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC.N) to review strategic alternatives, including selling all or part of the company.New York-based Monster has since received expressions of interest from a broad range of strategic and financial buyers, including Internet powerhouse LinkedIn and technology-focused buyout ... Continue reading →

Sweet Kelly R Written by Pats Papers | Thursday, 10 May 2012 2:55 PM This morning on Live! with Kelly, my rival for Kelly’s attention delivered a big punch to his fellow co-host candidates. Nick Lachey serenaded Kelly Ripa to try to win her hand as permanent co-host. He was good. On short notice, and with inspiration from Neil Diamond, I put together this response. I’m not as good as Nick. But I have choreography. (In case you’re curious, I did not suffer any serious injury when my ladder blew over.) May I present “Sweet Kelly R.” ... Thanks to Ice Theatre of New York for helping me out with the chorus. I was working with them this morning ahead of next week’s Celebrity Skate ... Continue reading →

By Jennifer Saba Wed May 9, 2012 8:13am EDT (Reuters) - AOL Inc reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue and profit on Wednesday, although lower premium ad sales in the United States and subscriptions dragged total revenue down. The company said first-quarter revenue fell 4 percent to $529.4 million, beating analysts' average forecast of $526.5 million.Total advertising revenue grew 5 percent on strong growth in third-party network ads and international growth.But display advertising - big splashy units on Web pages that command high prices - hit a hurdle in the United States, where it fell 1 percent."I wasn't surprised that much," said Benchmark analyst Clayton Moran about AOL's display ad revenue. "We saw similar weakness from Facebook and Yahoo.""It could be an industry thing or that Google ... Continue reading →

First look at AOL’s earnings: Revenue of $529 million and earnings of 22 cents a share. Wall Street was looking for $527 million and 7 cents a share. The earnings beat is nice for AOL. Not nice is that domestic display sales shrank 1 percent after climbing for several quarters. That’s going to be fresh meat for AOL critics like Starboard Value. So what happened to domestic? “Domestic display advertising revenue declined primarily reflecting a decline in reserved impressions sold, partially offset by growth in reserved inventory pricing and Patch revenue,” AOL’s release says. Later on in the release we get a better sense of what may have happened: AOL’s audience is melting away. Traffic is down 4 percent to AOL’s own properties over the ... Continue reading →