• These late days of print media bring some strange potential owners out of the woods to poke around at the fire sale and see what kind of bargains they can land on unmatched, only-slightly-singed argyle socks. The Wrap reports that the venerable journals, the Hollywood Reporter and Billboard have been sold by their parent company Nielsen to James Finkelstein's News Communications Inc. publisher of Who's Who and The Hill. Also included in the sale, The Wrap reports, Backstage, Adweek, Brandweek, Mediaweek and Editor & Publisher. [The Wrap]

• After a strong debut, the ratings for ABC's V took a tumble last night with 29 percent drop-off. [Hollywood Reporter]

• Carrie Underwood's hold on the music charts has not let up. "Play On", the former Idol star's third album easily took the top slot on Billboard's Hot 200, selling 318,000 copies in its first week out, knocking the soundtrack to Michael Jackson's This Is It down to #2. [Billboard]

• There was an actual bidding war over content in Hollywood yesterday and in the end, Peter Chernin's New Regency walked away with the prize. Chernin beat out Universal and Warner Brothers to snatch up the rights for My Name is Memory, the first book of a trilogy about a college couple whose souls have been intertwined for hundreds of years. [Variety]

• Simon Cowell has topped primetime TV's top-earners list. According to Forbes, the Idol judge/America's Got Talent creator rakes in $75 million a year, soaring past Donald Trump in the #2 slot at $50 miilion. [Forbes]

• To promote its new film Nine, the Weinstein Company has signed a deal to annoy ABC viewers in unprecedented ways. According to the deal with the network, the film will be written into the plotlines of a variety of ABC shows including its daytime soap operas, will be featured on Dancing With the Stars. [Variety]

• And if you're keeping score, it hasn't been a great week to be Nikki Finke. Not only does she inform blog readers that she is down with the flu, but she gets beaten by Sharon Waxman on the Hollywood Reporter story (assuming it pans out) and her biggest scoop of the year, the news about Oprah's departure from her syndicated show, still has yet to be confirmed by anyone else, with all sources still, a week later, publicly saying that no decision has been made. It may yet turn out that Oprah will end up making the leap, but some are wondering is it possible Nikki jumped the gun claiming the deal was done?

Nevertheless, the reports in The Wrap and Variety say it's true: Carey is apparently close to a deal to become vice chairman at News Corp., replacing longtime number two Peter Chernin, who left the media conglomerate back in February. Murdoch's son James had long been considered the odds-on favorite for Chernin's job.

Murdoch is still widely expected to pass control of News Corp. to one of his children, giving Carey a limited future at the company. His work is also likely to be constrained by the direct lines of control Murdoch has established at News Corp. in the wake of Chernin's departure. Murdoch's involvement is now sufficiently extensive that the chairman was expected to personally screen new shows for Fox TV this past spring.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.If things don't work out with Murdoch, Carey will can always fall back on his role as the Pringles mascot, as Seth Abrmovitch notes over at Movieline. After all, the tasty snacks can officially be called "chips" now, making the Procter & Gamble brand more respectable than ever.

In a lengthy overview of Fox's new power structure after the elevation of Fox Searchlight chief Peter Rice and Fox Networks Group president Tony Vinciquerra to fill the vacuum left by Chernin, Variety drops this nugget:

If there's any question mark to the new setup, network execs wonder how active Murdoch plans to be in the pilot screenings this year. In recent years the mogul hasn't played much of a role in Fox's programming decisions, but with Chernin out of the picture, some wonder if Murdoch will feel the need to have more of a say this spring as the net plots its upfront presentation.

Murdoch has reason to believe that he has the programming touch in his blood. The last time he intervened into the affairs of Fox Broadcasting, it was to force then-TV chiefs Sandy Grushow and Gail Berman to put American Idol on the air at the recommendation of his daughter Elizabeth. That decision has to inspire confidence in his meddling abilities. And since, as we pointed out last week, Rice is a Murdoch loyalist whose father was an old friend of Rupert's—not to mention that he has no television experience—he's unlikely to stand up to the boss' suggestions about the lead-in to House.

As always with Murdoch, personal loyalty trumps business. The biggest loser in the reshuffle is Peter Liguori, who's been pushed out as the entertainment chairman of Fox Broadcasting, overseeing the Fox prime time schedule. It was Chernin who put Liguori in the job in 2005, promoting him from the job overseeing the FX cable network.

Replacing him is the Brit ex-pat Rice (on the left with Danny Boyle), and currently the head of specialty film label Fox Searchlight. For a studio exec, Rice is well-liked and affable enough. Also, Searchlight has been one of the only companies to consistently profitably play the Oscar game, backing this year's Slumdog Millionaire and last year's Juno.

But he struggled to succeed outside that boutique business. When Rice was approached in 2006 to take over Paramount's specialty business, Murdoch was so set on keeping him that he let him launch a whole new film division, Fox Atomic, which was meant to court young men. But the venture quickly proved to be a bust; its first film, a remake of Revenge of the Nerds was cancelled in the middle of production. Last year, the unit was scaled back dramatically, and today's memo doesn't bother mentioning it.

What Murdoch's memo also doesn't mention is that Rice's father was a friend and business partner of Murdoch's back in England and it was that connection that landed Rice his first Fox job back in 1989. Murdoch writes in his memo, "Peter has the vision, creativity and determination to grow and remodel our television network." Rice has never worked in TV, so who knows? But Murdoch has always been more comfortable running News Corp. as a family business than the conglomerate that it is. Apparently, he still is.

Chernin's contract expires in June, and he has a clause that allows him to become a well-paid producer on movies for the Fox studio he currently oversees. (The company now confirms his exit, as well as his plans to start a production company.) A convenient out for an untenable situation: Murdoch has always made it clear that he wanted to put one of his children in charge.

Why settle things now, with June some months away? It might have something to do with a story in today's New York Times questioning Murdoch's devotion to the newspaper business. News Corp.'s print holdings have weighed down results even as Chernin's Hollywood empire have steadily produced cash. It's not too difficult to read the story as an argument for why the Chernin (profitable) half of News Corp. is being dragged down by the Murdoch (sentimental) part.

Also, pointing out the dodgy performance of News Corp.'s newspapers is a veiled dig at the current dynastic frontrunner, James Murdoch. The 35-year-old executive oversees News Corp's businesses in Asia and Europe, including a large collection of newspapers, where he's been cutting costs in the name of "editorial efficiency."

Could the elder Murdoch have taken offense? If a squabble over the story was a factor, it can't have been the only one. But in a family business, work is always personal. And no media company inspires speculation about palace intrigue like News Corp.

So come the whispers from inside, including this today to Jeffrey Wells: "Agents all say they're the studio of last resort, they don't pay money, and Rupert Murdoch has said they're all on a lifeboat and there are going to be radical changes there. He's unhappy, and when he gets this way he fires people. [Chernin's contract] "has been up for weeks and he still hasn't renewed it. I think he and Tom Rothman might leave." Brutal! Now Rothman will never get his Emmy. [Hollywood Elswehere]

Because we're told that the paragons of feminism at CAA, less than a month removed from throwing a birthday party for ex-con Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis, attempted to sweep the contretemps under the rug after their $15 million man Aloni apparently lied about and then offered a "token apology" for his outburst. Meanwhile, other female execs at Fox (including Fox 2000 president Liz Gabler) corroborated the agent's abusive tradition, driving Chernin to act.

It was only last fall that Chernin's thinly veiled CAA wariness showed up in a Fortune profile of the agency ("They have put themselves in a place where they just have so much control over the business. ... Of course, that's not always to the good of companies like mine, but certainly as an outside admirer you have to admire their strategic thinking"), and everyone in town knows there's more where that came from. The scope and length of this Cold War has yet to be determined, meanwhile, but don't hesitate to send us your educated guesses.

"I think it's insanity that we're not able to finish our negotiations and that the unions are being pitted against each other," [Allen] told Daily Variety. "We ought to be able to figure out a way to do this together, particularly since we've done so much of the heavy lifting. It's in the best interests of the memberships." ...

Allen warned the majors at the end of Tuesday's talks that it would become more difficult to make a deal with SAG if the guild were pushed aside in favor of AFTRA. "We'll lose the momentum we have at negotiations, and members' positions will become more entrenched," he explained Wednesday.

Dragging your cross from the prop department to the conference room isn't quite what we'd call "heavy lifting," but we admire Allen's dramatic protestations nonetheless. Especially when Fox chief Peter Chernin was on his first-quarter earnings call across town, spinning himself into a lather over the "de facto actors strike" such SAG uncertainty implies:

"It is difficult for anyone to start a movie now," because a formal strike would interrupt it, he said on his company's earnings call following improved fiscal third-quarter earnings driven by strong TV results. "It's a really bad thing for the industry," especially after an "extremely devastating" writers strike, Chernin said.

Asked about producers' strategy in their AFTRA talks compared with SAG talks, he said they are not looking for quick deals with anyone group over another. Instead, "we seek fair deals for everyone," he added.

And failing that? Get ready for American Idol: The Movie, we guess.

• AFTRA nixes SAG request for delay [Variety]

Construction on the granite memorial jutting out of the 1,820-foot Cahuenga Peak (artist's rendering above) is to begin immediately, but it's projected it will take at least three years before the final chisels are made into Peter Chernin's nostrils, Bob Iger's hairline, and Moonves's sparkling, four-foot teeth by the migrant Asian quarry workers and moonlighting WGA members hired to complete the dangerous task. Upon completion, however, we'll have an enduring and highly visible (15 miles on a clear day!) reminder of the troika of great captains of Hollywood industry who ushered a Golden Era of peace into a strife-fraught zone.

• Land above famed Hollywood sign up for sale [Reuters]
• Previously: The Strike Is Over! Look Busy! [Defamer]

But despite the widespread, media-blackout-defying leaks (and mogul-supplied proclamations issued from a luxury suite at the big game in Arizona) indicating that a deal could be reached sometime this week (huzzah!), the Guild quickly cautioned its members not to blow the remainder of their strike funds on lavish going-back-to-work parties based on "rumors about either the existence of an agreement or its terms" (muted huzzah!). So until WGA leadership issues its official announcement of a new contract (to be accompanied by a photo of president Patric Verrone hugging a weeping trio of Les Moonves, Peter Chernin, and Bob Iger), everyone should resume their still-important picketing responsibilities, resisting the impulse to indulge in the occasional high-five recognizing that the end might be in sight.

• Progress Toward Ending Writers' Strike [NY TImes]
• Contract outlined in Hollywood writers strike [LAT]
• Strike: An end in sight? [Variety
• [THR]

· Billy Bob Thornton hopes some of newly minted Hollywood superstar Shia LaBeouf's sizzle rubs off on him, signing on to learn some new tricks from the young master while working on the DreamWorks thriller Eagle Eye. [Variety]
· Not even the strike can slow Jerry Bruckheimer's superproducing abilities. [Variety]