• AOL is unleashing a new brand identity next month when it spins off from Time Warner, including replacing the letters AOL with “Aol.” with changing background to reflect its diverse content. [New York Times]
• PBS’s Bill Moyers will host the last “Bill Moyers Journal,” his friday night public affairs show, on April 30, 2010 as he plans to retire from weekly television [Media Decoder]
• The Washington Post became the latest publication on Friday to lay off staff, in what turned out to be a brutal week in newspaper layoffs, after BusinessWeek and Associated Press had significant layoffs as well. [Reuters]
• September’s top five digital gainers, according to minonline, include archdigest.com, smithsonianmag.com, my recipes.com, scholastic.com and entrepreneur.com. [minonline]
• Ina Garten, also known as the Barefoot Contessa, became the fourth announced Matrix Award Honoree today. [NYWICI]

• AOL is asking for up to 2,500 employees to accept buyout packages as the company plans to cut about a third of its staff as it spins off from Time Warner. [Gawker]
• Oprah will announce this week her plans to step down from “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 2011 after 25 seasons to concentrate on her new cable channel. [New York Times]
• Conde Nast is developing a digital version of Wired for e-readers, in partnership with Adobe Systems. [Wall Street Journal]
• Reader’s Digest Association is moving its executive offices and editorial staff at Reader’s Digest magazine to Manhattan, as it works through Chapter 11 bankruptcy. [New York Post]
• After 90 lay off, AP has hit its payroll cut goals, which required cutting 10% of its payroll costs. [FishbowlNY]

• Bloomberg LP has named Josh Tyrangiel, online managing editor of Time magazine, the new editor in chief of BusinessWeek [MediaWeek]
• In spite of their decline in ad sales this year, business publications as a whole have seen a rise in readership this past year. [MediaWeek]
• Big winners of min’s Editorial & Design Awards include Entertainment Weekly, SELF magazine, and former Reader’s Digest editor Jackie Leo, who was inducted into the min Editorial Hall of Fame. [minonline]

Hearst Magazines Digital Media’s portfolio of web sites (including Cosmopolitan.com, Esquire.com, GoodHousekeeping.com, Redbookmag.com, MarieClaire.com, Seventeen.com, RealBeauty.com, TheDailyGreen.com, etc.) seek HTML-savvy interns to assist our content team this spring (Jan-May), in New York City. Applicants for this competitive internship program must be able to receive college credit – the position is unpaid – and be available to intern two or three full days a week. Duties of a web intern vary by site but generally include: producing content, writing content, prize fulfillment, researching special projects, writing headlines, mastering the brand’s voice in social media, cropping photos, tracking web analytics, etc.

If interested, please submit a cover letter noting your HTML/web experience, your preferred web site placement, a link to a piece of online content you love, and a resume. Email to Tammy Tibbetts, ttibbetts@hearst.com.

Editor’s Note:  Are you a NYWICI member looking for interns? Submit your internship posting to nextBLOG! Email a description to nywicinext@gmail.com.

• The average household income for readers at many fashion magazines is up this year. For example, Elle’s average is up 11.9 percent to $77,292. [WWDMEDIA]
• AP laid off staffers nationwide today, including many editorial assistants, business news staffers and photographers. [Gawker]
• YouTube launched YouTube Direct, which TV and online news publications can uses to obtain video from “citizen journalists” or request certain amateur footage. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Rumors grew this week that Budget Travel magazine would close, but the magazine’s spokesman reports that it is not folding and is continuing “business as usual.” [Fishbowl NY]

• Time Inc launched a new technology, entertainment, games and culture site called Techland, led by TIME.com technology editor Peter Ha. [TimeInc]
• A survey by the Boston Consulting Group found that 48 percent of regular Internet users in America are willing to pay for news online and on mobile devices, a number that is lower than several Western European counties, many of which had more than 60 percent of respondents willing to pay for online news. [New York Times]
• Vogue has hired Blue State Digital, the online consultancy behind my.barackobama.com, to expand outreach to Vogue readers and subscribers. [Jezebel]
• 10 monthly magazines saw increases in ad pages this year, let by Family Circle, People Style Watch and Flex. [minonline]
• Matrix Monday News: Susan Chira, Foreign Editor of The New York Times, is the third announced honoree for the 2010 Matrix Awards from New York Women in Communications. [NYWICI]

• Longtime CNN anchor Lou Dobbs is leaving the cable news channel after CNN agreed to release him from is 2011 contract early. Today is his last program. [NYTimes.com/MediaDecoder]
• Walt Disney Company posted an 18 percent increase in fourth-quarter profit this week, though Walt Disney Studios reported a loss. [New York Times]
• Rodale is seeing a small boost in sales for its four publications that ran covers with Obama and the First Lady last month. [Folio:]
• Cosmopolitan magazine and Maybelline New York teamed up to set a Guinness Book world record for most kisses collected in a day by collecting lipstick kisses on postcards to send to soldiers in honor of Veterans Day. [MediaBistro/FishbowlNY]
• Conde Nast lost 8,359 ad pages this year over last. [New York Times]

• Good Morning America Host Robin Roberts, currently waiting to hear who will replace Diane Sawyer as her co-host, is featured in two prime-time specials this month, one featuring country music stars and another with Janet Jackson airing Nov. 18. [AP]
• Discovery Communications launched a new Web site dedicated to reporting science and technology news. [The Washington Post]
• Hearst Corp.’s new vice president and CFO is Mitchell Scherzer, a media and entertainment industries investment banker. [Folio:]
• AOL is expected to cut 100 jobs today, though analysts expect this will be minimal compared to the larger layoffs expecting to come once AOL completely spins off from its parent company, Time Warner, next month. [FishBowlNY]
• The Week is taking a new approach in luring advertisers: guarantee that its readers will remember an ad in The Week more than most competitive magazines (in the top-third), or it will run the ad for free until it does. It will use research service Vista to measure consumer “recall” of ads. [New York Times]

• Hachette Filipacchi Media announced today it is closing design magazine Metropolitan Home, to focus its resources on Elle Decor. [NYTimes.com/Media Decoder]
• AOL News will soon feature an Op-Ed section, which will include pieces “across the political spectrum as well as corporate and industry-related op-ed, on top news of the day.” [MediaBistro/PRNewser]
• New York Post circulation is down almost 30 percent in 2.5 years, more the most struggling papers. [New York Times]
• Matrix Monday News: Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, will be a Matrix Award Honoree at the 2010 Matrix Awards [NYWICI]

• A&E Television Networks issued more than 100 layoffs this week, as A&E Networks begins to consolidate with Lifetime [Variety]
• Oprah will soon announce plans to end her syndicated daytime talk show and move it to her new network, OWN, which will launch in 2011. [Deadline Hollywood Daily]
• Conde Nast has hired crisis manager and media coach Michael Sheehan to help improve the company’s PR, which has taken a hit recently from folding several magazines and firing hundreds of employees. [New York Post]
• CBS Corp. is reporting a solid profit for the third quarter, thanks in part to syndication sales [Wall Street Journal]