• 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]

• This week eBay unveiled The Inside Source, an online magazine covering fashion trends and pitching trendy items for sale on eBay. [NYTimes.com/Bits]
• After years of hesitating to change its iconic character, the Walt Disney Company will give Mickey Mouse a makeover next year, starting with the introduction of a new video game, Epic Mickey. [New York Times]
• Rupert Murdoch had planned to start introducing pay walls on his newspaper Web sites by next June but is finding it harder than expected to introduce these changes to readers. [Guardian.co.ok]
• CNN/U.S. president Jon Klein announced this week that Soledad O’Brien’s “In America” franchise will expand in 2010 and add “more than a dozen positions.” [TVNewser]

• Officially, Time Inc. plans to layoff 280 people by Jan. 31, according to the notice the company filed with the New York State Department of Labor [NYtimes.com/MediaDecoder]
• The big news from Time Inc’s layoffs today: Fortune Small Business folds, People is looking for eight buyouts and Essence lays off 18. [Gawker]
• Fox News Channel had large viewership gains Tuesday night, an Election night with big victories for Republicans in New Jersey and Virginia. [MediaDecoder]
• In recent months, 50 newspapers have rescinded notices of cancellation to the Associated Press, leaving about 130 newspapers still under cancellation notice. [Editor & Publisher]
• New magazine business Web site Maggwire.com hopes to “do for magazines what iTunes did for music,” according to its chief executive. [New York Observer]

• Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, Meryl Streep’s costars in the upcoming film It’s Complicated, will co-host the 2010 Oscars together on March 7. [EW.com/Oscar Watch]
• Viacom Inc., which owns cable networks such as MTV and Nickelodeon, reported a 15 percent rise in net income for its third-quarter earnings. [Wall Street Journal]
  Vibe magazine’s first cover subject following it’s relaunch will be, controversially, Chris Brown. Hip-hop artist Drak will also be featured on some covers. [AdAge]
• Time Inc. began layoffs today by cutting 15-30 sales and marketing people from its news division, mostly from Sports Illustrated.  The company is expected to eventually lay off 400-500 people to cut $100 million in costs. [NYTimes.com/Media Decoder]
• Time Inc. will offer buyouts to some, and those who accept will receive 3 months/13 weeks of pay on top of two weeks pay for every year of service. [Gawker]

With the New York Women in Communications Foundation Student Career Conference just a few days away—Saturday, Nov. 7 at 9:15 a.m. at the Grand Hyatt in New York, to be exact—you probably already know how you are getting there and what you are going to wear. But what else should you know before entering the Grand Hyatt on Saturday? Gen-Y career expert Lindsey Pollak, who will be a moderator at Saturday’s conference, offers many useful event tips in her book, Getting From College to Career. Here are some of the highlights on how to make your day a success:

• Show up! Don’t let your name tag sit untouched at the registration table. “You never know which event may be the one where you make the connection that leads to your dream opportunity,” Pollak says. With over 50 communications professionals and 300 fellow students in attendance, those connections could easily be made at the NYWICI student conference… if you are there. And if you haven’t registered yet, do it here.
• Set a goal. The all-day conference can be overwhelming if you try to accomplish too many things at once. So set a goal for yourself in advance, whether it is to gain general industry knowledge (bring a notebook!) or make a great personal connection. “Research as much as you can about the speakers, host organization, sponsors, and attendees … so you can decide in advance who you’ll try to track down,” Pollak says. No matter what else happens, accomplishing your goal will make the day feel like a success.
• Be bold. Whether you are shy or outgoing by nature, you can still make yourself known at the conference. Try introducing yourself to an event organizer or asking a question during a panel (don’t forget to introduce yourself to the room when you do!). If you’re too shy to approach a panelist or don’t get your question in, Pollak suggests emailing a speaker after the conference saying how you benefited from the panel or asking a question.
• Avoid Networking Don’ts. Don’t be needy by immediately launching into what you need from the other person; make a genuine personal connection first. “A good rule of thumb is to listen more than you talk,” Pollak says. Also avoid negativity, especially in conversation among new acquaintances. By complaining about anything from a speaker to the weather, you’ll be remembered as a complainer. “Make an impression as a positive young person,” Pollak says, including in how you talk about yourself! And don’t be cliquey—if you arrive with friends, don’t let that keep you from meeting new people.

For more tips on networking and all things career related, check out Pollak’s career blog and pick up her book, Getting from College to Career.

The New York Women in Communications Foundation Student Career Conference is Saturday, November 7, 2009 at the Grand Hyatt in New York. For more information and to register (it’s not too late!), visit nywici.org.

~Kelli Plasket, The College of New Jersey ‘10

• Scripps Networks will likely soon add the Travel Channel to its collection of lifestyle cable channels, which includes the Food Network and HGTV. [NYTimes.com/Media Decoder]
• 13-year Newsday columnist Saul Friendman quit the Long Island paper last week over its decision to require non-subscribing readers to pay for access to its Web site [New York Times]
• Some good news for the magazine industry: several publications are shipping bigger December issues, as advertisers are more willing to buy ad pages in this fourth quarter as they find extra year-end budget money after spending more conservatively this year. [AdAge]
• Of the 60 newspapers that typically cover the major league baseball on the road and at home, 29 are not at this year’s World Series [Murray Chass on Baseball ]
• Matrix Monday News: Gail, Editor-At-Large, O, The Oprah Magazine and Host, The Gayle King Show, Sirius XM, is the first of eight esteemed Matrix Award Honorees for the 2010 NYWICI Matrix Awards [NYWICI]

• Michelle Obama becomes the first First Lady to appear on the cover of Glamour in its December “Women of the Year!” issue. [NYMag.com/The Cut]
• Esquire’s December issue will feature an emerging technology called augmented reality, which mixes real-life images with graphics or other effects. The issue features black and white squire stickers that can be held up to a Web camera to trigger video segments. [WSJ]
• Newsday launched its pay wall site today, with all stories, photos and video accessible only to subscribers (including its print subscribers and customers of its Cablevision sibling, Optimum Online). Non payers get headlines and brief summaries. [Editor & Publisher]
• Bon Appetit will boost its rate base in January from 1.3 million to 1.5 mil, thanks to subscribers it gained from Gourmet’s subscriber list. [Women's World Daily/Memo Pad]
• MSNBC has found unexpected success in airing reruns of Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown” at 10 p.m. ET while it searches for a new 10 p.m. host; the rerun, which gets nearly 60 percent of the audience that his first-run show gets, nearly matches Anderson Cooper’s viewership on CNN. [Associated Press]
• Entertainment Weekly senior editor Josh Wolk is joining NYMag.com as entertainment editor, where he will oversee an expansion of the site’s culture blog, Vulture [MediaBistro/FishbowlNY]

• Details launched its own Web site last week, breaking off from the site it shared with fellow Conde pub GQ at men.style.com, which will change to GQ.com. [New York Observer]
• Massive layoffs are hitting Forbes this week, with the elimination of it’s Los Angeles and London bureaus; overall, 40-60 people are expected to be let go. [Gawker/ValleyWag]
• Ex-New York Times reporter, Jason Blair (who resigned in 2003 after he was found to have plagiarized or fabricated major parts of articles), will speak at Lee University’s Journalism Ethics Institute, on “Lessons Learned” [AP]
• Toyota launched the Prius Experience iPhone app, which-among other things-allows users to doodle on the Prius and submit it to Toyota, where it may be displayed on a digital display in Times Square. [MediaBistro/AgencySpy]
• In spite of remarks from Conde Nast CEO Chuck Townsend earlier this month that four magazines were considering reducing their publishing schedules, it appears that-aside from Golf World-no Conde pubs decided to reduce their 2010 schedules. [New York Observer]

• In the 100 days leading up to the Winter Olympics, NBC and Universal Sports, its Olympic cable partner, plan to air 1250 hours of coverage of Olympic sports as they prepare and compete up to the Olympic games. [Yahoo/AP]
• McGraw-Hill expects to see a gain of $5.9 million (after tax) resulting format he sale of BusinessWeek to Bloomberg LLP. [Folio:]
• Brian Williams, from NBC “Nightly News” will be filing reports to his nightly news show from Afghanistan this week, reporting on the military and political situation in the country. [MediaBistro/TVNewser]
• Time Inc. staffers are gearing up for more major cuts coming this fall, potentially starting next week.  Last October, Time Inc. laid off 600 people across decisions. [WWDMEDIA]

nextBLOG writer Whitney Young interviews Season 7 American Idol Finalist Jason Castro.

Becoming a finalist on American Idol is a lot like becoming a student member of New York Women in Communications.   Both provide up-and-comers-whether an aspiring musician or journalist- great opportunities in their industry. But it still takes talent, passion and drive to reach success.

Season 7 American Idol finalist and recently signed Atlantic Records musician Jason Castro certainly seems to have those.  During our interview at Uno Chicago Grill in Rochester, NY earlier this month, the Rockwall, Texas native explained what he’s been up to since getting voted off during the top 4 of American Idol in 2008.

Castro has worked diligently for over a year on an album he says he can truly be proud of—writing over 50 songs in the mean time.  “It’s a process,” he says, with a chuckle.

The first single off his album, which will be released in early 2010, is “Let’s Just Fall in Love Again,” a perfect reflection of Castro’s personality—upbeat and honest.  The endearing lyrics claim, “I’ll hold your hand when we drive/ And we’ll lose track of all the time/ And we’ll tell everyone that we ain’t never felt so alive.”  The feel-good melody combined with Castro’s smooth vocals make you want to listen to it again and again.

When it comes to the former Idol’s idol, Castro says he’s a fan of both Tom Petty and John Mayer and hopes to emulate their successful careers .   American Idol may have given Castro the opportunities he needs to get there, but now it’s up to him to make the most of them.

~Whitney Young, Journalism major, Monroe Community College ‘12