Friday Items

ABC wins its fifth straight Thursday

Averages a 4.0 in 18-49s, topping reruns on CBS

ABC won its fifth straight Thursday with ease last night, opposite a lineup of mostly reruns on CBS and Fox’s surging baseball. ● More from: Media Life Magazine

ABC tops ratings with ‘Grey’s,’ ‘Private’

Fox, CBS solid with baseball, repeats

Behind the strength of No. 1-rated “Grey’s Anatomy” and spinoff “Private Practice,” ABC took the Thursday night primetime race. Fox, which aired the fifth game of the American League Championship Series, was second, and CBS, despite airing two repeats, came in third. ● More from: Variety

Bill for Glenn Beck Day stuns Mount Vernon

Glenn Beck Day in Mount Vernon was an expensive lesson for this small town, as it found out the cost of hosting a controversial celebrity.

It’s on the hook for $17,748.85, mostly for 239 hours of police overtime. ● More from: Seattle Times Newspaper

Amazon stock surges after blowout 3Q results

Shares of Amazon surged about 25 percent Friday after the Seattle Internet retailer reported a 68 percent increase in its third-quarter profit to $199 million and issued an upbeat outlook. ● More from: Seattle Times Newspaper

Stern Says Vote on Proposed Nets Sale to Happen This Year

The proposed sale of a controlling stake in the Nets to a Russian billionaire will be put to a vote of N.B.A. owners by the end of the year, according to Commissioner David Stern, who spoke positively Thursday about the deal. ● More from: NYTimes.com

Soupy Sales, famed comedian from the Golden Age of Television, dead at 83

Soupy Sales, the rubber-faced, pie-in the-puss comic beloved by the Baby Boomer generation, died Thursday night. He was 83.

No true fan can forget the New Year’s Day 1965 live broadcast on WNEW.

Sales, miffed at having to work the holiday, signed off by encouraging his young viewers to tiptoe into their still-sleeping parents’ bedrooms and remove those “funny green pieces of paper with pictures of U.S. Presidents” from their pants and pocketbooks.

“Put them in an envelope and mail them to me,” Sales instructed. “And I’ll send you a postcard from Puerto Rico!”

He was then hit with a pie. ● More from: nydailynews.com

The Nation preps book mocking Palin

Editors from the progressive magazine The Nation are pulling together a book to be released the same day as Sarah Palin’s with a similar title and cover mocking the former Alaska governor’s memoir. ● More from: POLITICO.com

FX’s ‘Anarchy’ is first basic cable series to beat Leno

Forget broadcast, now NBC’s “The Jay Leno Show” is fighting off a challenger from basic cable.

For the first time, NBC’s Leno experiment was beaten in the ratings by a non-sports program that wasn’t airing on the Big Four networks. ● More from: THR

Fortune Magazine to Cut Number of Issues

Capping a tumultuous year for business magazines, Fortune is planning to publish about one-quarter fewer issues annually and make other changes, joining the ranks of publications scrambling to reinvent themselves in the advertising downturn. ● More from: WSJ.com

Thursday Items

CBS’ ‘Minds’ leads Wednesday ratings

Numbers climb for NBC’s ‘Mercy,’ ‘SVU’

CBS drama “Criminal Minds” stood out from the crowd on Wednesday, ruling as the night’s top show and helping the Eye earn a share of the demo lead with Fox. Also of note on a night when most shows dipped a bit were increases for NBC dramas “Mercy” and “Law & Order: SVU.” ● More from: Variety

CBS and Fox tie for No. 1 on Wednesday

Average a 2.9 in 18-49s, with ‘Criminal Minds’ the top show

Wednesday has become one of the most competitive nights of the week between Fox and CBS. Last night they tied for the lead for the third time in three weeks, though CBS can boast it had the night’s highest-rated show. ● More from: Media Life Magazine

In Google and Microsoft Deals, Hints of Revenue for Twitter

Twitter gets 55 million monthly visitors, it has raised $155 million in venture capital, and it has generated intense interest from Hollywood to Iran. But it hasn’t earned much revenue and certainly no profit. ● More from: NYTimes.com

Largent rips Redskins for Zorn treatment

Hall of Fame receiver Steve Largent said during a radio interview Tuesday that Redskins coach Jim Zorn considered resigning when owner Daniel Snyder decided Zorn would no longer call Washington’s plays. ● More from: Seattle Times Newspaper

Hef: We’re slashing Playboy’s rate base

Men’s title will drop from 2.6 million to 1.5 million

There was a time, decades ago, when Playboy was not just the leading men’s magazine but in many regards the only men’s magazine. It was so much bigger in all ways than any of its competitors. ● More from: Media Life Magazine

Dan Savage Interviews Frank Rich

On October 26, Frank Rich of the New York Times will interview musical-theater genius Stephen Sondheim in Seattle. In advance of that interview, Dan Savage interviewed Rich. ● More from: The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper

Wednesday Items

‘NCIS’ duo, ‘Loser’ shine in ratings

CBS, NBC top Tuesday night with drama, reality

On a night when baseball preempted Fox’s reality programming, ratings for each of its rivals were on the rise Tuesday. CBS won in key demos behind its hot “NCIS” duo, while NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” set season highs. ABC also saw highs with its unscripted combo of “Shark Tank” and “Dancing With the Stars.” ● More from: Variety

Barnes & Noble Unveils Kindle-Killing, Dual-Screen ‘Nook’ E-Reader (Updated) | Gadget Lab

If you just ordered a Kindle, stop reading now or you’re in for a giant dose of buyer’s remorse. Barnes and Noble unveiled a new e-book reader called ‘Nook’, and it is hot, both inside and out.Nook looks a lot like Amazon’s white plastic e-book reader, only instead of the chiclet-keyboard there is a color multitouch screen, to be used as a keyboard or to browse books, cover-flow style. The machine runs Google’s Android OS and it will have wireless capability from AT&T. ● More from: Wired.com

N.B.A. Reaches an Agreement With Referees Union

Negotiators for the N.B.A. and its referees union agreed Tuesday on a new contract, making it likely that the league’s regular officials will be on the court when the regular season begins next week. ● More from: NYTimes.com

’30 Rock’ Hires Actual Porn Star to Play Porn Liz

A porn star is coming to “30 Rock” this Thursday, October 22. Savanna Samson, an adult film star, will play a porn version of Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon in the episode called “Into the Crevasse”. Interestingly, Samson is apparently a big fan of Tina since her hey-day on “Saturday Night Live”. ● More from: aceshowbiz.com