Media brands competing in the still-hot fashion/beauty and women's lifestyle categories are heating up with the latest moves by Hearst and Meredith. 

Hearst’s new campaign, “Unbound,” brings together all of Hearst’s titles such as Esquire and Good Housekeeping into one, with the forward-tilting “d” representative of all things digital.

“We’re unleashing our brand DNA… we said, O.K., let’s step back, take a look at who we are and what Hearst Magazines now represents,” commented Michael Clinton, president for marketing and publishing director at Hearst Magazines, to the New York Times.

After a series of costly investments, from the $892 million acquisition of 100 Lagardère publications, to the $325 million purchase of digital agency iCrossing, and a JV with Scripps Network Interactive on Food Network Magazine, Hearst is revving up for even more, testing an HGTV Magazine and “e-commerce initiatives coming up this fall” according to Clinton.Continue reading...

Keith Olbermann makes his television comeback next week (on June 20) on Al Gore’s still nascent Current TV. Since launching in 2005 as a quasi public affairs cable network focused on user-generated content (including ads), Current has struggled to find a brand presence in the crowded TV universe, let alone stay current.

Now, the network is making a big-ticket bet that the outspoken Olbermann can draw an audience, lend more authority and news chops, and become the cornerstone of a sharper focus on hardhitting political commentary and news — a crucial repositioning as 2012 election coverage starts to gear up.Continue reading...

Now that she has more time, Oprah Winfrey has taped a new promo for co-OWNer Discovery touting its original programming and OWN HD. Winfrey, who will be honored at the upcoming Daytime Emmys, will have a Chicago street named after her (when the paperwork's filed). She's also being credited for boosting travel to Australia with her Down Under specials earlier this year.

Since News Corp. acquired Dow Jones and the crown-jewel Wall Street Journal nearly four years ago, the world has undergone a financial meltdown, the Great Recession socked media spending in the key United States market, and the entire American newspaper business has gone into meltdown mode.

And, oh yes – the rival New York Times has only begun to figure out how to monetize its own content online with its recent paywall introduction, several years after The Journal successfully blazed paywall trails.

Through all of that, the venerable Journal has kept on piling up success. It is the one notable exception to the continued black hole of circulation declines at major U.S. newspapers; the paper posted an 8% increase in circulation revenue for the first quarter, its 17th straight quarter of year-over-year growth.

Print ad and overall revenues also have been rising, adding yet other unique achievements to what the Journal has been able to accomplish while adjusting to new ownership and one of the most disruptive economic periods in the publication’s long history.Continue reading...

As journalists, the traditional gatekeepers of breaking news, are no longer the first eyes on the scene, they’re being joined by digital upstarts who want a piece of the burgeoning and disrupted pie.

Storify, which just launched a public Beta, offers real-time curation of the social web. The goal: filter the crushing amount of information, posts, tweets, status updates, photos, videos and more, weaving content streams from Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube into a more coherent narrative.Continue reading...

On one of its highest-rated days, Al Jazeera's new series, titled Risking it All, debuts tonight. 

Reiterating that theme, the network is demanding the safe return of Dorothy Parvaz, one of its journalists (and a former Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter), who has been missing since landing in Damascus on Friday, and is believed to have been detained at the airport as she never checked into her hotel.Continue reading...

What happens, evidently, when your company gets acquired by another company with deeper pockets — you get sued. At least that's what it looks like regarding a $105 million lawsuit against The Huffington Post brought by labor advocate Jonathan Tasini on behalf of more than 9,000 writers.

Clearly, it is no coincidence that the lawsuit has come soon after the February acquisition of Arianna Huffington's website by AOL for more than $300 million.

Huffington not only sold her eponymous "Internet newspaper," she also became head of newly christened The Huffington Post Media Group, which consolidates content across AOL's online properties — a streamlining, synergistic move that froze out legions of HuffPo's unpaid bloggers, not to mention the newly laid off AOL staffers.Continue reading...

Yes, the rumors are true: Glenn Beck is "transitioning" off Fox News when his contract expires at year-end. According to a joint statement from Fox and Beck's production company, he will "develop and produce a variety of television projects for air on the Fox News Channel as well as content for other platforms including Fox News’ digital properties."