Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

♦  Barack Obama's first post-election interview with 60 Minutes (an excerpt is on your left) earned the show its biggest audience in nine years.  [THR]
♦  Dan Rather has spent $2 million battling CBS thus far, but it looks like his time and money may finally be paying off. [NYT]
♦  MTV's TRL came to an end yesterday, in case you haven't heard the terribly tragic news. [NYT]
♦  Rupert Murdoch's New York Post appears to have warmed to Barack Obama. "So has Mr. Murdoch gone soft on liberals—or perhaps just reacted pragmatically to Mr. Obama's sizable victory?" [NYT]
♦  The new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, was No. 1 at the box office this weekend. The flick generated $70.4 in its first three days. [Reuters]More

♦  The Times has the skinny on "Martin Eisenstadt," the supposed McCain consultant who leaked info to the press. (He's an aspiring filmmaker, not surprisingly.) In the meantime, MSNBC's retracted its story. [NYT, AP]
♦  You might be enjoying CW's Stylista, but the ratings thus far haven't been especially encouraging. [NYO]
♦  Two new cast members, Michaela Watkins and Abby Elliott, will join Saturday Night Live beginning this weekend. [NYT]
♦  Showtime is developing an hour-long show by Stan Lee about a gay superhero. [Variety] More

♦  John McCain's appearance on Saturday Night Live didn't generate Sarah Palin-like ratings, but it was still an impressive showing nonetheless. [THR]
♦  No word yet on who will take over NBC's Meet the Press. Chuck Todd, David Gregory, Gwen Ifill, and even Katie Couric all remain possibilities. [NYT]
♦  CBS is on a primetime ratings roll, although Sumner Redstone is still screwed, apparently. [NYT, NYT]
♦  Another profile of Rachel Maddow, just in case the 237 other pieces on MSNBC's rising star in recent weeks have yet to whet your appetite. [NYM]
♦  In case you missed it, the clip of Sarah Palin getting punked by a couple of Montreal radio personalities, who explain how they managed to get through to her. [ABC]More

♦  Madonna and Alex Rodriguez were able to fly out to the Hamptons for a "quick and cozy rendezvous" without anyone knowing, but only because Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld picked the couple up (separately) from the East Hampton airport and let them hang out for several hours at their waterfront manse. [P6, The Sun]
♦  With her husband Rossano Rubicondi filming a reality show in Italy, Ivana Trump has been hanging out with a 23-year-old Belgian model named Marius Rusovici. [P6]
♦  Tina Brown and Cathie Black are enemies, apparently, since they "disagreed on just about everything" and "wouldn't even look at each other," at a conference this week. [R&M]
♦  Is John McCain making an Saturday Night Live appearance this weekend? Does anyone care? [MSNBC]More

♦  The Madonna-Guy Ritchie messiness continues: The biological father of Madonna's adopted son says he might be better off in his native country of Malawi, Ritchie supposedly told friends that having sex with Madge was like "cuddling up to a piece of gristle," Madonna has described Ritchie as a gold-digger, and the two sides aren't even close to finalizing a divorce settlement, which means this is going to continue for a long, long time. [NYDN, Mirror, NYP, SS]
♦  Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen may get married at Tavern on the Green, of all places. [P6]
♦  Sam Ronson and Lindsay Lohan got into a little fight aboard the Acela. [P6] More

♦  It's confirmed: Sarah Palin will appear on Saturday Night Live tomorrow. [NYDN]
♦  Yet another tragic consequence of the economic meltdown: Suze Orman is making money off the crisis with big-money endorsement deals. [WSJ]
♦  Playboy is cutting costs. How? With energy-efficient lightbulbs, naturally. [WWD]
♦  The Grammy nominations—not the actual awards, mind you—will be a TV special. [NYT]
♦  A hiring freeze is now in place at Condé Nast. [NYP] More

♦  Barack Obama locked up 17 newspaper endorsements over the weekend compared to just two for John McCain. [E&P]
♦  John McCain will make an appearance on Letterman on Thursday. [CNN]
♦  Don't mention the recession to Tina Brown: Her new site will burn through $18 mil. over the next three years and most staffers are making more than 100K. [AdAge]
♦  Is the tween magazine over? [AdFreak]
♦  Jon Stewart's Daily Show is heading to the Middle East. [THR]More

♦  Not surprisingly, ratings for SNL this past weekend exceeded expectations. Some 10 million people tuned in for Tina Fey's Sarah Palin skit. [WSJ, THR]
♦  Michelle Obama will appear on Jon Stewart on Wednesday. [HuffPo]
♦  Beverly Hills Chihuahua took the top spot at the weekend box office with $29 million. [Mojo]
♦  Joe Hagan takes a long look at the Times-owning Sulzbergers in this week's issue of New York. [NYM]
♦  AdAge has released its list of the 10 best magazines. [AdAge]
♦  Campbell Brown is working out nicely for CNN: Ratings are substantially higher than they were for Paula Zahn and she's beating Keith Olbermann most nights, too. [NYT]
♦  Ratings for Desperate Housewives continue to decline. [TVDecoder]
♦  HBO's Entourage has been renewed for a sixth season. [THR]

♦  Last night's face-off between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden generated the highest ratings for a debate in 16 years. [THR]
♦  SNL has booked Queen Latifah to play debate moderator Gwen Ifill tomorrow night. [People]
♦  What does Palin have to say about Katie Couric? Nothing good. [HuffPo]
♦  CNN incorrectly reported that Apple CEO Steve Jobs suffered a heart attack. [Reuters, SAI]
♦  Fox Business hit a ratings high on Monday—a scant 81,000 viewers. [NYT]
♦  Google may hire an ad agency for the first time. It's had discussions with Wieden + Kennedy and Ari Merkin's Taxi New York. [WSJ]
♦  Jesse L. Martin is in discussions to star in a new NBC drama called The Philanthropist. [THR]
♦  The Economist is stamping its brand on pizza boxes. [NYT]

♦  Will Project Runway move to Lifetime from Bravo? NBC won the first legal battle against PR producer Harvey Weinstein on Friday, which means it's not entirely clear where the show will end up. [NYT]
♦  The Sun may publish an issue tomorrow after all. [Portfolio]
♦  Tina Fey to the rescue: Saturday Night Live has seen a major boost in ratings so far this season. [THR]
♦  Vanity Fair on the face-off between Maria Bartiromo and Erin Burnett. [VF]
♦  An Indian version of GQ debuts this month. [Guardian]
♦  Howard Kurtz says unseen clips of Katie Couric's interview with Sarah Palin are on the way; CBS says it has released everything it's got. [HuffPo]
♦  The Times looks back at the drunken career of the Post's Steve Dunleavy, who's retiring after 41 years in the business. [NYT]
♦  The Wall Street Journal has launched a mail-order wine club. Really. [NYT]

Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, Part 2 | Tina Fey reprised her role as Sarah Palin on SNL this past weekend with Amy Poehler as Katie Couric. What may not have been obvious, though, was that Fey was using the actual transcript of the real Palin-Couric interview last week as her script for much of the skit, as the clip here from CNN demonstrates.

• The premiere of Saturday Night Live with Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin and Michael Phelps as guest host generated the show's best season debut since 2001. [THR]
• Not exactly the most auspicious timing, but Slate's new finance site, The Big Money, launched today. [NYT]
• A redesigned WSJ.com will debut tomorrow morning. [NYT/Bits]
• Joel and Ethan Coen's Burn After Reading was the No. 1 movie at the box office this weekend with $19.4 million in receipts. [THR]
• David Carr on Katie Couric's surprising election season rebound. [NYT]
• Levi's new ad campaign is focusing on the gay market. [NYT]
• ABC's generated solid ratings on Friday night with part two of Charles Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin. [TVDecoder]
• Fox has signed a "mega-renewal" deal with Gordon Ramsey. [Variety]
  

• David Letterman had his second-highest ratings of the year last night thanks to Barack Obama's appearance. [THR]
• MTV can credit Britney Spears for the 19 percent boost in viewers for this year's VMAs.  [LAT/Show Tracker]
• Michael Phelps says he's more nervous hosting Saturday Night Live than he was at the Olympics. In other SNL news, Lorne Michaels says he's trying to get Tina Fey to play Sarah Palin. [People, B&C]
• NBC has sold "a dozen or so" ads for the Superbowl for $3 million each. [AdAge]
• Vanity Fair posted its Lance Armstrong interview online (which revealed he planned to return to cycling) after the info leaked on Monday. [Silicon Alley Insider]
• James Truman has something to say about the magazine business, but since it's really long and Truman hasn't been relevant since, oh, 2004, we didn't bother to read it. But feel free. [io9 via NYO]

A deranged man stalking Uma Thurman? That we can understand. (Well, sort of.) But Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels? We really didn't see this one coming. According to the Post, a "poor, paranoid guy from Long Island" named Evans Pidhajecky has been charged with dropping in on Michaels at least six times over the past year. Pidhajecky is apparently convinced that Michaels  "overheard" his private "conversations, singing and/or other utterances" and, naturally, wanted credit for his efforts. But instead of prosecuting him, wouldn't it make more sense for Michaels to be thanking him right now? Call us crazy, but this may be the first time in years that anyone willingly took credit for anything that appeared on the show.