In 2010′s second quarter, 216,000 people stopped subscribing to cable or satellite TV services. In the third quarter, 119,000 more people jumped onto the cancellation bandwagon. Unsurprisingly, says Stelter, “The numbers sent a chill through the television industry”:

When the second quarter numbers were released in August, some wondered if it was an aberration — a brief interruption to the steady upward march of pay television, which has been supported by population growth and the popularity of TV. At the time an SNL Kagan analyst was quoted as saying that the second quarter was “unique.” Rather than blaming cord-cutting for the subscriber declines, the analyst, Mariam Rondeli, cited economic factors.

But with the third quarter numbers also showing a decline, cord-cutting — which is a reference to people who cobble together a low-cost diet of TV via the Internet — might be getting a closer look.

Ian Olgeirson, a senior analyst at SNL Kagan, said in a news release Wednesday that cable and satellite companies were “pointing to a continuation of the forces that pushed subscriber gains into negative territory in the second quarter, including the weak economy, high unemployment and elevated churn of former over-the-air households.” However, he added, it is “becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss the impact of over-the-top substitution on video subscriber performance.”

News like this kind of makes the ratings wars seem trivial, doesn’t it? Read Stelter’s full report at NYTimes.com.

Of course, since our readers are fans of all the most important news sources, we’re sure you all were already aware of this story, having noticed the covers while picking up your weekly copies of Us and People. However, you should still check out a piece the New York Times Media Decoder blog did on it as they got a pretty interesting interview with Brittain Stone, the photography director of Us. Coming the same week as our interview with Page Six‘s Richard Johnson, it gives another look into the cut-throat world of the gossip game.

It seems the reason for the double covers is that both magazines want to use a “portrait” which would hopefully trick the readers into thinking that the magazine got an actual interview with the actress. Stone doesn’t use the word “trick,” but that’s clearly what he means.

“’The first thing you want to do when you have a tragic story like this one, which is actually a very sad story, is you want to convey that mood of cooperation or approach or access,’ Mr. Stone said. ‘The best way to do that is with some kind of portrait.’

However, he said, celebrity portraits almost always require approval from their publicists, who tend to decline approval when their client is in an unsavory situation like Ms. Bullock is.”

All in all, the piece is a pretty interesting read. So check it out and then, once you get through it, you can go back to the more colorful parts of this story. Like all that fun Nazi stuff!

Writing in the NY Times Media Decoder Blog, Carter reports:

NBC executives held discussions with both Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien Thursday about the future of the network’s late-night lineup. And while executives said that no final decision has been made, they did not deny that the network is considering moves that could include returning Mr. Leno to his old job as host of “The Tonight Show.”

NBC executives said a decision would definitely not be announced Thursday but did not deny a report posted by the website TMZ that NBC was considering making the switch and replacing Mr. O’Brien at “Tonight” with Mr. Leno.

TMZ reported that NBC would make the move soon to take advantage of the natural break in its schedule when it covers the Winter Olympics next month.

The late-night discussions at NBC are directly related to pressure that has been brought on NBC by its affiliated stations, which have seen ratings for their 11 p.m. local newscasts plummet this television season because of much-weakened lead-in audiences from the network in the 10 p.m. hour.

Update – Carter now reports a possible line-up being bandied about at NBC…

Pressed by affiliates and shrinking ratings, NBC has a plan in the works to radically alter its late-night television lineup, restoring Jay Leno to his old spot at 11:35 each weeknight, while pushing the man who replaced him, Conan O’Brien, to a starting time of 12:05 a.m.

…

The third NBC late-night star, Jimmy Fallon, would then begin his show at 1:05 a.m., the executives said. The revised lineup would go into effect after NBC concludes its coverage of the Winter Olympics on February 28. NBC will pre-empt both its prime-time and late-night lineup for more than two weeks to cover the Olympics, creating a natural break in which to implement the late-night changes.

Slate, a unit of The Washington Post Company, characterized the move as a business decision that would reduce costs while preserving editorial content. Double X was an expansion of Slate’s XX Factor blog. It was started in May as an online magazine about women, covering politics, culture, parenting, work-life balance and other subjects.

It’s a shame — the marketplace is not exactly flooded with intelligent, newsy websites devoted to women — if not a total surprise. Unlike Jezebel, which was a roaring success when it launched in Spring of ’07 (just in time to make the most of Hillary Clinton campaign for the White House), Double X never seemed to quite take hold in the blogosphere. Something that always puzzled considering they had the backing of Slate and what appeared to be a female audience hungry for fare that wasn’t limited to the pages of fashion magazines. However, launching a website is no easy feat (to say the least), and the timing may have been against Double X, in so far as that by the time they arrived on the scene the revelation of Hillary Clinton followed by Sarah Palin had been soundly trumped by the economy (for the time being). It should be noted, however, that they can still be found here.

At 6:21 yesterday, Media Decoder broke the news that Dobbs would be leaving the network to “engage in constructive problem solving.”

Amid early speculation that that meant he might be leaving media entirely (since when has media been constructive?), CNN President Jon Klein released a statement that Dobbs had decided ”to carry the banner of advocacy journalism elsewhere,” which revived old rumors that he might be headed over to Fox Business. Yesterday, a spokesperson for FNC and FBN told Mediaite that they had not had “any discussions with Lou Dobbs for Fox News or Fox Business.”

So … how is a career decision that might not even result in Dobbs’s winding up under the Fox umbrella (though that result is still the odds-on favorite) Worst Person-worthy? After reading Dobbs’s press statement in his trademark ‘spooky voice,’ Olbermann justified it thusly: “you’ve just denied me that impression? How dare you, sir!” Olbermann also passed on the rumors that for the time being, CNN would do two hours of their 8pmET show (that would be Campbell Brown), and that Dobbs would be poached by Telemundo.

Broadcasting at 8pmET, Olbermann did not mention Klein’s statement — which Mediaite posted at 7:45pmET — but the “Worst Person” segment still showed some pretty quick turnaround in incorporating something that had happened less than two hours before the show began.

“I want to pay for my online use of the New York Times. I read the site multiple times a day. I can’t imagine life without it. Why oh why can’t somebody come up with a good way to get this money out of the hundreds of thousands of readers who would gladly pay for the content? Figure it out now! I have my credit card ready.
— Anne Hills ”

Richard Perez-Pena’s Media Decoder post about the layoffs went up at 2:49pm yesterday, and as of this posting 502 people have commented on it. What is most striking about the response is how many people volunteered to pay for access to the NYT.com. By my count, of the 507 comments 167 people offered to pay for access. A number of people complained about the fact they have in the past tried to pay for access and were not able to. And more than one person suggested the NYT.com implement a volunteer pay system that allows people to give what they can. Side note: By the looks of it Drudge posted a link to the Decoder piece around 7pm, after which the last 200 comments or so are dominated by people proclaiming a certain amount of delight over the demise of the Obama-run liberal rag, or something similar.

The numbers are interesting nonetheless. Leaving aside the complications of implementing a pay system (and, as many commenters pointed out, whether a pay system would actually solve the problem) that’s a lot of people volunteering to pay. When you cut out the obvious Drudgers, the numbers are even more encouraging. Of course they are the hard core sect, who not only rely on the NYT.com but take the time to register a comment. However, as far as a sampling of the populations goes it has to be encouraging to the powers that be. Also, much quicker results than that survey they were apparently sending out to readers earlier this summer (also! a lot of suggestions regarding which op-eders they might consider cutting, I think MoDo and Friedman may lead the pack). Put up that pay wall, Mr. Keller!

As we reported yesterday, the NYT.com Media Decoder blog published a report revealing that David Blum was the anonymous blogger behind NYTPicker, the blog about the New York Times. An hour or so they removed it with no explanation. A few hours after that they posted an entirely unsatisfactory explanation (Blum is not behind NYTPicker), which didn’t allow for comments. Enter @NYT_JenPreston, who didn’t shy away from the conversation one bit, and who seems to suggest that it is okay to pull down in its entirety an error-filled post, as opposed to erring on the side of, say, transparency (also, that the NYTPickers are cowards for remaining anonymous?). While we wait for further explanation from the NYT.com here is Preston’s twitterfeed from last night:

And here’s the larger picture from a Twitter search: