Nikki Finke reports:

The line to leave NBCU because of the Comcast-GE-NBCU merger forms here. Granted that a lot of executives either have their resumes out or are being head-hunted for key jobs. Latest is Lauren Zalaznick, the President of NBC Universal’s Women and Lifestyle Entertainment Networks who oversees Bravo and Oxygen. Sources tell me she’s in advanced talks to take Brian Graden’s big job as MTV President of Entertainment running MTV and VH1. It’s been vacant since June. As one of my insiders explains, “Word is that post-merger there’ll be no upward mobility for her there.” Zalaznick isn’t just tops in women’s TV but should fit in just swell programming MTV swill since she’s been responsible for such trashy shows like Real Housewives, Bad Girls, and Tori & Dean.

Zalaznick is no stranger to MTV Networks; before going to Bravo she headed up programming for VH1 in the late 90s hey day, and oversaw the decade defining Behind The Music and Pop-Up Video . At Bravo, she’s got a string of recent huge hit, like Top Chef and The Real Housewives franchise to name a few. Truth is, she’s made Bravo the watercolor touchstone in the last few years.

On the other hand, to say that MTV Networks has lost their mojo would be an understatement. Its almost sad to look back at the start of this decade and remember that there was a time when VH1 and Bravo were fighting hand-to-hand combat for every precious rating point — and to be fair, VH1 was the early winner. In a pre-social media, viral video era, MTV was the established brand, and had the huge docu-soap progenitor’s like The Osbournes and Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

But now, MTV is nearly unbearable to watch (excepting of course their recent hit Jersey Shore, which is great to watch because it is so unbearable.) One wonders what happened to all of the programming talent that once made MTV and VH1 so great? Michael Hirschorn left with reportedly sizable production deal; Fred Graver‘s contract was not renewed. Lauren Lazin, the woman behind the once might News and Docs department at MTV departed the company somewhat mysteriously. And when was the last time anyone mention Dave Sirulnick, the once brilliant whiz kid who did more to make MTV a serious political player than any one individual.

MTV’s leadership once proudly espoused a punk-rock ethos in television programming. But those same individuals (Van Toffler, Judy McGrath, Tom Calderone seem to have been mailing it in for what seems to be the last decade. Brian Graden deserves to be included in this category, though he’s already left for a career in show tunes.

So can Lauren Zalaznick can save MTV Networks? It’s anybody’s guess. But just maybe its beyond repair.

Disclosure – In a previous career in television I have produced programs for MTV, VH1 and Bravo.

In the same essay, we have Microsoft’s Bill Gates saying he doesn’t even own a TV because if he did he wouldn’t have time to read the Economist cover to cover (maybe that’s how he missed the importance of the World Wide Web and the rise of Google!)

What accounts for the strange hold the Economist has over the American elite? Fallows provided a pretty good explanation. “The complications of Anglophilic snobbery and Oxbridge-style swagger prevent most American readers from realizing that, when they read Economist leaders, they’re essentially reading Wall Street Journal editorials, written with even less self-doubt.”

In re-reading Fallows’ piece recently, I laughed when I came upon this fairly cynical quote: “Americans think the Economist is better written because they impute a British accent to what they read.” The speaker was Richard Stengel, who would cite the Economist as his role model 17 years later, when he was tasked with reinventing Time Magazine.

This year, Stengel’s chief rival, Jon Meacham of Newsweek, also redid his magazine, in part to be more like the Economist (though in fairness, Meacham is also on the record dissing the Economist for its lack of original reporting).

Michael Hirschorn, the reality show impresario who moonlights as a media columnist for the Atlantic, has a very smart piece about the struggles U.S. newsweeklies find themselves in and how the Economist keeps chugging along, soaking up ads as if the whole InterWeb thing never happened. He notes that the entire American magazine industry – not just Time and Newsweek – often seems to have what he calls “Economist envy.”

Hirschorn puts his finger on the real reason for the Economist’s success – and why its admirers in the magazine industry sometimes miss the point even as they try to imitate it.  It is a sort of cheat sheet – or, as Hirschorn puts it,  “a true global digest.”  That’s roughly what Time and Newsweek were a long, long time ago, before they decided they needed to become more like the Economist. “True, the Economist virtually never gets scoops,” Hirschorn writes, “and the information it does provide is available elsewhere … if you care to spend 20 hours Googling.”

The Economist covers the world with dozens and dozens of hyper-distilled 400 to 500 word articles each week, all presented with that Oxford overlay that makes U.S. readers think it’s so authoritative. And it often has one long special report on subjects like the Malaysian electronics industry.

You sometimes get the feeling that the Economist is winking at you. It was odd that it called itself a newspaper 20 years ago, and is odder still today, given what’s going on in that business. And yes, the Economist covers the world more thoroughly than all but a handful of newspapers, and they manage to do it with far fewer people than even the smallest newspapers. They use a lot of stringers, whose dispatches from, say, Bangalore are often completely rewritten.

Ever wonder why the articles have no bylines? Fallows quoted Michael Lewis as saying that the cover of anonymity for the magazine’s writers, among other things, conceals how young much of the staff was, at least back then. “The magazine is written by young people pretending to be old people,” said Lewis. “If American readers got a look at the pimply complexions of their economic gurus, they would cancel their subscriptions in droves.”

Bill Gates might even start watching TV, if he hasn’t already.

Jim Impoco is a New York-based writer and a former editor of the Sunday Business section of the New York Times and deputy editor of Portfolio. He writes for Mediaite about the financial press. Please send tips or comments to jimpoco@mediaite.com.

A few years ago, Us Weekly editor in chief Janice Min signed a contract worth approximately $2 million, but that deal is about to expire, and given the state of the publishing world, that kind of money wasn’t on the table this time around. While Us owner Jann Wenner asked Min to stay, in the end they couldn’t agree on a new salary number.

There isn’t much more than common sense behind claims that Min left because she wasn’t pleased with the amount of money she was being offered in her new contract. Min has only gone on the record saying “Money played a role in my decision only in that I’ve been fortunate to have been well paid for many years and now have the luxury to make this kind of decision.”

But given the ever-tightening budgets in the magazine world and the value Min has added to the Us Weekly brand — circulation has jumped to 1.9 million from 800,000 in 2002, when Min joined the magazine as Bonnie Fuller’s second in command — it’s only reasonable to think she would have liked more money, not less as WWD implies).

Since Min’s announcement, Jann Wenner has tapped Mike Steele to step in as “interim editor in chief” or “acting editor in chief,” depending on who you ask — Min or a Us Weekly spokesperson. No matter what it says on the masthead, Steele must be cheaper than Min.

One insider described Steele as “a very quiet magazine man that does what he’s told.” But as another put it, “Jann may keep this guy but wait two months — no one can get along with him [Wenner].”

Given that Min probably wouldn’t be able to pull down as much money at another title, everyone is still wondering what’s next (well, after editing her wedding album)?

Her decision to depart set off a flurry of speculation as to what she might do next — with some believing Min might already have another gig lined up. As to whether she might land in the new media or television worlds, many observers pointed out it won’t be easy. “Name me one magazine editor that has made the successful transition to television,” one said.

Hey, maybe she’ll follow in Michael Hirschorn’s footsteps and try to fix-up some struggling cable channel.