The New York Times Company has found there is more interest than it may have expected in its ailing About Group, a business unit that includes the informational Web site About.com.
On Tuesday, a person familiar with the company confirmed that Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp had made an offer to acquire About.com, joining Answers.com in bidding for the site.
Reuters first reported the bid Tuesday afternoon, saying IAC had offered more than $300 million for About.
An IAC spokeswoman declined to comment. A Times Company spokeswoman also declined to comment.
IAC's offer comes nearly two weeks after the Times Company said it was “engaged in discussions regarding the potential sale of its About Group.†The company declined to give specifics but said in a press release that “negotiations are ongoing.â€
A person close to the Times Company said at the time that Answers.com, a Web site financed by the private equity firms TA Associates and Summit Partners, had offered the Times Company $270 million for About Group.
About Group, a unit that also includes ConsumerSearch.com, CalorieCount.com and About China, would fit into IAC's stable of informational Web sites, which includes Dictionary.com, Ask.com and Reference.com. IAC also controls dating Web sites like Match.com and OkCupid.com, as well as Newsweek and The Daily Beast.
Selling the About Group is part of the Times Company's ongoing strategy to shed assets that aren't core to its flagship newspaper business. Early this year, it sold its regional newspapers for $143 million, and it has also sold its stake in the Fenway Sports Group, owner of the Boston Red Sox.
Revenue at the About Group fell 8.7 percent to $25.4 million in the most recent quarter that ended in June.
OTTAWA - When the Bank of Canada switched to plastic-based banknotes, it ran the proposed designs past eight focus groups, hoping to avoid controversy or embarrassment.
Well, the wisdom of these particular crowds has instead led the central bank into making a rare apology this week when it was reported that the focus groups had urged the removal of a woman who appeared Asian from the design for the Canadian $100 bill.
The theme of the reverse side of the bill, which went into circulation in November, is “medical innovation.†It includes a vial of insulin, which Canadian scientists were first to use to treat diabetes; a DNA double helix; an electrocardiogram chart; and a woman peering into a microscope.
This was not the exact version that the focus groups saw, however. The Canadian Press news agency reported last week that it had obtained a document summarizing comments from the sessions, which were held in four cities.
“Some have concerns that the researcher appears to be Asian,†the analysis said. “Some believe that it presents a stereotype of Asians excelling in technology and/or the sciences. Others feel that an Asian should not be the only ethnicity represented on the bank notes. Other ethnicities should also be shown.â€
It noted that some participants had found that the yellow-brown color of the banknote added to the perception that the scientist was Asian and thus “racialized†the note.
One focus group participant in the region known as Atlantic Canada, the report said, complained that an Asian woman did not represent Canada. But in Toronto, which has a large and prominent Asian community, the report noted that the apparently Asian researcher was well received.
A spokesman for the bank told the news agency that those findings had led to a redesign that made the researcher appear to be of a “neutral†ethnicit y.
But after that report, many Canadians said that the bank's artists had simply turned the researcher into a Caucasian woman.
“Perhaps ignoring the obvious is something central banks just can't help doing,†Jeffery Ewener wrote in a letter published by The Globe and Mail. “But in Canada, at least, they shouldn't have to be told that Caucasian is an ethnic group.â€
In an editorial, The Calgary Herald wrote that the bank “unwittingly reinforced the bigoted notion that white skin is neutral, that ethnicity is a quality white people don't have, that white is normal and nonwhite is other.â€
After representatives of some Asian-Canadian groups joined those expressing dismay, Mark J. Carney, the governor of the bank, said in a statement that the tentative design shown to the focus groups  “was a Photoshopped image based on an original photograph of a South Asian woman looking through a microscope.†(The bank, in an e-mail, declined to release an image of that prototype.)
Mr. Carney's statement did not address what role the focus groups had played in the development of the final artwork for the banknote.
“Efforts by the bank note designers to avoid depicting a specific individual resulted in an image that appears to represent only one ethnic group,†Mr. Carney said in the statement. “That was not the bank's intention and I apologize to those who were offended.â€
With Jimmy Kimmel moving to 11:35 p.m. in January, the famed ABC News program “Nightline†will be moving back a full hour to 12:35 a.m. It is a deeply disappointing outcome for many at the news division, which had fought hard to keep the pre-midnight time slot.
On Tuesday afternoon, the news division president Ben Sherwood did not sugarcoat the change in a memo to colleagues. But he said that come Jan. 8, when the new times take effect: “I'm confident that our loyal viewers will stay with ‘Nightline,' and its immensely talented anchors, correspondents and staff will enjoy many successes for years to come.â€
Mr. Sherwood did take note, however, that the “Nightline†staff would be responsible for a new hour in prime time on Fridays, starting in March. His memo is reprinted below.
The Memo
I'm writing to let you know about changes the network is making in late night and prime time.
ABC b elieves it has a stronger growth opportunity in late night if “Jimmy Kimmel Live†precedes “Nightline,†so starting Jan. 8, “Nightline†and “Jimmy Kimmel Live†will switch time periods. “Nightline†is moving to 12:35 a.m. ET, and JKL will take over at 11:35 p.m.
In this new arrangement “Nightline†will expand in length to fill the half hour, and, significantly, the “Nightline†team will also produce an additional hour every week in prime time on Friday nights at 9:00 p.m. beginning March 1st.
With its success and growth, “What Would You Do?†will also find a new home on the schedule.
As you all know, growth is a primary objective of ABC and our news division. In the last year the network has supported our important growth initiatives through the Yahoo! digital deal and our innovative joint venture with Univision and has helped us achieve the resurgence we're enjoying at Good Morning America. And the network remains fully supportive of our strategy to win the present and future of news and information.
I know you'll have many questions, and we'll answer them in smaller groups starting today.
For now, it's important to note that “Nightline†has proven its ability to grow over three decades on the air with the show currently enjoying some of its highest ratings and best editorial work ever. The “Nightline†team will now bring its excellent journalism to new time periods, and we especially welcome the chance to produce an hour every Friday in prime time, where new audiences will be introduced to the program's signature storytelling, interviewing and investigations.
These changes take effect 20 weeks from now, and until then, “Nightline†remains in its existing time slot with a lot of important work to do, including covering two conventions, four debates and a presidential election. Our viewers are counting on us to deliver the exceptional j ournalism that has always defined “Nightlineâ€.
Next year, when these changes are carried out, I'm confident that our loyal viewers will stay with “Nightline,†and its immensely talented anchors, correspondents and staff will enjoy many successes for years to come.
Jimmy Kimmel will jump to the big stage in late-night television in January, moving to 11:35 p.m. where he will take on the two titans of that time slot, David Letterman and Jay Leno.
ABC announced the move Tuesday, framing it as a bold effort to seize leadership in late-night entertainment.
ABC has touted its leadership in ratings over both Mr. Letterman on CBS and Mr. Leno on NBC's Tonight†show, but that has been with the news program “Nightline.†ABC's management has for years tried to replace that program with an entertainment show because of the possibility to increase revenue in the time period.
The move of Mr. Kimmel is risky because it will displace “Nightline†to 12:35 a.m. weeknights, but ABC will compensate for that move by adding an hour edition of “Nightline†in prime time at 9 p.m. Fridays, starting in March.
Mr. Kimmel said in a telephone interview Tuesday, “It's all a bit scar y, too, but it's very exciting.†He was coming to the end of his current contract with ABC and some at the network were concerned about interest from other parties. But Mr. Kimmel said, “This was just a decision that ABC made on their own. We didn't push them or bully them.â€
Anne Sweeney, the president of Disney/ABC said, “It's a huge move. This is Jimmy's moment. It's a culmination for him. We are looking at a landscape with two entrenched guys who are starting to fade. Their audiences are diminishing and Jimmy, who has now been on 10 years, is continuing to grow.â€
Mr. Kimmel has added to his audience totals in recent months. In July, he was up 14 percent over the previous year. Some of that was due to an earlier move the network made to try to enhance his stature, sliding him up form a 12:05 start to exactly midnight.
But Mr. Kimmel has also been gaining much wider praise for his performance. This year especial ly has been a series of high points for him. He entertained at the White House Correspondents Dinner, and he will host the Emmy Awards next month.
“Jimmy is in the zeitgeist,†Ms. Sweeney said, pointing especially to how effective videos from his show have been online. “When his videos go viral, they really go viral,†she said, citing examples like his bit putting a fake lie-detector on children or having parents steal Halloween candy from their children.
But as Mr. Kimmel himself put it, “I think they did it just because it makes financial sense.†Ms. Sweeney also cited the higher ad rates a network can charge in late-night for an entertainment show.
The timing was clearly critical. ABC noted that CBS had extended Mr. Letterman for another two years, and it is expected NBC will extend Mr. Leno's tenure on “Tonight†perhaps as long. That opens the window for Mr. Kimmel, who is 44, to face the two established late-night stars, both of whom ar e in their 60s.
It also means that Mr. Kimmel will get an opportunity to become a fixture at 11:35 before NBC makes the expected move of sliding its emerging late-night star, Jimmy Fallon, up to the “Tonight†slot.
“That's definitely part of this,†Mr. Kimmel said, “as well as who the mystery man will be who eventually takes over for Dave.â€
Mr. Kimmel has been open about how much he has idolized Mr. Letterman in his career and said it will be “a little bit strange†to have to face off against him head-to-head every night (the plan is to expand Mr. Kimmel from four nights a week to five.) But he said “I'm sure this will mean nothing in Dave's universe.â€
He is less concerned about Mr. Leno, with whom he has had a famous on-the-air feud, fueled by Mr. Kimmel's aggressive mocking of Mr. Leno during the latter's ill-fated prime-time hour.
But there was a time when ABC was pulling out the stops to woo Mr. Leno to ABC to take over t he 11:35 slot; in that scenario, Mr. Kimmel would have been shoved back to 12:35.
All parties at ABC profess to being relieved things did not work out that way.
Mr. Kimmel said: “It seems that what you want is not necessarily what's best and sometimes it's a little better to be patient and let it all play out.â€
Bill Carter writes about the television industry. Follow @wjcarter on Twitter.
On Friday, the NBC network, part of Comcast, imposed budget cuts at “The Tonight Show,†which included layoffs of between 20 and 25 staff members. The host, Jay Leno, took a pay cut, according to a person with direct knowledge of the cuts, in order to limit the number of layoffs. On Monday, Mr. Leno joined the long line of late-night hosts who use the monologue to take aim at the boss: “As you may have heard, our parent company has downsized ‘The Tonight Show.' And we've consistently been No. 1 in the ratings. And if you know anything about our network, that kind of thing is frowned upon.â€
Carl Richards' recent column on throwing away unnecessary stuff got me thinking of what items I could get rid of to declutter my house. I got an easy answer while searching through a kitchen drawer for some dog biscuits - and finding instead a bag overflowing with empty Starbucks coffee sacks.
Allow me to explain.
I love my morning coffee, and I sometimes buy packages of Starbucks coffee at the grocery store to brew at home. (My husband remains a staunch Dunkin' Donuts guy, but that's another story.) A few months ago, while shaking the last few grounds from a package of House Blend, I noticed a message on the side: “Bring us your empty bag. We'll give you a coffee.â€
Apparently, if I brought t he empty bag to a Starbucks store, I'd get a free 12-ounce (tall) cup of coffee. Sounded like a good idea to me - a savings of nearly $2! I began thinking dreamily of sipping my fragrant coffee, even tastier because it was free, while I leisurely read my daily New York Times. I started saving the bags.
The problem is, I don't live close to a Starbucks store. Yes, there is a store in my town, but it's not on the route I travel most days, from home to school to soccer field. And that leisurely morning read? I usually have to speed read the paper on weekday mornings. As a result, those bags have piled up in my kitchen drawer, taking up valuable space for a savings that will, in all likelihood, never materialize.
I suppose I could store them in my minivan so they'd be handy in case I happened to drive by the Starbucks. But if there ever was a vehicle that needed decluttering, it's my minivan. (My glove compartment is already overflowing w ith coupons for bagels at Melvin & Elmos.)
So I crumpled up the bags and tossed them in the trash, before brewing myself a fresh pot of coffee. Sure, I gave up the dream of a free drink. But I got the reality of a less-jammed kitchen drawer.
What sort of money-saving ideas have you abandoned as impractical?
Fleishman Hillard, a public relations company, and GMR Marketing, an advertising agency, will announce on Tuesday that they have acquired Amos Content Group to create a new joint venture called Freshwire.
Freshwire will be tasked with creating editorial like content for brands that include videos, blogs, slideshows and more.
“Its almost axiomatic today that every company needs to be a media company,†said Dave Senay, the president and chief executive of Fleishman Hillard.
The acquisition of Amos is estimated to have cost between $5 and $10 million. Fleishman Hillard and GMR Marketing are both part of the Omnicom Group.
The Amos Content Group was created in 2009 with a staff made up la rgely of freelance writers, editors, photographers and producers who produced content for Web sites, social media and traditional media.
Shawn Amos, the chief executive of Amos Content Group, will stay on as chief executive of Freshwire. “The way to create P.R. in this day and age is to create content that's relevant to the consumer,†Mr. Amos said.
For marketers and public relations companies, the need to create original content that goes beyond traditional advertising messages has increased over the past few years, Mr. Amos said. “We have to feed this beast 24/7,†he said.
Gary Reynolds, the chief executive of GMR Marketing, said marketers are now understanding “that content doesn't just exist where their brands are live,†so they are increasingly turning to create content that is more editorial. “It's very much a social media, media-driven activity,†Mr. Reynolds said. “They have to share their story, and the story can't be so commerci al.â€
Tanzina Vega writes about advertising and digital media. Follow @tanzinavega on Twitter.
Carl Richards is a certified financial planner in Park City, Utah, and is the director of investor education at BAM Advisor Services. His book, “The Behavior Gap,†was published this year. His sketches are archived on the Bucks blog.
We really like being able to store stuff. So much so that there's now 2.3 billion square feet of self-storage space in the United States. To give you a better idea of how big that is, think of it, as the Self Storage Association does, as “an area well more than three times the size of Manhattan.†And about 10 percent of us are using that space to store our stuff.
Now maybe you've managed to keep all your stuff in closets, basements or garages. But many of the m ore than 300 comments on my post from last week indicated that we have mixed feelings about getting rid of our possessions. Those feelings become even harder to sort through when we're dealing with stuff that we have an emotional attachment to.
This takes me back to the main point I had hoped to make: Does what you own add to your life or take away from it?
To be clear, I'm not saying we shouldn't buy and own things. For instance, my family owns some outdoor equipment that we probably use only  three or four times each year. But we take good care of it, and it adds something positive to our family activities. For us, it's worth storing because we know why we own it.
On the other hand, we still own a lot of stuff that seems to take way more time and effort to deal with, and we're constantly trying to cut back. Like a garden, our house seems to take constant work to avoid being overrun.
A few additional thoughts came out o f the conversations around last week's post:
1) Move out I have some friends who just moved for the first time in over a decade. They were shocked at how much stuff they had just taking up space. They commented that it was scary to think about how long all that stuff would have continued to take up space and mental energy if they hadn't been forced to deal with it in the move. Since they had to move, they had to deal with it. I've heard people say they like to move every five years or so because it forces them to become cold-blooded stuff killers.
So while you might not be moving, go ahead and pretend that you are.
“Move†everything out of the house or apartment and be ruthless about what you allow to stay. You can do this room by room if you need to. Move everything from your bedroom into another room. Live with it bare for a day or two, then slowly start inviting the stuff you love/want/need back. Repeat with every room of the house.
2) Go on a trip Put together a pile of everything you'll need over two weeks. I've discovered that most people are surprised by what they actually use compared to everything they have around them.
3) Figure stuff per square foot If you have so much stuff that you're renting extra space to accommodate it, how much does that cost you? The cost per square foot will vary depending on where you live, but it can be incredibly helpful to do the math and understand how much your stuff costs you after you've bought it.
Again, I'm not advocating that the only way to live a happy life is  owning a small pile of stuff. But I do support the many comments that caution against letting your stuff own you and the value in gaining some perspective about what you own.
I don't think there's a magic number of items to own that guarantees a happy life. I also don't think it's automatically a bad thing to rent storage space. But I do think there's something incredibly valuable about taking the time to understand why you own what you own and making thoughtful decisions about buying new stuff.
Add another happy beneficiary of the publishing powerhouse “Fifty Shades of Greyâ€: Barnes & Noble.
Sales of the erotic trilogy, which has dominated paperback and e-book bestseller lists for most of the year, along with the liquidation of the Borders chain in 2011, helped lift comparable bookstore sales in the fiscal first quarter at Barnes & Noble by 4.6 percent, the company said on Tuesday.
Barnes & Noble, the nation's largest bookstore chain, reported narrowing losses of $41 million, or 78 cents a share, in the three months that ended July 28, compared with $56.6 million, or 99 cents a share, in the same period a year ago. Revenue grew 2.5 percent, to $1.45 billion.
Nook sales, at $192 mi llion, remained flat from the year before. Sales of digital content, which include books, newspapers, magazines and apps, increased 46 percent. Total college bookstore sales increased to $221 million.
The company has poured money into its Nook business in order to compete with Amazon, Apple and other rivals in the crowded e-book market. Last week, it dropped the prices for its color tablets.
“During the first quarter, we continued to see improvement in both our rapidly growing Nook business, which saw digital content sales increase 46 percent during the quarter, and at our bookstores, which continue to benefit from market consolidation and strong sales of the ‘Fifty Shades' series,†William Lynch, the chief executive of Barnes & Noble, said in a statement.
Analysts said they had hoped Barnes & Noble would be able to narrow its losses in the Nook business, particularly with increasingly heated competition in the tablet space this fall. Barnes & Noble i s expected to introduce another new tablet in the coming months.
On Monday, Barnes & Noble made a long-awaited announcement that it would expand its Nook business into Britain beginning in October.
In trying to calm the anger swirling over his comments about “legitimate rape†and whether rape can lead to pregnancy, Representative Todd Akin, the Republican candidate for Senate from Missouri, scheduled a prime-time appearance on CNN on Monday, but ultimately didn't show up. The host who was stood up by Mr. Akin, Piers Morgan, made the most of the nonappearance, Brian Stelter writes, telling the audience: “You're looking live at the empty chair that Todd Akin was supposed to be sitting in for a live, prime-time exclusive interview.†The camera was fixed on the empty chair during the show, which appeared in an inset box.
Instead of an unscripted appearance, Mr. Akin has taken the scripted approach to try to atone for his comments - which have been roundly criticized by Democrats and Republicans - that victims of “legitimate rape†rarely become pregnant. In his new ad, Politico reports, he asks for forgiveness from the voters of his state, acknowledging that he used “the wrong words in the wrong way.â€
The student editors of the University of Georgia newspaper The Red and Black announced on Monday that they would be returning to their jobs after winning a guarantee of editorial control. Last week, the editors walked out over recent attempts to shape the coverage at The Red and Black by the board of the nonprofit publishing company that owns the newspaper; also, a nonstudent manager was given a veto power over student editors' decisions. The joint statement from the board and the students included this passage:
We students dedicate ourselves to timely, accurate, fair and ethical journalism for which The Red and Black is known and which is essential to the University community. As journalists, it went against our instinct and training to walk out of a newsroom on deadline. We extend an apology to those who were adversely affected.
Speaking of veto power over students' decisions, athletes at the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville routinely have their comments on social media monitored, The Louisville Courier-Journal reported. Louisville flags 406 words or slang expressions that have to do with drugs, sex, or alcohol; Kentucky flags a similar number, of which 370 are sports agents' names. (Kentucky also flags “Muslim†and “Arab†- though The Courier-Journal reported that the university said it would stop, after being asked about it.) The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky said it believed that the monitoring violated free speech protections.
Notwithstanding the worldwide sympathy expressed for the members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot, the Russian authorities are pressing ahead, trying to identify other members of the band who may have participated in the anti-Putin stunt at Moscow's main Russian Orthodox church, Andrew Roth reported. Three m embers of the band were sentenced to two years in prison over the stunt, which took place in front of the golden Holy Doors leading to the altar at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
A Japanese journalist was killed while reporting on the fighting around the city of Aleppo in Syria, The Associated Press reported, while two journalists from the United States government-supported Middle East broadcaster Al-Hurra were reported missing. The Japanese journalist, Mika Yamamoto, worked with Japan Press, an independent news agency, and was hit by gunfire while she was traveling the rebel Free Syrian Army; according to The A.P., a YouTube video posted by an activist in Syria was said to show her body inside a van wrapped in blankets with only her face showing.
In a video shot while embedded with a unit of the Free Syrian Army, C.J. Chivers shows the desolate yet violent scene in and around Aleppo.
ABC News will cover this presidential campaign without one of its veteran journalists. Jon Banner, executive producer of George Stephanopoulos's Sunday morning public affairs show “This Week,†will leave ABC News for a job at PepsiCo.
Mr. Banner, 44, the recipient of 15 Emmy awards, has spent more than half his life at ABC News. A long-time producer on “ABC World News,†Mr. Banner took over “This Week†last December. His leadership helped move “This Week†from among the lowest-rated of the major networks' Sunday shows to a No. 2 ranking behind NBC's “Meet the Press†on many weekends.
At PepsiCo, Mr. Banner will serve as senior vice president of global strategy and planning, a position on the communications team of the giant consumer goods company. His last day at ABC News is Sunday and he said he planned to start at PepsiCo after Labor Day.
“Jon understands today's media landscape as well as a nyone and knows how to create smart communications strategies across all forms of media,†Jim Wilkinson, PepsiCo's executive vice president of communications, said in a statement.
In a memo to the staff, Ben Sherwood, president of ABC News, said Mr. Banner approached him about the new opportunity and said he couldn't pass it up. “I've known Jon since around the time we both started out in this business and I've always admired his competitive drive and valued his friendship,†Mr. Sherman said. “We will miss him mightily.â€
Until ABC News names a successor, Marc Burstein, the channel's executive producer of special events, will lead “This Week.â€
In an interview, Mr. Banner said the stories that stood out from his long career at ABC News include a 10-day trip to China with Diane Sawyer, coverage after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a quiet but reflective Thanksgiving weekend at Camp David toward the end of George W. Bush's presidency.
“As a journalist you're a highly attuned, objective storyteller,†Mr. Banner said. “This is a unique opportunity to take all that passion and fully engage with an iconic American company.â€
A variety of consumer-focused articles appears daily in The New York Times and on our blogs. Each weekday morning, we gather them together here so you can quickly scan the news that could hit you in your wallet.
A variety of consumer-focused articles appears daily in The New York Times and on our blogs. Each weekday morning, we gather them together here so you can quickly scan the news that could hit you in your wallet.
Mr. Ramsey, the sometimes controversial personal-finance guru, is known for, among other things, advocating that consumers tackle small credit-card balances first - regardless of the interest rate on the debt - in order to pay down debt in what he calls the “snowball†effect.
Now, researchers at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University have crunched data from a big debt-settlement firm and found evidence that this “intuition has a basis in reality.â€
People with large amounts of debt, they found, are more likely to succeed in paying down their entire debt if they first attack the accounts with the smallest balances - even though that approach might end up costing them extra money in interest over the long haul. That's because, they say, “maintaining motivation to eliminate debts over a long time horizon might necessitate small wins along the way.â€
In other words, it feels good to close an account, and that helps you persevere until you can finish the job.
“It's not just how much progress you've made towards the goal in the ‘real' dollars and cents way, but the idea that you're crossing off the list,†said Blakeley McShane, an assistant professor of marketing at the Kellogg School and co-author of the research with David Gal, also an assistant professor of marketing.
Psychology comes into play as much as math, in other words. “Even if we know what the rational thing to do is, we're not cold, calculating machines - we're human beings,†he added.
The findings appear in the August edition of the Journal of Marketing Research.
The rese archers tested whether closing individual accounts affects a consumer's likelihood of eliminating their overall debt, regardless of the absolute amount of debt in the closed accounts. To do so, they examined nearly 6,000 consumers in a debt-settlement program, which is a program designed for borrowers who can't meet the minimum monthly payments on their debt accounts. Participants are required to make a single payment each month to a designated savings account. The debt settlement firm negotiates with the consumer's creditors to reduce the balance due on the consumer's debts and the money saved in the accounts goes to pay off the reduced balances. It typically takes several years to pay down the balances.
The analysis found that “the fraction of debt accounts paid off appears to be a better predictor of whether the consumer eliminates his debts than the fraction of the total dollar debt paid off,†even though the latter criteria is a “relatively more objective†measure of progress toward the goal of erasing debt.
In other words, if there were two hypothetical borrowers with identical amounts of debts and accounts - say, $10,000 total, comprising one $6,000 debt, one $2,000 debt, and two $1,000 debts - the one who, at any given point, closed more accounts (two accounts of $1,000 each, say, rather than one single account with $2,000 in it) would be more likely to eventually eliminate the total debt, even if the closed accounts contained the same amount of money in total.
Prof. Gal said the findings have relevance for pursuing other goals, even if they aren't as weighty as getting out of debt. “If I had a checklist of tasks, I might want to tackle the easiest one first because that would get me motivated to get to the difficult task,†he said.
The researchers say they aren't necessarily recommending such an approach to debt reduction. But it would seem to make sense to inform consumers of both the “rationally optimal†approach, which would involve paying off high-interest balances first, as well as of the potential psychological benefits of closing account balances. Then, they can make an informed decision.
Have you successfully retired debts? What approach did you take?
Okay, I've admitted it: I bank with a big, money-center bank. Specifically, Bank of America.
It's not the sole institution with which I bank. But I do maintain a checking and other accounts there, and some readers are, apparently, appalled by that.
I learned this last week when I wrote about my attempts to deposit checks using Bank of America's new mobile check deposit app. I was glad that, finally, my bank was offering this cool convenience, which its other big-bank competitors (and many smaller ones) had been offering for months - or even years. Figuring that other customers felt the same way, I shared my experience.
Many readers responded with helpful comments, suggesting, for instance, ways to make the process go more smoothly. But a few others were clearly disappointed - incredulous, even - that I was still doing business with Bank of America, which they consider a disgracefully subpar institution.
To them, I say: I'm very busy. The bank's online banking system has worked well over all for me. And inertia is a powerful force in the absence of an imperative to act. Those may not be compelling reasons to switch to Bank of America if you're in the market for a bank, but the bank has done a good enough job to keep me from bailing.
I first landed at Bank of America not by choice, but by acquisition. Some 20 years ago, I became a customer of Bank South when I moved to Atlanta as a youngish journalist. (My discerning criteria at the time was that it had a branch near my apartment and an A.T.M. near my office.) I hung on when that bank was acquired by Nations Bank and when it in turn was swallowed by Bank of America. (I did use my employer-sponsored credit union to refinance the mortgage on our first home, but found it impractical to use it for everyday banking.)
When I moved to Arkansas four years ago, I was relieved that in addition to finding and buying a new house, renovating it and transitioning my children in a new school, that I didn't have to find a new bank right away. Online banking meant I didn't really have to worry about that, but Bank of America also had branches here. And I like knowing that while I rarely go to a branch, I have that option if I need it.
Juggling obligations to work and family means that time is money to me, and I bank mostly online for the convenience. Bank of America's online banking system is functionally a breeze in comparison to another account at a regional bank that I share with a sibling. I did, however, start to diversify my banking business after Bank of America's disturbing online banking outage last fall. If problems like that were to become routine, that would be the shove I'd need to run for the exit.
The bank's plan to charge customers fees for using debit cards caused an uproar last fall, but the bank didn't implement it in the end. So the realit y for me is that Bank of America has yet to do something terrible enough to me, personally, to justify my taking the time I would have to spend to switch all of my accounts and bill payments to another bank. (Ron Lieber, the “Your Money†columnist here, says it takes 90 minutes, but I'm skeptical.)
As it stands, I don't pay fees because I use direct deposit and meet minimum balance requirements, and I don't bounce checks. I'm the sort of customer this kind of bank wants, so it pretty much works for me. Yes, the interest rate I earn on my checking and linked savings account are meager, but have you looked around lately? Rates are trifling at banks everywhere for accounts that I consider to be “running your life day-to-day†money, not investment or retirement money. I'm not looking to reap huge returns from this cash. Rather, I want it easily available to pay my bills and unexpected expenses.
If it doesn't work for you, though, and you're paying lots of fee s, by all means shop around.
Some of you might argue that Bank of America and its big-bank brethren should be shunned simply for their role in the housing-market debacle and the economic woes that followed. I tend to see that as a systemic, regulatory problem best addressed at the voting booth, rather than a bank-specific problem that I could affect by closing my account.
Having said all that, I have been intrigued by reader comments about banks like USAA, which appears to have a fanatical following, as well as praise heaped upon various credit unions. These customers claim to “love†their bank, while I find mine adequate for my needs. So, perhaps I need to raise my expectations about what a bank should provide and find some time in my packed schedule to explore other banking options. So stay tuned.
Have you left your big, money-center bank? Why or why not?
Nascar dads and Hispanics could be seen as being on opposite sides of the political fence, but that has not stopped Nascar from reaching an agreement with Fox Deportes, the Spanish-language cable sports channel, to broadcast 15 races starting in February.
The agreement includes the broadcast of six live races, including the Daytona 500, which will be broadcast in Spanish for the first time. Among other events are races at the Bristol Motor Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway.
Latinos make up just 10 percent of Nascar viewers. Nascar recently released research showing that it needed to reach a younger and more diverse audience to help offset falling attendance and television ratings. It recently hired Ogilvy & Mather to help create a marketing plan to attract Latinos to the sport, and it has put a number of people on its communications and marketing teams to focus on young viewers and Hispanic outreach.
“It's important for us across the board to have a diverse fan base,†said Steve Herbst, vice president for broadcasting and production at Nascar. “We want our fan base to look and feel like America. We want it to be similar to what makes up the entire population.â€
To help introduce Latinos to the sport, Fox Deportes will produce four 30-minute educational programs before the races that will explain the sport's history, rules, drivers and culture. The network will also produce weekly and daily news segments to be run leading up to and during the races.
Whether Latinos will embrace the driving culture remains to be seen. Hispanics in the United States are big consumers of baseball and soccer, which are popular in many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Many major league baseball players are Hispanic.
“We have to redefine the paradigm of who the U.S. Latino market is,†said Vincent Cordero, executive vice president and ge neral manager at Fox Deportes. “Across the board, a paradigm has been based on a concept that's probably dated.â€
Nascar has a handful of Latino drivers, including Juan Pablo Montoya of Colombia and Nelson Piquet Jr. and Miguel Paludo of Brazil. This year, Viva La Raza Racing became the first Mexican auto racing team to be a part of Nascar.
Getting Latinos to watch Nascar on television would also be the first step toward getting them to buy tickets to live events. “For every sport, we want people in the building,†Mr. Herbst said. “Nascar is no different.â€
A version of this article appeared in print on 08/20/2012, on page B6 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Nascar Seeks to Woo Latinos With Fox Deportes Agreement.
The company will go from being a client of the digital advertising company Flite to owning about 11 percent of it. Flite provides cloud-based advertising technology that allows marketers to change the text and images of digital ads in real time.
“We do a lot of custom advertising work for our clients,†he said. “I think we're always trying to find that balance between design flexibility and standardization.â€
The technology will allow advertisers to see which ads perform better than others and what types of images or messages are most popular with users. If an ad includes a photo gallery, for instance, the advertiser can move the image that has received the most clicks or comments to the beginning of the gallery.
Will Price, chief executive of Flite, said the technology gave digital advertising a wider creative scope and, presumably, higher ad rates. “These ads are essentially mini Web pages,†Mr. Price said.
Mr. Stinchcomb said, “The goal is getting consumers to engage with this content.â€
The technology also allows ads to carry sharing icons for social me dia like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.
Barnes & Noble, making a long-awaited international push, will sell its Nook e-readers and e-books in Britain for the first time beginning in October, the company said on Monday.
The move will help Barnes & Noble compete with Amazon in the expanding e-book marketplace in Britain. E-book adoption there has lagged behind that in the United States, but it is quickly growing, and publishing executives see it as a major opportunity for sales.
But Barnes & Noble is a late arrival to international expansion. The bookseller has long focused on building its presence in the United States even as rivals like Amazon, Apple and Borders have looked abroad. Amazon has had a presence in Britain for years, and in May the company made an agreement with Waterstones to sell the Kindle e-reader in its chain of 300 stores. Barnes & Noble had been was widely expected to be the retailer to make a deal with Waterstones.
On Monday, Barnes & Noble said it would announce partnerships with “leading retailers†in Britain at a later time.
Barnes & Noble, by far the largest bookstore chain in the United States, has hinted for months that it would expand into Britain, but has been spare with details of when it would happen. William J. Lynch, the chief executive of Barnes & Noble, said in a statement that he was proud to offer Nook products to the “discerning and highly educated consumers in the U.K.â€
“We're confident our award-winning technology, combined with our expansive content - including books, children's books, magazines, apps, movies and more - will bring U.K. customers the option they've been waiting for,†he said.
The Nook store, at nook.co.uk, will initially have more than 2.5 million books, magazines and newspapers. Barnes & Noble will first offer for sale its black-and-white e-readers - the Nook Simple Touch and Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight, an e-reader with a backlight ed screen that went on sale in April - but not the Nook color tablets.
Last week, Barnes & Noble trimmed prices on its tablets, lowering the price of the 16 gigabyte Nook Tablet to $199 from $249, and the Nook Color to $149 from $169, an acknowledgment of the increasingly crowded market for tablet devices. The bookseller is expected to introduce another new tablet in the fall.
Barnes & Noble, which currently has 691 bookstores and 647 college stores, will report quarterly earnings on Tuesday.
Over the weekend, Rosie Gray, a former staffer at The Village Voice now at BuzzFeed, wrote that the men in charge of Village Voice Media had more or less the run the place into the ground. She pointed to staff layoffs on Friday at the newspaper, one more episode in a long stretch of downsizing at a publication that is part of a chain of weeklies.
The main problem, she said is,
they're not Voice people. And it's hard to explain the importance of being a Voice person if you're not one. The Voice, as marginalized and irrelevant as it has become, really was the voice of the city and of a certain kind of New Yorker. It was insouciant and jubilant, with sharply reported city politics pieces sitting next to art house movie reviews and sex ads. The afterglow of that leaves an impression on those of us who worked there, even if you're like me and were born well after the Voice's heyday.
The last part is the telltale. The version of the Voice that was the “the voice of a city†has not existed for many years. The cup of coffee Ms. Gray had at The Voice as an intern and the author of the “Runnin' Scared†blog may have made a strong impression, but The Voice has no shot of reclaiming a central role in a city that has four dailies covering New York - The Daily News, The New York Post, The New York Times and now The Wall Street Journal - in addition to the myriad blogs and print products of New York magazine, The New York Observer, Gawker and Capital New York. The list goes on, but you get the idea. In a large market like New York, The Voice, which used to make a noise nationally, has a hard time standing above the metropolitan clutter.
Ms. Gray points to the chain's legal problems with Backpage.com, which critics have contended is used to market children and teens for sex work, as a significant distraction and a drain on resources. And she suggested that the co wboy tendencies of Village Voice Media's two principals - Jim Larkin and Michael Lacey - did not endear them to the staff.
But whatever their idiosyncrasies, those men aren't killing The Voice; the informational ecosystem is. The problem with so-called alternative weeklies is that they were often formed in opposition to the daily newspapers in their respective markets, offering a spicier take on civic events and cultural coverage that reflected what was actually nascent in various places. With dailies limping in almost every American market and the listings and classifieds that were the bread and butter of weeklies now all over the Web, alternatives are just one more alternative among many.
Mr. Lacey, in an e-mail, pointed out that with the current political campaign focused on a faltering economy, it's not surprising that his company is struggling, along with many other media companies.
“Of course it is disappointing to let Rosie Gray, or any staff perso n, go,†he wrote. (Ms. Gray actually left the paper, she was not laid off.) “But her take on The Voice could not be more cynical or wrong: ‘We had a sinking feeling that they'd be willing to hurt The Voice instead of shuttering or selling other papers in the chain,' she writes.â€
He added: “Nothing like that ever happened, but her suggestion that in a properly ordered world other journalists are more expendable, well, it is almost as revealing as her imagining that her departure is, somehow, part of the end.â€
And it's not just The Voice that is struggling among weeklies. The Chicago Reader, once a huge, successful weekly, has been sold to The Chicago Sun-Times, a transaction that would have been unthinkable when it was in its prime. The Washington City Paper, where I once worked, was recently sold to yet another owner. City Pages in Minneapolis, a very well regarded weekly owned by Village Voice Media, is now down to two full-time writers.
The id ea that Mr. Larkin and Mr. Lacey had - using private equity money to roll up over a dozen weeklies into a chain to give the company scale in the advertising marketplace and savings on the cost side - has not panned out, in part because it was a big bet at the wrong moment. (Two of the company's private equity funders backed away from the company because of the controversy over Backpage.com)
Smaller weeklies in smaller communities, much like the pattern that has held for dailies, seem to be relatively healthier.
“Small and midsize markets have more traction these days†said John Saltas, owner of The Salt Lake City Weekly. “They aren't bound to strategies formed half a continent away. Nor are they as burdened with crippling debt. On that score, Village Voice Media is no different than MediaNews or any daily chain that bit off more debt than it needed when engulfing and devouring and consolidating. In the end, it made some short-term savings (repurposing movie reviews, for instance), but the long term loss was the loss of local credibility.â€
Mr. Saltas said that he admired Mr. Lacey and Mr. Larkin for their approach to journalism and that they had published significant work for years in many markets. But he noted that chains like theirs were bound to have trouble in the current market, when small and medium-size newspapers are having a better time of it.
“Our percent of market is far larger than that of most big city papers - our 60,000 circulation is a higher percentage of population than say, the Chicago Reader's circ in a city of seven million,†he said. “We have impact on even the smallest story. It's hard to miss us and other small/medium market papers in our markets. Thus, we've held our market share better than some.â€
There was a time when big metropolitan weeklies embodied the zeitgeist and hosted some of the best, or at least most provocative, writing in the country. (Not to mention that they were onto the whole model of giving away content for free long before there was a consumer Web.) Many of the more compelling editorial voices were annealed by their time in the alternative weekly world. Some would argue that it is a better training ground for the basics in reporting than hyperactive digital realms where the emphasis is on productivity.
Washington City Paper was edited by Jack Shafer, one of the more respected media critics in the country, writing at Reuters. Erik Wemple, who does a similar job at the opinion page of The Washington Post, also edited the newspaper. Ta-Nehisi Coates, who blogs at The Atlantic, worked there, as did David Plotz, the editor of Slate, and Kate Boo, who writes for The New Yorker. Eben Shapiro at The Wall Street Journal worked for a now closed weekly I worked at in Minneapolis and we competed with Monika Bauerlein, co-editor of Mother Jones with Clara Jeffery, who worked at City Paper. Sam Sifton, the national editor of The New York Times, worked at The New York Press, Harold Meyerson spent time at The LA Weekly and Susan Orlean worked for Willamette Week.
The idea of the alternative weekly - that news would be covered absent the agenda of mainstream media and that truths would be told without paying heed to any kind of formal balance or objectivity - has all but been overwhelmed by the Web. Listings, spicy writing, coverage of the next big thing, all of that has been digitized and democratized and many alternatives have ended up looking, of all things, stodgy within this new-media context. It probably makes sense that Ms. Gray, a talented young journalist, issued her anticipatory - and perhaps premature - obit for The Voice writing for BuzzFeed.
The multimedia career of Fareed Zakaria - CNN host, Time magazine and Washington Post columnist, public speaker - took a hit this month when he was found to have lifted entire passages from a New Yorker article for his Time magazine column. After a brief suspension, he will return to those outlets. But he tells Christine Haughney that he has been chastened by the experience: “Other things will have to go away. There's got to be some stripping down.†To media critics, Mr. Zakaria is an example of how the personal brand now trumps the institutional brand, even of important outlets like Time and CNN. Still, even a widely successful personal brand can be overextended.
David Carr looks at the case of Jonah Lehrer, the former New Yorker writer found to have made up quotes in a book. While it can be treacherous to explain such behavior - and certainly, there have long been spectacular cases of journalists who have made up ent ire articles - one change in journalism has perhaps made this behavior (as well as plagiarism) more common, Mr. Carr writes:
The now ancient routes to credibility at small magazines and newspapers - toiling in menial jobs while learning the business - have been wiped out, replaced by an algorithm of social media heat and blog traction. Every reporter who came up in legacy media can tell you about a come-to-Jesus moment, when an editor put them up against a wall and tattooed a message deep into their skull: show respect for the fundamentals of the craft, or you would soon not be part of it.
The spectacle around the Julian Assange case continued over the weekend, as Mr. Assange took to the window of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London on Sunday to address his followers who filled the surrounding streets, Ravi Somaiya writes. The standoff continues between Ecuador, which has granted Mr. Assange asylum, and the British government, which in tends to extradite him to Sweden to face questioning on accusations of rape, sexual molesting and unlawful coercion - allegations he has denied.
Media companies see a rare growth area in education, as textbooks become digital and incorporate video, Brooks Barnes and Amy Chozick write. For example, Techbook - which will produce materials used by 500,000 students this fall - is backed by the cable TV company Discovery, but not by a traditional education publisher. Similarly, News Corporation is investing $100 million in its fledgling education division, Amplify. It can appear to media executives that education is naturally moving into the areas that their companies do best, and the market is estimated to be as large as $7 billion a year. Of course, traditional publishers are also quickly adapting.
Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of Rupert, will be speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival this week, where she will have a chance to “to set out an alternative template for the family and in turn the future of one of the largest media empires on earth,†Dan Sabbagh writes in The Guardian. The festival was the site for a much-commented-upon talk in 2009 by another Murdoch scion, James, who attacked the BBC and offered his own media criticism, noting that “the only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit.â€
Movie theater chains are experimenting with producing their own movies, an effort to expand the number of movies they can show. Open Road Films, a joint venture between Regal and AMC, is mimicking the old studio system, Michael Cieply writes, by “filling screens with films that have modest budgets, recognizable stars and drawing power, and can be promoted by the aggressive use of relatively cheap marketing techniques.†Its latest film, “Hit & Run,†a romantic comedy starring Bradley Cooper, opens this week.
The director Tony Scott leapt to his death from the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles Harbor on Sunday night, according to the authorities, The Associated Press reported. The death of Mr. Scott, who was 68 and the director of “Top Gun†among other Hollywood blockbusters, is being investigated as a suicide.
LOS ANGELES - DreamWorks Animation said on Monday that it had hired 20th Century Fox to distribute its big-budget cartoons, a move that leaves Paramount Pictures with a hole in its pipeline.
Like other small movie operations, DreamWorks Animation does not have the infrastructure to market and release its films to theaters worldwide. Instead, DreamWorks Animation, a publicly traded company, has paid Paramount a fee to handle those duties - about 8 percent of revenue generated by each release. DreamWorks Animation typically makes two movies annually.
That partnership is ending in November after seven years, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks Animation's chief executive, spent months scouring Hollywood for a new partner. (Sony was another potential partner.) Under the five-year accord announced Monday, Fox will receive an 8 percent fee for handling theatrical, DVD and international television distribution; Fox will receiv e a 6 percent fee for executing digital rentals.
DreamWorks Animation, which aspires to start a cable channel, will now handle its own domestic television distribution.
Fox had been seen as an unlikely partner for Mr. Katzenberg because the bigger studio already owns a successful animated movie unit called Blue Sky, maker of such hits as and the films. But cartoons have by far been the most consistent performer at the box office in recent years, and Fox says it has enough room on its release schedule for more.
This rent-a-studio arrangement carries little risk for Fox because DreamWorks Animation will shoulder production costs of about $150 million for each movie. Still, Mr. Katzenberg is known as a demanding customer and will undoubtedly want to cherry-pick release dates, setting up potential conflicts w ith Fox's own schedule. Fox dismissed that notion on Monday, saying Mr. Katzenberg's arrival would give Blue Sky greater leverage with theater owners and advertising partners.
Paramount, struggling with a series of live-action production delays, is working on cartoons of its own - notably a new “SpongeBob SquarePants†movie - but DreamWorks Animation provided a reliable income generator. Paramount's two biggest releases of the year are both expected to be DreamWorks Animation pictures. The annual value of the DreamWorks Animation business for Paramount was not disclosed, but the cartoon company paid Paramount about $50 million in fees last year tied to theatrical releases alone.
Mr. Katzenberg has been trying to convince a skeptical Wall Street that his company is strong despite poor financial results; DreamWorks Animation reported a 63 percent drop profit for its most recent quarter. His efforts include an acquisition and an entertainment district in Shangha i.
Brooks Barnes writes about Hollywood with an emphasis on Disney. Follow @brooksbarnesnyt on Twitter.
LOS ANGELES - Tony Scott, the director of exuberant action films including “Top Gun†and “Unstoppable†and a prolific producer of television shows and commercials in partnership with his older brother, Ridley Scott, died on Sunday after jumping from the Vincent Thomas Bridge into the Los Angeles Harbor. He was 68.
Officials here opened a suicide investigation, and Ed Winter, an assistant chief of the Los Angeles County coroner's office, said on Monday that an autopsy was being performed. “We know that he jumped from the bridge, 200 feet in height,†Mr. Winter said in a telephone interview. “It was reported that several people witnessed him jump.â€
Mr. Winter said Mr. Scott's death was first reported at 12:47 p.m. on Sunday, though his body was not recovered until hours later. “There was one suicide note found in his office in Los Angeles, and a note found in his car, wit h names and contacts,†he said.
Mr. Scott's death shocked and mystified friends and colleagues.
“I just worked with him, sharp as a button and having fun,†said Fay Greene, an associate who had recently been with Mr. Scott on the set of a Pepsi commercial in Long Beach, just south of the Vincent Thomas Bridge. “It featured all the usual Tony elements: speedboats, helicopter and even a tiger in the swimming pool.â€
With his brother Ridley, also a noted director and his partner in a robust pair of production companies, Mr. Scott was the executive producer of “Coma,†a television mini-series set to appear on the A&E network in September.
Tony Scott's movies were almost always about crime, as in “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,†a 2009 thriller (and a remake of the 1974 film by the same title) with Denzel Washington and John Travolta; or conspiracy, as in “Enemy of the State†(1998), with Will Smith and Gene Hackman; or the roar of machin ery, as in “Days of Thunder†(1990), with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.
Mr. Scott was reported to have spoken recently with Mr. Cruise about developing a sequel to “Top Gun,†a supercharged drama about fighter-jet pilots that became a worldwide hit for both Mr. Scott and Mr. Cruise in 1986. The film took in about $350 million at the box office worldwide, and earned Mr. Scott a reputation for delivering dramas with fast pacing, thrilling effects and stunt work.
Simon Halls, a publicist for both Tony and Ridley Scott, said he did not know what issues might have contributed to Mr. Scott's death, and he offered no immediate comment from Ridley Scott, who he said was en route from London.
Mr. Scott lived with a cinematic flair to match his films. He was a rock climber who rode motorcycles and drove fast cars. The bridge from which he jumped was a setting in several action films directed by others, including William Friedkin's .title> in which it was the scene of a much-remembered bungee jump.
Mr. Scott was married to Donna Scott, an actress who appeared in several of his films, including .title> and .title> She and their twin sons survive him, along with his brother. Information about other family members was not immediately available. He lived in a hilltop home overlooking an expanse of Beverly Hills and Los Angeles.
Anthony David Scott was born on June 21, 1944, in Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, in England. He studied fine arts and received a painting degree from the Sunderland Art School but eventually followed Ridley, his older brother by more than six years, into a career directing and producing in film and television.
< p>Mr. Scott developed an interest in cinematography while in postgraduate studies at Leeds College. His first film, .title> a short based on an Ambrose Bierce story, was financed by the British Film Institute.
From early on Mr. Scott's career leaned more toward commerce than art. In 1967 he teamed with Ridley to form a London-based commercial production company, known as RSA. It eventually opened offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, London and New York.
In 1995, Mr. Scott also joined his brother in founding Scott Free, a movie and television production company that made films by the dozen, often with stars like Russell Crowe, Mr. Washington and Mr. Cruise when they were at the top of their game.
Mr. Scott's feature directorial debut came in 1983 with .title> a gothic film about lesbians and va mpires with David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve. In a 2005 interview with Back Stage, he called that movie “an utter disaster.â€
 As his directing style evolved, his signatures included the use of hand-held cameras, lots of jump cuts and, sometimes, subtitles, even though actors were speaking English. “I got that from James Brown,†he told Back Stage. “I was shooting a short film with him, and no one could understand a word he said.â€
In 1986 The Daily Bruin, the campus newspaper at the University of California, Los Angeles, asked Mr. Scott how he had ended up directing “Top Gun,†with its complex aerobatics. He replied, “I have a kind of macho reputation because I climb mountains, etc.†Mr. Scott climbed in both the Alps and Yosemite.
Mr. Scott's movies took in about $2 billion at the global box office. But he remained in the shadow of his older brother, whose films have had about equal commercial success - global sales total about $2.6 bi llion - but have garnered a stronger critical reaction. Ridley Scott's .title> won a best-picture Oscar.
Still, Mr. Scott seemed to shrug off Ridley's higher profile. “Nobody gives you money because you're the brother of so-and-so,†he told The Daily Bruin.
 Mr. Scott was photographed over the years in what appeared to be the same worn, salmon-colored baseball cap. Despite occasional hazards - as when a motorcycle accident in 2005 led to hip-replacement surgery - Mr. Scott insisted on keeping the action, and machinery, in his films as real as possible.
In “Unstoppable,†the latest of his films with Mr. Washington (released in 2010), that meant filming on a 10-mile stretch of railroad track as nine locomotives barreled along it at up to 70 miles per hour. Mr. Scott shot the scenes from onboard the locomotives or from a helicopter.
“I think he was a very cou rageous person,†Ms. Greene said.
Ana Facio-Krajcer contributed reporting from Los Angeles. Michael Schwirtz and Dave Itzkoff contributed from New York.
This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: August 20, 2012
An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated the day of Tony Scott's death. According to the coroner's office of Los Angeles County, he jumped from the Vincent Thomas Bridge on Sunday afternoon, not Monday.
For one day after the Summer Olympics ended, NBC's “Today†show was the No. 1 morning show on television.
But by the second day, ABC's “Good Morning America†was back at No. 1, right where it was before NBC started televising the Olympics in June. ABC stayed there for the rest of the week, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings for the week of Aug. 13.
The ratings, released Monday, are the latest evidence that “Good Morning America†is gradually displacing the “Today†show as the most popular morning show in America. Of course, “Today†could come roaring back at any time - a fact that “G.M.A.†producers reiterate almost every time they talk about the ratings. “We gotta keep it going,†said Tom Cibrowski, the executive producer of “G.M.A.â€
But the trend lines currently favor his show, and he knows it.
“G.M.A.†started to score weekly wins i n April, ending the “Today†show's 17-year streak among total viewers. The wins mushroomed after NBC angered Ann Curry's fans by replacing her with Savannah Guthrie. A week before the Olympics, Ms. Guthrie's third week on the job, “G.M.A.†won for the first time among the 25- to 54-year-old viewers coveted by advertisers.
Then the Games began. And as expected, the Olympic takeover of the NBC network gave a big lift to the “Today†show for two weeks. Some days “Today†beat “G.M.A.†by more than two million viewers. But everyone in the television industry expected that. What was unexpected was this: “G.M.A.†bouncing back to No. 1 within a week. Even the most optimistic staff members at ABC thought it would take two weeks. Others guessed three or four weeks or more.
“We're thrilled. We're excited. Yes, it was a great surprise,†Mr. Cibrowski said of the preliminary results, which showed “G.M.A.†with about 232,000 more viewers than â €œToday†for the full week. “But at the same time, it reinforces what we believe in right now - which is our team and the strength of our program.â€
In the 25- to 54-year-old demographic, “G.M.A.†was not quite as popular, with an average of 60,000 fewer viewers than “Today.†(The even-more-preliminary ratings had put “G.M.A.†8,000 ahead of “Today,†briefly giving the staff hope that it had won in that category, too.)
The tight race in the demographic will probably turn the staffs of the two shows even more competitive this week, as if that is even possible. Last week, Robin Roberts, the “G.M.A.†co-host, was on vacation, as was the weather host Sam Champion and, for two days, the co-host George Stephanopoulos; this week they're all back, at “full strength,†as Mr. Cibrowski put it. At the end of the month, however, Ms. Roberts will begin a long leave of absence to receive a bone marrow transplant. Her departure is seen as a major t est for the show this fall - and, in some quarters, as an opportunity for “Today†to claw back some viewers.
NBC asserted on Monday that “Today†had done just that, because it had stayed ahead in the 25- to 54-year-old demographic and had cut down on the total viewer lead that “G.M.A.†had the week before the games. (“G.M.A.†had won by more than half a million viewers that week.) But “Today†started the post-Olympic week about 300,000 viewers ahead of “G.M.A.†It ended the week closer to 200,000 viewers behind.
7:26 p.m. | Updated The NBC network has won the bidding war for a new sitcom starring Michael J. Fox, the actor famous for his roles on “Family Ties†and “Spin City†and for his public battle with Parkinson's disease.
The network announced Monday that it had made a 22-episode commitment to the untitled series, which will represent what it called Mr. Fox's “long-awaited return to series television on NBC, the network where it all began 30 years ago with ‘Family Ties.'†The series is scheduled to have its premiere in the fall of 2013.
In the series, Mr. Fox will play a father of three from New York City “dealing with family, career and challenges - including Parkinson's - all loosely drawn from Fox's real life,†the network said.
In a news release, the chairman of NBC Entertainment, Robert Greenblatt, said, “To bring Michael J. Fox back to NBC is a suprem e honor and we are thrilled that one of the great comedic television stars is coming home again.â€
He continued: “From the moment we met with Michael to hear his unique point of view about this new show, we were completely captivated and on board. He is utterly relatable, optimistic and in a class by himself, and I have no doubt that the character he will create - and the vivid family characters surrounding him - will be both instantly recognizable and hilarious. Being in business with him is a supreme pleasure.â€
Mr. Fox's statement was shorter. It read: “I'm extremely pleased to be back at NBC with a great creative team and a great show. Bob Greenblatt and all the folks at the network have given me a warm welcome home, and I'm excited to get to work.â€
Mr. Fox and Sony pitched the series to all the major networks earlier this summer. News of the pitch - and the eager network buyers - was reported last week.
Mr. Fox left “Spin City†in 200 0 as the symptoms of his Parkinson's disease worsened, but recently a new regimen of drugs has made it easier for him to resume acting, according to an interview he granted to ABC in May. He recently taped guest spots on “Curb Your Enthusiasm†and “The Good Wife.â€
As Representative Todd Akin struggled to stay in his Senate race in Missouri for his comments about how pregnancy cannot happen in cases of “legitimate†rape, one journalist fought to stay in the race to cover him.
Dave Catanese, a reporter with Politico, posted tweets saying that Mr. Akin's comments about rape were worth discussing. Mr. Catanese said in his most recent post, “Bad idea trying to have nuanced conversation on highly charged issue on here. Did not intend to take a side. Lesson learned.â€
John F. Harris, editor in chief of Politico, declined to comment about Mr. Catanese. But a memo sent out on Monday and signed by Mr. Harris and Jim VandeHei, Politico's executive editor, sa id, “David Catanese crossed a line a reporter shouldn't cross on Twitter when he seemed to weigh in on the merits of Todd Akin's comments - especially in a way many people, including many Politico colleagues, understandably found offensive.â€
Mr. Harris said that because Mr. Catanese' comments were a “distraction to his own work, and to the newsroom as a whole,†he was removed from Akin coverage.
Mr. Catanese did not respond to a request for comment on Monday. But as many people on Twitter continued to denounce his statements and speculated whether he should be prevented from covering women's issues entirely, at least one female follower came to his defense.
“You provoked thought and discussion and it was a good thing. Please don't regret it.â€
ABC News appears to have stumbled on flawed reporting for the second time in a month.
Late Monday, ABC backed off an earlier report saying that Tony Scott, the movie director who committed suicide on Sunday, had inoperable brain cancer. ABC attributed the information â€" quickly picked up around the globe, often crediting ABC - to “a source close to Scott.â€
But after TMZ.com and other news outlets, including a local ABC station in Los Angeles, reported that Mr. Scott's family was not aware of any cancer, ABC News posted an updated article on its Web site: “Tony Scott Brain Cancer Report Appears in Doubt.â€
An ABC spokeswoman said the updated information “will also be included on air i n the next show up â€" our overnight news show, ‘World News Now' â€" and on ‘Good Morning America.'â€
On July 20, an ABC reporter falsely linked the man accused of killing 12 people in a Colorado movie theater to a statewide Tea Party organization. The news division and the reporter, Brian Ross, later apologized for the error, which was made in an off-the-cuff manner on “Good Morning America.â€
