Battered consumer magazine publishers are hoping for a rebound in 2010. Still, they were reminded on Monday just how brutal 2009 was, as the Audit Bureau of Circulations released its biannual report card.

Single copy sales – i.e. newsstand -- fell 9 percent during the second half of 2009; paid subscriptions dipped 2.3 percent.

Of the top 25 best-selling newsstand magazines, 20 were either flat or down during the last six months of 2009.

Just five -- Real Simple, O, The Oprah Magazine, Vanity Fair, Us Weekly, People Stylewatch – managed to increase the number of copies sold.

Others, like Good Housekeeping (down 30.75 percent) and OK! (-17.53 percent) took major hits. In Touch (-10.49 percent) was also down double digits.

Top 25 Bestselling Newsstand Magazines, July-Dec. 2009

1. Cosmopolitan 1,753,368 | –1.4%
2. People 1,325,330 | –10.0%
3. Woman's World 1,168,958 | –4.9%
4. First 1,041,011 | –6.4%
5. Us Weekly 812,089 | 1.9%
6. In Touch 746,973 | –10.5%
7. Family Circle 715,000 | –9.4%
8. InStyle 689,705 | –6.8%
9. O, The Oprah Magazine 662,304 | 5.8%
10. Glamour 587,677 | –4.0%
11. Lindy's Football Annuals 580,509 | –5.8%
12. Star 574,927 | –6.8%
13. National Enquirer 562,292 | –9.3%
14. People Stylewatch 536,934 | 1.9%
15. Woman's Day 469,068 | –7.2%
16. Life & Style 461,958 | 0.0%
17. Men's Health 438,238 | –13.8%
18. All You 432,801 | –1.0%
19. Vanity Fair 421,833 | 5.1%
20. Real Simple 411,705 | 6.2%
21. OK! Weekly 404,423 | –17.5%
22. Good Housekeeping 395,289 | –30.7%
23. Seventeen 392,262 | 0.1%
24. Everyday With Rachael Ray 367,744 | –3.0%
25. Weight Watchers 364,396 | –2.1%

SOURCE: ABC Fas-Fax

MTV changed its logo for the first time in roughly 30 years on Monday.

It was a minor change with major symbolism. The network -- known more for its scripted reality show programming these days than the music videos and industry it revolutionized -- dropped the “Music Television” tagline from the Frank Olinsky-designed original.

With the new look, MTV had those “Jersey Shore”-watching millennials in mind. Via the press release:

“It represents a new visually defined MTV, stimulating its past, present and future and embracing its diversity. Everything from Jersey Shore, to the VMAs to collaborations with the MoMA. The logo is part of MTV’s re-invention to connect with today’s millennial generation and bring them in as part of the channel.”

And with that, “Music Television” can officially rest in peace.

Howard Stern told his satellite radio listeners on Monday that he is considering leaving Sirius – and radio altogether -- to become a judge on “American Idol.”

Stern confirmed a report that Fox is interested in hiring the Sirius shock jock to replace Simon Cowell on the reality show.

“There’s not a better job on the planet than judging that f---ing karaoke contest,” Stern said.

“It might be possible, we’ll see,” he said, adding: “They’d have to pay me a ton of dough because I already make a ton of dough.”

Stern’s five-year, $500 million contract with Sirius expires at the end of the year.

Responding to a television report speculating Fox would have to match his current annual salary, Stern replied: “A $100 million to judge a karaoke contest? Yeah, I would do that show for $100 million.”

Stern said he would not do a radio show if he got the “Idol” gig. (Which makes me think that this, too, is pure posturing in a contract year.)

"If I do say so myself, I can't imagine anyone else but me replacing (Cowell),” Stern said. “I mean, I don't know. How else are they going to make that show work? Who knows how to broadcast and who knows how to be interesting? And who's not afraid to speak their mind?"

One hitch in the Stern-to-“Idol” scenario would be the King of All Media’s fear of flying. Stern said he turned down an opportunity to appear as a guest on “Tonight Show” during Conan O’Brien’s last week because he didn’t want to fly to Los Angeles.

On Monday, Stern said his fear would not prevent him from taking the “Idol” gig, despite the disparate auditions.

“It would be the best thing that happened to me,” he said. “What a cush job -- $100 million for four months. Who wouldn’t take that?”

By the end of the show, however, Stern jokingly offered what he might say as a judge -- the kind of offensive material that's made him a legendary shock jock but would all but kill the chance of Fox hiring him:

"Hey Fantasia, you're not getting little boys hard. Nobody's beating off to you. You look like you stepped out of a cartoon. Little boys want boners. They want a Britney Spears or a Rihanna. Little boys are scared that you are going to sit on them. You're out. Honey, you look like you stepped out of a Haitian earthquake. You've got to go clean up your act. Get a haircut like Rihanna if you want little boys beating off to you."

And his comments about Ellen DeGeneres and Randy Jackson were so offensive, I'd feel weird repeating them here.

More Stern coverage:

Is Stern Replacing Cowell on 'Idol'?
Howard Stern: I Was Offered Someone's TV Show
Howard Stern to Return to Terrestrial Radio?
A Sneak Peek Into Sirius' Howard Stern Negotiations

UPDATE: Howard Stern Confirms 'Idol' Talks

Is "American Idol" eyeing Howard Stern to replace Simon Cowell?

That's what the New York Post would like to have us believe. And the rumor that's been swirling the internet like a tsunami.

As you might expect, Fox -- which, like the Post, is owned by New Corp. -- isn't commenting.

At first glance, it would make sense for Fox: Take the meanest man in England and exchange him with the crudest man in either hemisphere. Could be an even swap.

And watching Stern's opinionated, prickly personality rub up against Ellen DeGeneres' oppressive niceness would be fun. It might even give the show the lift it desperately needs in a post-Simon, post-Paula world.

But would this work? Really?

It just seems like a marriage made in hell. Stern has a penchant for strippers and midgets, not Fantasia Barrino. The shock jock's musical taste run more towards Megadeth than Adam Lambert. In fact, he routinely lampoons the kind of starry eyed ingenues that "Idol" unleashes on the American public on a weekly basis.

Plus, with Ellen already on board, Stern's addition would mean that two out of the four judges would lack the necessary music bona fides. Mock "Straight Up" all you want, but Abdul still had some experience turning pop into gold.

That would leave Randy and Kara as the only ambassadors to the music industry.

And don't even get me started on the advertising exodus that would ensue the minute Stern unleashes some blue assessment of a would-be diva's performance.

Controversy might mean big ratings, but would Fox risk alienating much of Middle America and blue-chip sponsors like Coca-Cola just to have the King of All Media on board?

The rumors apparently originated with Stern's on-air claims that he had been offered someone's existing TV show should he decide to leave his home on Sirius radio. Stands to reason this might just be a negotiating ploy to try to get Sirius to sweeten its offer to the shock jock.

If Fox really wants a high-profile talent to take Cowell's mantle, I hear Conan's looking for a job. Leave the "Private Parts" scribe on the radio where he belongs, and bring Coco back to the boob tube.

I was highly critical of Vanity Fair's March cover, featuring what it deemed the next wave of Hollywood starlets -- all of them white.

I still am. (Graydon, no Zoë Saldana? Hello?)

But if you can get past that, inside the issue there's a perfectly pitched, inside Hollywood story penned by William Stadeim, who had been ghostwriting ex-Columbia Pictures head Jon Peters'  memoir. Stadeim quit, and gave Vanity Fair the backstory.

For those of you who are into that sort of thing, the piece is filled with juicy shiz, as Perez Hilton would say. It’s not up online yet, but here are some highlights ...

Stadeim, on meeting Peters for the first time:
The legendary Lothario I met for lunch at the Polo Lounge looked far less like Richard Gere than a boy in the hood. The then 63-year-old Jon Peters wore a black wool gangsta stocking cap pulled down to his shaded eyes and a baggy black tracksuit. Big (well over 6 feet) and bearish, he did have luxuriant gray hair and a biblical beard -- hairdresser plumage. Initially guarded and a bit surly, he was sheepish when he told me he wanted to write a book. “I’ve never really read a book,” he said. “But have I got stories.”

One of the stories:
“What about this? What if I have not one but two, two of my women calling me from the Lincoln Bedroom, saying, ‘I just f---ed the president.’ How’s that?”

Peters' conquests:
In addition to Lesley Ann Warren and Streisand, Peters clicked off liaisons with Pamela Anderson, Kim Basinger, Jacqueline Bisset, Linda Evans, Nicollette Sheridan, Sharon Stone, Leigh Taylor-Young, Vendela, and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

This sounds made up:
When he was 13, his mother sent him to New York City, to be in the care of two men she knew from the hairdressing circuit. As Peters described it, his guardians turned out to be gay sexual predators. After hearing them arguing about who would be the first to “get” him on his maiden night in New York, he climbed out of the window, scampered down a drainpipe, and began living on the streets.

Why Stadeim didn’t think Peters’ story would sell:
Despite his amusing tales and Charles Dickens Goes to Hollywood biography, I wasn’t at all sure that New York publishers would fall over themselves for Jon Peters himself. He wasn’t exactly Jerry Bruckheimer, and, even so, only two books by Hollywood producers had ever made an impact -- Julia Phillips’s 1991 career-suicide note "You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again" and Robert Evans’ "The Kid Stays in the Picture" a few years later.

On Peters’ delusion about the book business:
“Do you realize how many people have seen my movies? Billions! If 10 percent of them bought this book...” I tried to explain that one-10th of 1 percent was a more accurate projection, but he was ready to start tying in the book to the next "Superman" trailer -- “See the movie, read the book about the real Superman!” -- notwithstanding the fact that the proposed sequel had neither a director nor a script.

**

By the way, there are a couple of things Vanity Fair got right this month. The magazine has launched a free Oscars iPhone application (which, one would assume, could lead to an iPad-compatible issue once the Apple tablet is released this spring).

The app “allows you to match wits with your friends, tells you all you need to know about every nominee (yes, even 'Avatar’s' sound mixer extraordinaire Christopher Boyes), and, most importantly, lets you fill out your picks and see how you stack up against the competition, envelope-by-envelope.
Thanks to exclusive Vanity Fair content, you’ll be spending Hollywood’s big night bragging digitally about how right you were.”

There’s even a video introduction featuring Robert Evans.

OK, kind of cheesy.

More to read:
Where Are Hollywood's Hot, Young Black Women?

Round one in the Jon Stewart-Bill O'Reilly "Factor" bout was a draw (10-10 if you prefer using the 10-point must system).

Round two, which aired on Fox News Thursday, was another surprisingly chummy affair. But Stewart landed a couple polite haymakers.

Also, for completists, here's the entire, unedited interview:

Bill O'Reilly vs. Jon Stewart II (Videos)

Jon Stewart appeared on “The O’Reilly Factor” on Wednesday -- the first time the “Daily Show” host has been on the #1 rated Fox News show since 2004.

Part one of the interview – which lasted about 35 minutes I’m told – aired Wednesday, with the rest set to air tonight.

It made for entertaining television, although it wasn’t as contentious or adversarial as one would've hope for. (Also, either Jon Stewart is Tom Cruise-like small, or the Fox News producers were taking a subtle jab by drowning his frame in on-screen lower-thirds.)

The most interesting part came during a discussion about Fox News itself, and even that was laced with niceties. Said Stewart:

“Fox News is the most passionate and sells the clearest narrative of any news organization.”

And:

"You have become, in some ways, the voice of sanity here, which is like being the thinnest kid at fat camp."

Watch both parts from round one here:

Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.com

Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.com

More to read:

Jon Stewart to Appear on Bill O'Reilly's Show for First Time Since 2004

Is Fox Suddenly 'The Most Trusted Name in News'?

In the war over the price of e-books, it's looking like publishers are about to win a critical battle. But Amazon is still dragging its feet.

Amazon -- which had dug in its heels over its standard $9.99 price -- told customers over the weekend that it was caving in to Macmillan's demands to boost the price of its titles to $14.99. But the Kindle-maker sure is taking its sweet time putting Macmillan titles back on the e-shelves. 

It's now been four days since Amazon said it would reluctantly “capitulate” to Macmillan, and though the publisher's books began to trickle back onto the site Tuesday, many titles were still unavailable for hardcover purchase directly through Amazon’s store.

Whether Amazon was being passive-aggressive or just lazy isn't clear. But Amazon's snit with Macmillan is just only the tip of the iceberg: Not only has Apple said its iBooks store will charge $14.99, but News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch said on Tuesday's call with investors that he doesn't like HarperCollins' deal with Amazon -- and may challenge the bookseller's discount pricing, too.

In case you missed it, the latest book business brouhaha started last week, when pricing talks between Amazon and Macmillan broke off, and the Seattle-based bookseller stopped selling Macmillan titles directly on Friday.

On Saturday, Macmillan took out an ad in Publishers Lunch outlining its case, warning that it would delay the release of e-books if Amazon did not agree to its pricing model. On Sunday, Amazon released a statement to its customers, saying it would “have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books.”

And it’s bound to get uglier – and more complicated, with Apple’s impending launch of its iBookstore for the iPad.

Apple intends to price e-books at $14.99, essentially siding with book publishers in the hopes that they’ll cut deals with the iPad for exclusive releases, putting a dent into the Kindle’s market dominance. ("Publishers will actually withhold their books from Amazon," Steve Jobs told the Wall Street Journal, "because they are not happy with the price.")

But will Apple’s Kindle-killer strategy work?

That question could ultimately depend on e-book customers. There’s already a small movement organized by Kindle enthusiasts to boycott any e-book that is priced over $9.99.

“I think Amazon has quite successfully burned the $9.99 price point into the brains of digital readers,” said Jason Boog, editor of mediabistro.com’s book industry blog, GalleyCat. “If people are actively organizing boycotts against a certain price point, for better or for worse, Amazon has already won the price war.”

Boog predicts publishers “will be forced to offer a bare-bones $9.99 eBook edition for most books, and then build fancier ‘enhanced’ e-books for tablet computers and sell for a premium price.” (There’s precedent for this, as anyone who has downloaded an “enhanced” album on iTunes or bought a DVD loaded with extras can attest.)

Yet, as Daily Finance’s Sarah Weinman points out, $9.99 “is supposed to be this magical price point to hook customers and at least get them to feel that Amazon is looking out for them, when really they are looking out, first and always, for their bottom line.”

“The Kindle won't be killed anytime soon, even with the emergence of the iPad, because there is a market, however fixed, for dedicated e-readers,” Weinman said. “But I've long said the Kindle is like the Apple IIe once was, and there may yet be room for a device that combines the alleged awesomeness of the iPad with less emphasis on LCD backlit reading.”

The big thing for all parties now is a marketing issue.

“Amazon has done a great job of marketing the illusion that an e-book should be $9.99,” Weinman said. “So how can publishers tell consumers, in clear terms, why $9.99 is bad and convince them that discount culture shouldn't screw over the authors they profess to love?”