Marianne Paskowski

Wall Street analysts remain baffled over Cablevision System Corp.’s $650 million purchase of Newsday Media Group from Tribune Co. earlier this week.

They’re asking what does a cable multiple system operator know about the challenging, if not daunting, task of running a profitable newspaper in these times? Most newspapers are not profitable.

Then analysts ask why Cablevision is on a shopping spree. Remember, a week earlier the MSO acquired the Sundance Channel for roughly $500 million.

CNBC’s “Fast Money” team thought Cablevision is not treating shareholders fairly. The Dolan family, owners of Cablevision, have all of the voting shares.

One frustrated analyst said the real play here is for Cablevision to spend money, drive the stock down and once again try to take the company private, something it has attempted to do several times before.

Do you buy that conspiracy theory? I do not.

When I first heard that the NBC Universal owned-and-operated station WNBC-TV in New York was launching a 24-hour local news channel this fall, I thought it was a great idea.

Now I’m having second thoughts. For starters, the new cable channel might maim the local broadcast news, which is already hurting big time.

And let’s get real. WNBC is more than a decade late in getting into the hyper-news game.

For years Time Warner Cable has won big audiences for its NY1 24-hour local news service. It’s an excellent service, especially for straphangers who want to learn which subways are down.

In outlying suburban communities in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, Cablevision Systems has pretty much cornered the local news arena with its popular News 12 channel. Actually it has three local channels devoted to weather, traffic and news. It works just fine.

Here is one upside: Viewers in other areas of New Jersey that have Comcast Cable as their provider are about the only viewers who will benefit, because the nation’s largest MSO doesn’t provide a hyper-local news service for that market.

And here’s another sliver of hope. Maybe the NBC all-news channel will get some ratings with viewers who have satellite TV service, or Verizon’s FiOS.

But that’s about the extent of the upswing I see for this new offering from NBCU.

Am I missing something here?

As if things weren’t bad enough for NBC, the broadcast net that has the broadcast rights to the Beijing Summer Olympics starting Aug. 8, now China is experiencing an outbreak of a potentially fatal hand, foot and mouth virus.

In recent weeks Chinese officials reported 15,799 cases of the virus, which has killed 28 children so far. I really wonder why the International Olympics Committee chose this site.

The IOC had to know early on. After all, this hand, foot and mouth virus is nothing new. Last year there were 80,000 reported cases of the disease that resulted in 17 deaths in China.

So what’s next? First there was the bad air issue that led several athletes to say they would sit out the competition. The unrest in Tibet continues. The Olympic torch ceremonies were met with protest around the world.

A plague of locusts next? This blogger would not be surprised.

Fifteen-year-old Miley Cyrus, the billion-dollar baby of Disney’s “Hannah Montana” franchise, is on the hot seat for posing semi-nude for Vanity Fair magazine.

What is the big deal? I saw the Annie Leibovitz photo of Cyrus that showed only her bare back, with the rest of her body gracefully wrapped in a sheet. I call that art.

According to published reports, parents with 6- to 14-year-old daughters are up in arms over the photos because Cyrus is supposed to be a squeaky-clean role model and a haven of safety for children.

The Vanity Fair article quotes Cyrus as saying the photo “wasn’t in a skanky way.” However, later, her handlers issued a statement from her saying she was embarrassed and that she apologized to her fans.

Does she have anything to apologize about? I hardly think so.

Interesting, and possibly risky, rebranding effort for Oxygen, the women’s cable network now owned by NBC Universal.

The new branding effort is aimed at the 18-34 demo, or “Generation O,” as the network defines the younger strata of its audience, which spans the 18 to 49 age spread.

So what are Generation O’s? According to Oxygen, they are “trenders, spenders and recommenders.” That’s got to resonate with Madison Avenue media buyers in quest of the holy grail: younger viewers.

But could that buzzword Generation O actually backfire?

Health care experts and pediatricians actually define Generation O as Generation Obese, consisting of fat youngsters in the nation.

Who knew? Apparently, Oxygen did not.

It came as absolutely no surprise to me that “The CBS Evening News,” anchored by Katie Couric, hit its ratings low last week, attracting only 5.39 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

Forget about Katie Couric. She’s not the problem. The concept of a broadcast network evening newscast is just so passe. When was the last time you watched any of them, let alone recorded a newscast for later viewing?

I don’t even remember what time any of them air because, like most people, I get my news online or on cable nets whenever I feel like it.

The broadcast networks are broken because they are reluctant to part with old traditions. They’d be better off programming the hour with syndicated fare because newscasts are no longer the great lead-ins to access and prime-time viewing that they once were.

Or heaven forbid, switch out the network news with another reality-based show. How do you like my idea “Dancing in the Past”?

I just knew yesterday when I got that email blast from the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org that ABC would pay in the headlines today. (MoveOn supports Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama and not his opponent Hillary Clinton.)

Press coverage today was indeed highly critical of the way ABC’s Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos led a debate between Democratic hopefuls Clinton and Obama on Wednesday.

ABC News’ Web site was jammed with comments highly critical of the “gotcha” style of the first 45 minutes of the two-hour debate. The moderators focused on Obama’s link to Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his more recent comments about rural Americans using guns and religion as crutches.

Clinton didn’t fare any better, being constantly reminded of her false campaign claim that she was under fire in Bosnia while first lady.

Frankly, by the time the questioning moved on to more pertinent issues like the economy and the war in Iraq, I was surfing elsewhere.

Did you watch? Do you think ABC’s two moderators were out of control? I do.

But it doesn’t matter. Wednesday’s ABC debate was the most-watched of this political race, attracting 10.7 million viewers according to Nielsen Media Research.

So expect to see more of the same in upcoming debates.

Caught sight of my favorite media analyst, Pali Research’s Rich Greenfield, on CNBC and he did not disappoint.

He’s kind of like Mikey, the kid in the old TV spot for Life cereal who hates everything. True to form, he bashed just about all companies in the sector, saying there’s a “clearance sale for media stocks.”

But there are seemingly no takers, with much of the sector flat at best. Greenfield said CBS, which was trading at $21.55 a share when I checked, should go out and buy a cable network and start growing something.

Why bother? Discovery Holdings Corp., with its stable of branded networks, isn’t doing that much better, trading at $21.66.

Investors want growth stocks and there aren’t any in media. The real growth, no pun intended, is in fertilizer. Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan was on fire today, trading at $195.87, up another 12% today.

And that’s why I, like Greenfield, can say I never met a media stock I liked.

Have you?

If various published reports are true, the editors and reporters at Tribune-owned Newsday have to be leaping for joy, hearing today that Cablevision Systems Inc., the multiple-system cable provider in its own back yard, is not interested in acquiring the newspaper.

Newsday business and sports reporters have long had their tussles covering this highly guarded MSO. Indeed, any reporter having to cover Cablevision is very used to the typical “no comment” response even to the most benign questions.

All found that cold-shoulder response strange, given that Cablevision long ago launched its very popular local “News Channel 12,” and should know about the give-and-take involved in running a newsgathering organization.

I knew a fellow journalist who briefly took a job in the communications department at Cablevision. He said it was like wearing handcuffs and that the company’s philosophy was “no ink is good ink.” He left and ran back to the not-so-lucrative world of journalism.

Why is it that television newsgathering organizations are so tight-lipped when the tables are turned and they have to answer rather than ask the questions?

One of the biggest stories on cable news networks today was American Airlines’ grounding of 1,000 flights, which stemmed from an FAA mandate demanding inspection of the airline’s workhorse fleet, the MD-80.

The problem and the news coverage ramped up during the day. The footage of stranded passengers at airports, scrambling to make other plans, was a scene many of us have been part of ourselves.

And for once this couch potato was just a voyeur and not a participant.

The trouble began Tuesday afternoon when American grounded 460 flights. By this morning, that number grew to 800 canceled flights and by 1 p.m. the number of grounded flights escalated to more than 1,000.

If you missed the story and plan to fly American tomorrow, consider bagging your plans, as the delays are expected to expand into Thursday.

Or should you? I often wonder if cable news nets over-hype stories like this or actually provide solid service journalism.

I ask because last Thanksgiving, we drove to Chicago rather than fly, our decision based largely on countless news stories predicting very bad weather that would cripple O’Hare Airport.

Guess what? It wasn’t at all.