Unnecessary roughness: Coach is sorry for shove
First Bill Belichicks New England Patriots took down the New York Jets 37-16, then he took down a photographer from The Boston Globe. After a day at bristling over the medias obsession with the moment in question, the surly coach finally apologized. After Sundays playoff game, Belichick shoved his way through the mass of people collected on the field to give a proper postgame greeting to his former protg, Jets coach Eric Mangini. Amid that crowd was Globe shutterbug Jim Davis, who tried to move out of the way but was pushed by the Super Bowl winning-coach. Belichick finally called Davis yesterday to apologize, though on Sunday he didnt seem too broken up about it at his postgame press conference. Really, I've had enough of that, the Boston Herald quoted him as saying. There were 80 [expletive] people between me and Eric. I'm just trying to coach the team, that's all. It's certainly not the first time a photographer has been pushed by a pro sports person. In the summer of 2005, then-Texas Rangers pitcher Kenny Rogers shoved two cameramen and threw a camera to the ground.

Fast Company ups the pace: Fortune's Safian joins
There are changes afoot at Fast Company as the magazine continues to attempt to revive its ad pages. Robert Safian will leave his job as executive editor at Fortune to become editor and managing director of the business magazine. He replaces Mark Vamos, who was editor but will now become editor at large for Fast Company owner Mansueto Ventures. Prior to his stint at Fortune, the 42-year-old Safian was an executive editor at Time magazine and headed Money magazine as its managing editor for six years. Times have been tough for Fast Company in recent years. A star up through the dot.com bubble, the magazine suffered badly during the bust, as did other business publications, particularly the so-called New Economy magazines. Joe Mansueto, founder and CEO of investment research company Morningstar, bought the ailing publication from Gruner + Jahr in July 2005 and has been pushing to revive it. Last year, Jay Goldberg, publishing director of Mansueto Ventures, told Media Life the aim was to push ad pages at Fast Company back up to 2001 levels by 2009. For full 2006, the titles ad pages were down 13.6 percent, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.

Tribune, Gannett and McClatchy team for e-ad sales
Are newspapers getting desperate or just smart? With papers circulation and advertising in decline, the country's three largest newspaper publishers -- Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune -- plan to sell ads jointly for their web sites, according to The Wall Street Journal. The idea clearly is to recapture the ad revenue lost in their print editions and capitalize on the popularity of the internet. Rates will be cheaper than what advertisers would pay to appear in multiple papers, according to the Journal, and the companies hope big advertisers will be attracted by the idea of going to one clearinghouse to reach a big online audience. At present, major national advertisers often purchase space on the web from search monolith Google and the major portals, such as Yahoo, Time Warner's AOL and Microsoft's MSN. Officials at the three newspaper publishers weren't immediately available for comment this morning. Each company will probably make available 10 percent of their internet ad space to the venture, according to The Journal. An agreement hasn't been finalized, but the papers hope to have something in place in the first half of the year.

Way-hot NBC ends CBS's 15-week reign in viewers
Things are going well for NBC to start the new year. CBSs long winning streak among total viewers came to an end, and NBC had its best non-Olympic week in two years, thanks mostly to the Dallas Cowboys stunning loss Saturday night. NBC finished No. 1 for the week ended Jan. 7 with an average 11.53 million viewers, just topping CBSs 11.46 million. CBS had finished first the previous 16 weeks. NBC also took first in adults 18-49, averaging a 4.2 rating and 11 share, edging Fox for its fourth first-place finish in the last six weeks. It was NBCs best weekly average since the week of Jan. 10, 2005. The network has pulled into a three-way tie for first among 18-49s with CBS and ABC, though there could be drastic changes in those numbers over the coming weeks. Fox is expected to surge above its current 3.0 rating with the return of American Idol next week, while ABC, which owned the fall in that demo, should also rise with the return of original Greys Anatomy episodes this week and Lost next month. Most of NBCs strength has come from the addition of Sunday Night Football and the NFL playoffs, which are nearly over. Still, NBC is the only network showing year-to-year improvement, up 16 percent versus the same time last year, when it had a 3.1.

Dirty money: Stern and agent reap a Sirius bonus
Howard Stern made it his business to promote Sirius Satellite Radio even before his show on the satellite radio provider launched one year ago, to the point that former employer CBS Radio filed a lawsuit against him. But now he's reaping the benefits of stumping for the fledgling company. Sirius said yesterday that it was giving Stern and his agent $82.9 million in Sirius stock shares, a bonus for helping Sirius beat its year-end subscriber projections by more than 2 million. Stern's show on Sirius began last January, more than a year after he signed a contract to jump to satellite for five years and $500 million. He continued his CBS Radio show until December 2005. Sirius now has 6 million subscribers, while XM has 7.6 million subscribers.