Upfront update: A&E rebrands; History stays course One of A&E Television Networks’ channels is getting a makeover while another is going with more of what works. At its upfront presentation yesterday the A&E network revealed a new logo and tagline, “Real Life. Drama.” Following that theme, A&E will roll out three new reality shows this year: “The Squad,” which follows a 12-person police team; “Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal,” a companion to “Paranormal State;” and “Jacked!,” about The Auto Theft Task Force in Northern New Jersey. The network will launch the miniseries “The Andromeda Strain” on Memorial Day and its first original scripted series “The Cleaner,” with Benjamin Bratt, later in the summer. Meanwhile, AETV’s other main network, the History Channel, has seven new series in production: “Evolve,” a look at key innovations throughout history; “Extreme Trains,” about the world’s most incredible trains; “The Works,” a series that dishes out little-known facts; “American Original Sandhogs,” about the tunnels beneath New York City; “Surviving History,” which tests historical weapons; “What Went Down,” computer-generated recreations of important historical events; and “Battles B.C.,” a profile of ancient battles and heroes. During first quarter A&E’s primetime viewership among adults 18-49 was about flat to the same period last year (good for No. 5 on ad-supported cable), while History’s 18-49 audience grew 29 percent year-to-year.   Latest paper cuts coming at N&O and O.C. Register On the same day more sinking newspaper circulation numbers were released, two papers announced yet more efforts to trim staff. The Orange County Register said it will eliminate 5 percent of its workforce, citing declining ad revenue, while the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer, one of McClatchy’s largest papers, said it is offering 204 of its 900 employees a buyout package. The latter follows other McClatchy papers, including the Sacramento Bee, in offering voluntary buyouts, though the N&O does not expect many people to take advantage of the offer. It attributed the move to concerns over declining revenue and rising fuel and newsprint costs. Meanwhile, the O.C. Register has made a number of small cost-cutting moves over the past few months, including eliminating its stand-alone business section and halving the production of a six-day-per-week tabloid. It says 80 to 90 people will lose their jobs. Papers have been cutting staff for several years now amidst a long decline in circulation and more recent ad revenue woes. Audit Bureau of Circulations numbers released yesterday found a 3.6 percent slump in daily circulation for more than 500 daily papers across the country.   In Indiana, one newspaper turns to the postal service Older newspaper employees aren’t the only ones losing their jobs. At the Washington (Ind.) Times-Herald, paper carriers are going the way of hot type. The paper said this week that it will no longer be using paper boys and girls to deliver the daily news, instead sending it through the U.S. postal service. The newspaper will arrive with the mail, though publisher Ron Smith assured subscribers that nothing else about the paper has changed. He attributed the switch to those twin problems dogging much of the newspaper industry, rising fuel and newsprint costs, which “have forced us to look to alternative ways for our readers to receive our product.” The newspaper will still be delivered the same day, Smith said, and the change will happen on June 2.   Study: Women fret over financial strain on families What women want is essentially the same thing advertisers do -- a more stable economy. With the country slipping into an apparent recession, women have become concerned about financial strain on their families. A new study of more than 3,000 women conducted by Meredith Corporation and NBC Universal found that 60 percent worry about paying their monthly bills, while 68 percent say financial strain is a big threat to the American family, moreso than divorce, couples living together instead of marrying, and loss of faith and spirituality. Thirty-eight percent report feeling “overwhelmed by financial burdens,” which rises to 47 percent among Generation Xers, 30 percent of whom report carrying non-mortgage debt of more than $20,000. Almost 80 percent of women in two-income households say that “it is essential for both spouses/partners to be employed” to make ends meet.   Limbaugh's latest controversy: Imagining DNC riots Rush Limbaugh has been raising hackles again. Last week on his syndicated radio show, Limbaugh said that he dreamed of rioting during August’s Democratic National Convention in Denver. Limbaugh clarified that he was not trying to incite riots, but rather dreaming that there would be riots in Denver during the convention. However, Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) wrote a letter Friday to Clear Channel, which owns the station where Limbaugh is heard in Denver, calling for a rebuke for what Salazar deems incendiary comments. “It is wrong to have political partisans of any stripe suggesting that violence is somehow an acceptable outcome of our political conventions,” he writes in the letter, which has been published on the KOA-AM Denver web site. Clear Channel Radio Rocky Mountain Region senior vice president Lee Larson, to whom the letter was addressed, says there are no plans to reprimand Limbaugh, who, thanks to freedom of speech, has the right to express his opinions.