Quick Takes - Feb. 3, 2010

Oh, there she is

The Miss America pageant broadcast over the weekend attracted 4.5 million viewers, TLC said Tuesday, the largest audience since the show migrated to cable in 2006. Miss Virginia Caressa Cameron won the crown Saturday night.

Viewership was a million more than last year but far less than the 33 million who watched the pageant on broadcast TV in 1988. The show drew 9.8 million viewers the last time one of the major broadcast networks carried it; that was on ABC in 2004.

-- associated press Tufts winners are announced

D.A. Powell, who teaches at the University of San Francisco, on Tuesday won the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award from Claremont Graduate University for his book “Chronic,” published by Graywolf Press last year. Powell, 46, also wrote “Tea,” “Lunch” and “Cocktails.”

The Tufts prize was established in 1992 to honor work by a midcareer poet.

Claremont also announced that the $10,000 Kate Tufts Discovery Award was going to Beth Bachmann for her first book of poetry, “Temper.” Bachmann teaches at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

The awards will be presented April 22 at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. The free event is open to the public.

-- Lee Margulies Would O’Brien be profitable?

News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch said Tuesday that it’s up to Fox Broadcasting to make a case that a late-night show hosted by Conan O’Brien can make money.

“We’re giving it a lot of thought and a lot of examination,” Murdoch said when asked during a conference call on the company’s second-quarter earnings about the prospect of Fox doing a deal with O’Brien to host a late-night program.

O’Brien walked away from his job as host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show” last month after the network told him it wanted to move the show from 11:35 p.m. to after midnight to make room for Jay Leno.

Murdoch said the programmers at Fox Broadcasting -- Peter Rice and Kevin Reilly -- need to “show us we can do it and be fairly confident of making a profit.”

The issue for Fox is getting time in late night from its affiliate stations to carry O’Brien. The Fox affiliates and the Fox-owned TV stations show reruns of sitcoms in that hour that make them a lot of money.

The mogul said that although there have been conversations with O’Brien’s camp, there have been no “real negotiations.”

-- Joe Flint Demon VP of Wall Street

Drenched in equal parts blood and hit ‘80s pop tunes, Bret Easton Ellis’ novel “American Psycho” chronicled the fissured state of mind of Patrick Bateman, a homicidal New York yuppie who harbored a taste for designer suits and blunt instruments.

The 1991 novel’s runaway success spawned a movie starring Christian Bale. Now a musical theater adaptation appears to be on the fast track.

Duncan Sheik, who won two Tony Awards for “Spring Awakening,” will write the music and the lyrics for the show, it was announced Tuesday. Playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is set to write the book.

-- David Ng Picasso sells for $13 million

Pablo Picasso once again proved his appeal to wealthy collectors Tuesday when the artist’s portrait of his second wife, Jacqueline, was the top lot at Christie’s impressionist and modern art sale in London.

“Tete de femme (Jacqueline),” painted in 1963, fetched $13 million. Unseen in public since 1967, the painting was sold by descendants of the late Chicago collectors Kenneth and Bernice Newberger. The buyer was not disclosed.

-- wire reports Cowell leads charity single

A new charity single for Haiti featuring Mariah Carey, Jon Bon Jovi, Susan Boyle and Robbie Williams hit the Internet and airwaves Tuesday.

The cover version of R.E.M.’s famous ballad “Everybody Hurts” was put together by TV personality and music producer Simon Cowell, who gathered more than 20 stars to raise funds for survivors of the Jan. 12 earthquake.

-- reuters