More deli and meat selections, better signage and additional "international" products are in the works, according to the OC Register's Nancy Luna. An announcement could come as early as next week. Analysts say that the fledgling chain, which is owned by the British retailer Tesco, has not been doing well (store openings were suspended in March in order to smooth out the wrinkles). Tesco executives insist that sales are just fine, but I'll side with the analysts. Businesses don't make wholesale changes after six months if everything is terrific. Luna went to two OC stores to see what was happening.

Employees at both the Orange and Laguna Hills stores (who were incredibly friendly to this undercover shopper) said stores are receiving more new items daily, especially in the deli and meat aisle. New items are also marked with blue “new” labels, so products stand out. For example, I bought some ready-to-cook “pork sausage pinwheels” and “Texas brand ribs,” both new items I found in Orange. I was told by an employee that stores are adding more sausages and ready-to-cook meats based on customer feedback.

Out of the blue (at least to us outsiders), News Corp. has pulled its $580 million bid for the Tribune-owned Long Island newspaper, just days after CEO Rupert Murdoch told analysts that a deal was imminent. It seems that he was unwilling to match the $650-million offer by Cablevision, which is controlled by the Dolan family and has a bunch of Long Island ties. Also making a $580-million offer - and considering upping that - is NY Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman. What's interesting about all this is how confident Murdoch was sounding about doing the deal with Tribune CEO Sam Zell. From the conference call:

I don’t think Cablevision will prevail. Just be patient for a couple of days, will you? We are certainly not in the business of getting into an auction here.

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We’re hoping to wrap it up within the next week, and I don’t mean the end of next week. I mean within the next seven days, but it takes two to agree but we are at a pretty advanced stage. I’ll just leave it at that at the moment.

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I trust Mr. Zell absolutely. He’s famous as being a man of his word and we think everything is in hand.

Two ego-infused billionaires negotiating a big-time deal? Now that would be quite a show (where’s Anthony Pellicano when you need him?). Anyway, there’s no telling what went wrong, but it is worth noting that Murdoch was quoted at a Time magazine banquet as saying that the sale could take longer to work out than what he indicated during the conference call. His plan had been to combine the Newsday and NY Post printing operations, but keep the newsrooms separate. As for Zell, there was some silly speculation that he would want to align himself with Murdoch, even if it meant walking away from an extra $70 million. Yeah, right. Here's the Reuters story.

*As the NYT points out, Cablevision’s offer was not truly worth $70 million more than the others because Cablevision was also bidding for the real estate, while Murdoch and Zuckerman had agreed to let Tribune continue to own it. Even with that difference, Cablevision’s offer was still the highest by perhaps $40 million.

These are cellphone companies that package all kinds of features and re-sell the phone service part through Sprint Nextel. L.A.-based Helio was started by Sky Dayton and, like Virgin Mobile, has been under pressure in the face of slowing growth. You might recall that Disney dropped its Disney Mobile service last year, and L.A.-based Amp'd Mobile declared bankruptcy (these businesses burn lots of cash). Anyway, Helio and Virgin are in advanced merger talks, according to the WSJ, and could announce a deal in the coming weeks. Both companies have problems, but for different reasons.

Virgin, which markets prepaid plans popular with lower-income customers, is being squeezed by increasing competition from other low-end providers such as Leap Wireless International Inc. and MetroPCS Communications Inc., as well as the economic downturn, which has hit less affluent customers like Virgin's especially hard, said Michael Nelson, a telecom analyst at Stanford Financial Group. "Their customers are purchasing fewer minutes," he said.

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Helio, which sells high-end handsets and services that tend to be more expensive and data-intensive, appeals to younger, tech-savvy consumers. It has relatively high average revenue per user of more than $85 per month, but only a few hundred thousand subscribers. That has hurt its bottom line. A venture between SK Telecom Ltd Inc. and EarthLink Inc., Helio said in September that it expected a full-year net loss of $340 million to $360 million. EarthLink reduced its stake after Helio's weak performance weighed on its own results last year.

By the way, Dayton stepped down as the CEO earlier this year to become chairman. He had previously started Earthlink and Boingo, and tends to be more of a start-up guy than an operator.

Boy, talk about your sign of the times. The Bloomingdale's by-mail catalog is being discontinued next year in favor of a major push to online retailing on the Bloomingdales.com Web site. Might this be a harbinger of similar moves by other retailers? Well, Bloomingdale's CEO Michael Gould issued some gobbledygook comments in announcing the transition that would seem to point that way.

“As more customers turn to the Web for access to Bloomingdale’s, their shopping experience must be brand-right. We intend to implement various enhancements to the Web experience, including ones that can bring to life some of our celebrated special events. Eliminating the paper catalog is also consistent with our sustainability and environmental policies of communicating more with customers electronically and less in paper.”

Mail catalogs are, of course, a lot pricier to produce than simply placing items on the Web. And we could be approaching one of those techno-tipping points where consumers become just as comfortable using an online retail site as they are using a catalog. Even so, I wonder about the "flip factor" that would seem to eliminate a lot of impulse buying, at least for a certain generation of shoppers.

The Bev Hills billionaire wants to boost his stake in the car company from 4.7 percent to 5.5 percent. That follows an unsuccessful effort last year to bid on Ford's Jaguar and Land Rover divisions. Tracinda Corp., which is Kerkorian's investment arm, said in a filing today that it may "from time to time, propose business strategies and, subsequent to the expiration of the offer, acquire additional shares.” Hmmm. In 1995, he made an unsuccessful bid to take over Chrysler and more recently he became the largest individual shareholder in GM before pulling out when the board rejected his suggestion for a linkup with Nissan and Renault. So what's up with Ford? The Tracinda filing says there's no "present intent to acquire or influence control over the business of Ford.” Hmmm. The filing does offer the backstory on how Kerkorian's right-hand man, Jerry York, got hooked up with Ford CEO Alan Mulally and CFO Don Leclair. The three met on April 4 at Mulally’s office in Dearborn. Here's a Bloomberg story and below is a summary of the meetings, courtesy of the Detroit Free Press (note the mention of Century City attorney Terry Christensen, who has been indicted in the Pellicano case).

They discussed various topics, including the automobile industry and the credit crisis. No material non-public information regarding Ford was provided to York. During the meeting, York informed Mulally and Leclair that Tracinda had an interest in investing in Ford. On April 26-27, York had various communications with Leclair, in which York requested a meeting with Mulally or Leclair on Sunday, April 27, or Monday, April 28. After having been informed that neither Mulally nor Leclair would be available to meet, York informed Leclair on Sunday evening that Tracinda had purchased 100 million shares of Ford common stock and planned to issue a press release on April 28, announcing its intention to commence a tender offer for an additional 20 million shares.

During that Sunday evening call, York read the portion of Tracinda’s press release dealing with Tracinda’s assessment of Ford to Leclair. On Friday, May 2, York contacted Leclair, via telephone and e-mail, to apologize for off-the-cuff remarks about Volvo and Mercury made by him during an interview with “Automotive News” regarding General Motors. York reiterated his and Tracinda’s belief in Ford management and admiration for their accomplishments. On Tuesday, May 6, Terry Christensen, an attorney for Tracinda, received a telephone call from Bill Ford, in which a possible future meeting of representatives of Ford and Tracinda was discussed. On Thursday, May 8, 2008, representatives of Tracinda informed representatives of Ford that Tracinda planned to commence the tender offer on Friday, May 9, 2008.

This time, two Romanians have dismissed their discrimination and fraud case against the film's producers. Nicolae Todorache and Spiridom Ciorebea, who were depicted in the opening scenes (a Romanian village substituted for Kazakhstan), didn't pursue their case after filing one of the early "Borat" suits. So far, plaintiffs haven't gotten far in their allegations, most of which center on the producers somehow tricking them into the film (and of course having them act like idiots). A NY judge dismissed the claims of a pedestrian who was accosted, and a California judge shot down claims by fraternity brothers. Matthew Heller at THR, Esq. has been keeping tabs on the outstanding cases.

Gas prices ease: Not that you'll notice. The Auto Club survey shows that the average price of self-serve regular gasoline in L.A. is $3.896, a whole six-tenths of one cent lower than last week. Consider it more of a pause - oil prices reached $125.12 a barrel in electronic trading on the NYMEX and that will hit gas pumps soon enough. (AP)

Circuit City relents: The struggling electronics retailer now says it will allow Blockbuster to examine its books. This is an about-face from CC's skeptical response to Blockbuster's unsolicited takeover bid, which is now valued at $1 billion. Wall Street also has been skeptical because of the company’s own financial problems. (DealBook)

Mixed results at Tribune: Technically, the LAT parent company reported a big increase in first-quarter net income. But that was only because of Tribune's mammoth tax gain. It's a far different story when looking at operating results, especially on the publishing side. Tribune doesn't break out numbers for specific papers, but the overall publishing division saw a 15 percent drop in ad revenue, largely the result of a 27 percent drop in classified ad revenue. The company's broadcasting and entertainment group did better. (Chicago Tribune)

Warner closes movie units: Picturehouse and Warner Independent, which specialize in lower-budget indie-type features, will be eliminated under Time Warner's continued budget-cutting efforts. The closings, which apparently came as a surprise, will eliminate more than 70 positions. The Warner Bros. honchos insist that they'll still handle small movies - something about increased efficiencies - but there are lots of skeptics. From Variety:

The conglom, while still coping with integration angst after the AOL deal, dragged its feet years ago about entering the sector already occupied by affiliates of Sony, News Corp., Disney and Universal. Meanwhile, studio-linked breakouts like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Traffic," on top of true indie smashes like "Blair Witch Project" and "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," demonstrated both audience appetite and profit potential. More recent times have seen far-pricier specialty titles such as "Babel" and "Atonement" vie for Oscars and B.O. while costing a comparative fortune to make and market. As the line gets blurrier between studio and specialty fare, still-newer entrants to the derby fueled by outside financing further cluttered the release sked.

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[Alan Horn, Warner's president and chief operating officer,] said that with some 600 pics now released annually, the specialty biz has become less financially attractive in recent years. He also said that such pics have become more likely to screen at multiplexes rather than arthouse venues and expressed confidence in Warner's distribution side to ensure that smaller films receive the proper handling.

Container shortage: With a very weak dollar, exports are way up, which is good news. But in the Department of Unintended Consequences, there's now a shortage of containers to ship corn, soybeans and frozen pork to wherever. Up until now, containers coming into the U.S. often weren't sent back because there was nothing to put in them. From the WSJ:

"My partner and I are pulling our hair out trying to figure out what to do," said Larry Jansky, a senior trader in agricultural commodities for North Pacific Group Inc., which trades specialty grains and is based in Portland, Ore. Birdseed and other grain cargo he had scheduled to leave the country for the Far East and Caribbean in late February and early March now won't ship until later this month, he said.

Janitors resume talking: During a meeting with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, they agreed go back to the table. The union local has already authorized a strike and staged spot walkouts. Negotiations between the janitors and cleaning contractors broke down early Wednesday. (LAT)

More AFTRA talks: The actors union will be meeting with the studios and networks for the third day. No word yet on any progress. (Variety)

Big OC sale: It's a 1.4-acre property in Corona del Mar that overlooks Newport Harbor. The 20,000-square-foot home is built around a pool and has four bedrooms, five full and three half baths, a gym, a theater and an eight-car garage (accessible by elevator). Wendy and Rick Aversano, who co-founded data-transmission company Qtera, sold the house to an investment group for $28 million. (WSJ)

This may come as bad news in some parts of Hollywood, but Disney has re-signed Stephen McPherson as president of the network. Based on what’s been written, this is not a nice guy. At a television critics convention, he supposedly told a group of reporters that he hoped one of their absent colleagues had been in a car crash. He once called NBC executive Ben Silverman "either clueless or stupid." What he does do well - too well for the Mouse House to ignore - is develop successful TV shows, including "Grey's Anatomy" and "Dancing with the Stars." The new contract was hashed out after months of negotiations – and some uncertainty about whether CEO Bob Iger would have the stomach to keep him on. Here's the story about his new deal and here's an earlier NYT profile:

He exhibits a blunt, temperamental style that at times creates a frosty relationship with his superiors and leaves subordinates ducking for cover, say current and former Disney executives. He fires off nuclear e-mail messages, fumes over downbeat ratings and once yanked a $10 million comedy after a single broadcast because he didn’t like its creative direction. “He’s confident in his opinions. He doesn’t sugarcoat. His position doesn’t sway in the wind,” said Rich Frank, former president of Walt Disney Studios. “That can leave people raw.”

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Writers credit him with making specific creative tweaks that helped some of these shows become hits. Marc Cherry, the creator of “Desperate Housewives,” said Mr. McPherson persuaded him to rethink the casting of the show’s narrator. “He suggested — not ordered, suggested — that I consider a voice with more theatrics in it,” Mr. Cherry said. “I will be forever grateful for that observation.” When Mr. McPherson took over ABC three years ago, he made some important operational changes, too. He stopped marketing new shows equally, a vestige of the pre-cable era intended to keep producers happy. And he was the first Big Four network executive to aggressively court the country’s growing Hispanic audience (including dubbing shows into Spanish and pushing his staff to cast more Hispanic actors).