The Breakfast Meeting: A New Chief at the Times Company and Farewells to H.G.B.

By THE EDITORS

Reaching well outside the newspaper business, The New York Times Company announced that it had hired Mark Thompson, the departing director general of the BBC, as its next president and chief executive. Mr. Thompson has worked almost his entire career at the public broadcaster, making him an unusual choice. Robert Andrews of paidContent gives a British perspective on the hire, and Ken Doctor, the newspaper analyst, offers his take.

Still wearing its Olympic halo, NBC returned to its regular programming Monday night and quickly fell off the beam. But on TNT, “Major Crimes,” the sequel to “The Closer,” enjoyed that show's halo a little longer, with 7.2 million viewers on Monday night.

DealBook reports that the auction for the huge photo agency and distributor Getty Images was won by the Carlyle Group, which paid $3.3 billion. Many of the company's top executives, including the co-founder, Mark Getty, an heir to the Getty oil fortune, will stay with the company.

Finally, several editors shared their memories of Helen Gurley Brown, the editor, author and Queen of the Pussycats who died Monday at the age of 90. “Helen Gurley Brown told me that she was so freaked out after her first day as the editor in chief of Cosmopolitan, that she literally crawled under her desk to hide,” writes Bonnie Fuller. “That's where her husband, David, found her when he came to pick her up at the end of the day.” More remembrances can be found here.