The Breakfast Meeting: Publishing Consolidates, and Creeping \'Christmas Creep\'

Despite the storm, David Letterman broadcast from Midtown Manhattan on Monday night, without a studio audience. Above, Denzel Washington braved the elements to appear on the show, entering in a yellow slicker while the band played Bob Dylan's song “Hurricane,” which did double duty for Mr. Washington, who portrayed the boxer Rubin Carter in the film “The Hurricane.”

The planned merger of Random House and Penguin, announced on Monday, could be the start of even more consolidation in publishing, Eric Pfanner and Amy Chozick report. As e-books become more central to commercial publishing, the thinking goes, the competition is not only from rival publishers but from online giants like Amazon, Google and Apple.

• The decision by the publishers' parent companies, Bertelsmann and Pearson, to create a combined company with about 25 percent of the A merican market will need regulatory approval, but there could be a benefit from being the first of the Big Six publishers to combine. As one analyst explained: “It's easier to argue that the industry going from six to five publishing houses won't change the market, than arguing that going from five to four players won't impact competition.”
• Interest in Penguin by News Corporation, which owns the publisher HarperCollins, may have sped up the merger. Rupert Murdoch, who runs News Corporation, took to Twitter to mock the merger: “Bertelsmann-Penguin faux merger disaster. Two publishers trying to contract while saying opposite. Let's hear from authors and agents!”

The Supreme Court on Monday heard a copyright case over the sale of imported textbooks on eBay, Adam Liptak reports. At issue is whether the so-called first-sale doctrine - which says that owners of particular copies of products made in the United States can later lend them or sell them - al so applies to copies made abroad. In the case of textbooks, prices can be lower overseas, and one enterprising student from Thailand helped pay for his education by selling copies that his family shipped to him. The publisher John Wiley & Sons sued him.

“Christmas creep” is in full effect this year, Stuart Elliott writes, with many retailers planning to start their holiday campaigns this week. Some, like Target and Toys “R” Us, are already on the air with ads. This development can still seem a shock to those used to Thanksgiving as the start of the Christmas shopping season, but it appears to work for the stores and the shoppers. In an uncertain economy, retailers want to get customers as soon as possible, and consumers have welcomed a longer shopping season to seek out better deals.

Noam Cohen edits and writes for the Media Decoder blog. Follow @noamcohen on Twitter.