And there is reason to believe News Corp. feared this might be found out.

In addition to Mr. Angelo's name, there was another on the deed, one that points directly to the executive suite. Taxes are to be paid by "Statler LLC c/o Clare Sweeney." Ms. Sweeney, it turns out, is Rupert Murdoch's assistant. Numerous brokers insisted there is no way he would abandon his palace in the sky at 834 Fifth, for which he paid $44 million, all cash, in 2005. (Have we mentioned the Muppet Mansion was an all-cash buy, too?) When The Observer reached Ms. Sweeney yesterday, she declined to comment and promptly hung up the phone.

Meanwhile, two sources insist the home, which was being sold by fellow media titan Edgar Bronfman Jr., is not for Mr. Angelo, who is "living the bachelor's life downtown and would have no idea what to do with 12,000 square feet" (that is the size of the 40-foot-wide home). Nor is it for his parents, as John and Judy Angelo have been happily ensconced at the Dakota for decades, according to city records and a source.

"As the children of Anna [Murdoch] move up in the world, they may need houses in New York," one broker said.

The last (and first) property James Murdoch ever owned was another townhouse, at 58 Downing Street in Greenwich Village. He bought the home for $1.325 million in 1998, according to city records, two years after he joined News Corp. as an executive vice president. He took out a $700,000 mortgage to help pay for the place, which is a relatively miniscule 2,560 square feet, and sold it three years later for $1.993 million--not a bad deal.

News Corp. thoroughly declined to comment.

(Meanwhilde, not even Mr. Bronfman's daughter, Vanessa, who co-brokered the deal, knows who the buyer is. Her father handed over the commission check and that was it.)

RELATED: Bronfman Socked on Muppet Mansion by Murdoch Minion. >>

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

Publishers set the price and length of subscription (weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly or yearly). Then with one-click, customers pick the length of subscription and are automatically charged based on their chosen length of commitment (weekly, monthly, etc.)

Apple will continue to ring up the payments and take a 30 percent cut along the way. "Our philosophy is simple - when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing," said Steve Jobs in a statement.

So it looks like publishers get to keep the revenues coming from existing sbuscribers, but new subscribers' money goes in part to Apple. Score one for the news industry! Oh wait. As GigaOm points out, there's a big "On the other hand":

However, Apple does require that if a publisher chooses to sell a digital subscription separately outside of the app, that same subscription offer must be made available, at the same price or less, to customers who wish to subscribe from within the app. In addition, publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a web site, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app.

And so it seems that the longstanding kerfuffle between Apple and publishers over app revenues has not exactly been resolved.

mtaylor [at] observer.com | @mbrookstaylor

Murdoch's Sky News has a 3-D channel, but coverage of the event will now be restricted to boring old HD. We're disappointed--this could have been Rupert Murdoch's own Avatar in the UK, and, stateside, a truly exciting spread in The Daily! We'll put our 3-D glasses away.

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

He didn't have much to report beyond that. The newspaper will still cost 99 cents a week and focus on journalism, not digital bells and whistles. 

That last part runs contrary to what Peter Kafka wrote this morning.

"People familiar with the Daily tell me plans for future editions off the app include a gee-whiz feature which will allow correspondents to offer readers a 360-degree view of whatever they’re talking about."

3D video! You can't get that in some silly print edition. Check out an example of how the technology might work in this crazy 3D Doritos ad.

bpopper [at] observer.com | @benpopper

It seems, however, that someone got a little sour at having been excluded from the cool kids' party. Media Decoder informed us that Fox News' Greta Van Susteren took to her blog yesterday with a mini-rant about the party, just the latest example of the glitz and excesses that she feels defines the elitism of CNN. Fox, she insists, would never waste money on such frivolity. A fancy-schmancy UES shindig? When there are viewers in the heartland who need to get their fair and balanced news? Shame, CNN, shame.

It is so different over here at Fox than CNN.  I can't imagine Fox News Channel or friend of Fox News Channel having some fancy "launch party" at a fancy NYC upper east side address with a bunch of celebrities for a new cable news show.  It seems so out of touch with the rest of the country, doesn't it?

At Fox we just get hired and go to work (and we are very glad to have our jobs!)  We can celebrate later (and we have.)Maybe I am wrong, but since I have been here (9 years this month), I can recall no fancy launch parties for Fox News Channel programs or anchors.  Of course we also have not changed our prime time programming in 9 years.

But hold on Greta -- it seems even the down-home paragons of ethic at Fox News kick up their Louboutins and indulge in some good old fashioned excess. Media Decoder reminds of of the swanky little event Rupert Murdoch threw for the launch of Fox Business. Where was this party you ask? Well, it was held at the Temple of Dendur. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Which is on the Upper East Side. What would your fans in Kansas think, Greta!?

Apart from the fact that the Counting Crows played, this appears to have been a pretty swanky event. Not that The Boss had much to do with the music choice, as a classic Gawker party report reveals:

Adam Duritz began to sing the first unbearably crap lines of Long December. Was that Lauren Bush singing along softly? I tapped Rupert's shoulder.

He's shorter than I'd expect. He's also very powerful. I thought the best approach was informal. I gave him a pound. (Kidding.) Instead he enveloped my hand in his own soft hands and shook up and down. He feels like a cashmere doll. He had never heard of the Counting Crows. But he thought they were okay.

Click for What Twitter Taught Us: Piers Morgan Defends A Cell-Abusing Arianna

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

So, yeah, not the super-hyped Rupert Murdoch tablet newspaper The Daily.

Any confusion would be warranted, according to Niro.

IMG previously had its lawyers investigate whether News Corp. was infringing on The Daily's (aka The Daily Front Row) trademark. Soon after, News Corp. asked a judge to deem the phrase "The Daily" too generic to trademark. But Niro reports her brand has already been diluted by Murdoch's Daily. She told us in November:

Our publication has been referred to as The Daily for eight years. We also have our own I-pad [sic] app, our own website and our own multimedia components. We've already noticed confusion for the past two weeks, people calling us saying, Are you doing a story on us? Who is this person from The Daily who has been calling, etc. Turns out it's not from The Daily, it's from another The Daily, and so forth.

Niro declined to tell Forbes who is backing The Daily, but says she has a controlling interest.

kstoeffel@observer.com :: @kstoeffel

The acquisition is the first big move following Murdoch's acquisition of Joel Klein, the former New York City Education Chancellor.

NYC's school system is one of Wireless Generation's many clients, which include more than 200,000 teachers and 3 million students in all 50 states.

The way Murdoch sees it, education is a $500 billion business that has not yet been disrupted by the digital age, and is "waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs that extend the reach of great teaching."

Actually, most schools are waiting for the funds to, you know, hire more teachers. But Murdoch's never been one to sweat the small stuff.

bpopper [at] observer.com | @benpopper

The invitation, reported by Mashable's Ben Parr, doesn't say much: "Please join us for an invitation-only announcement by Mike Jones, CEO of Myspace, and Dan Rose, VP of Partnerships and Platform marketing, Facebook."

Of course, the fact that the CEO of Myspace will be speaking alongside a Facebook VP speaks volumes. Just a few years ago, the two properties were neck and neck in terms of users and buzz.

Now Facebook is far and away the dominant social network, while Myspace is bleeding red ink and was recently put on notice by News Corp.

One possible announcement will be that Myspace is opening itself up to Facebook Connect (Update: Yep, that's what happened.) or becoming a part of the Facebook platform, which would explain the presence of Dan Rose.

At this point, it would be a smart surrender. If Myspace hopes to turn itself around, it has to carve out a niche as the best destination for artists and their fans. And just like every other service or site on the web, it needs to integrate with Facebook's social graph if it hopes to grow.

Update: Myspace CEO Mike Jones calls this integration a "Mashup" with Facebook. Uhm, yeah, actually it's just the same Facebook Connect hundreds of thousands of other sites already use. From now on Myspace will be focused on entertainment, and Facebook will provide the social layer. 

Frere-Jones still has time on his contract with The New Yorker, and Editor David Remnick says his pop music critic — one of the most prominent in magazine journalism — will continue to write for him and that his writing will not suffer. 

Frere-Jones had no comment, and Carr wrote that negotiations between the writer and News Corp. are still ongoing.

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234