Who's got a couple billion dollars to snap up Reed Elsevier's publishing division? Si Newhouse technically does, but he's not interested. The Conde Nast scion has officially ruled out buying the giant's properties, like Variety, Broadcasting & Cable, and a slew of others, even though, thanks to that riley credit market, the asking price of $2.5 billion is likely a whole billion dollars less than Reed could've fetched just last year. And you know who loves stuff on the cheap? Or just stuff? Private equity! Which is where this deal was headed from the beginning.

Rumors that Nielsen is looking to unload its business publishing arm – which includes The Hollywood Reporter and Mediaweek – is today being met with news that Reed Elsevier, owner of LexisNexis, might be selling off its business publishing unit.

The Reed Business Information unit, headed by Gerard van de Aast, includes magazines like New Scientist, trades like Broadcasting & Cable, Publishers Weekly, and, oh, a little publication called Variety — all of which might be on the auction block as part of a Reed Elsevier "restructuring." Which is a fancy way of saying that they're buying ChoicePoint, a risk-management analytics company, for $4 billion … and they need to find the cash from somewhere. (Haven't you heard the credit market is in shambles?)

What no major press outlet has done with the news, however, is connect the dots that the two trades responsible for sucking up to studios could both be on their way to changing hands.

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Comedy Central has John Stewart for the 2010 election, but maybe not much longer. The network renewed Stewart’s contract for two years, but wasn't able to extend him for Indecision 2012.

Broadcasting & Cable reports:

The length of the extension coincides with the 2010 expiration of David Letterman’s deal at CBS, which will fuel the speculation that the Daily Show host and Comedy franchise player could be in line to take over at CBS if Letterman decides to step away after his current deal is up.

Why use the passive voice? Broadcast & Cable is speculating that CBS will close in on Stewart after Letterman retires.

As for Comedy Central, they always Steve Colbert. Of course, that's assuming that his run for president isn’t a thinly veiled publicity campaign for his new book and he’s still available.