Friday morning headlines

It's another day of light posting on the business beat.

NBC struggling: Maybe Sunday night football and a couple of new shows will turn things around, but third-quarter earnings at NBC Universal, the smallest of GE's six divisions, fell 10 percent. Overall, the company's net income was up 6 percent, matching expectations.

Buyer's remorse: Wachovia shareholders remain skeptical about the bank's acquisition of World Savings parent Golden West Financial. Big concern is that many of those adjustible-rate mortages that were a Golden West specialty could turn sour. Herb and Marion Sandler, who ran Golden West for 39 years, say the company is insulated.

Speaking of homes: With sales still tumbling from a year ago, a lot of homeowners are taking their properties off the market rather than reduce prices. That's whittled down the inventory throughout Socal, according to P1 LAT story.

The supply of homes for sale has dropped in nearly all price ranges. From the first week of September to the first week of October, the amount of time it would take to sell all the homes on the market in Orange County dropped to 5.9 months from 6.9 months, and in Los Angeles County to 6.1 months from 6.6 months, said Patrick Veling, president of Brea-based Real Data Strategies, which analyzes listing data. In Riverside County, the supply has been mostly unchanged since August. The abating inventory is providing some relief to the region's slumping real estate market by reducing pressure on remaining sellers to lower their prices substantially, analysts say.

Weiders back: NY Post media columnist Kelly reports that after selling their muscle magazines to American Media, the locally based Weiders are interested in buying them back, or at least being in a partnership. Since the American Media purchase, many of the Woodland Hills staff positions have migrated to NY. "We'd be open to partnering with the winning bidder, but we're not interested in operating them again," Eric Weider, president and CEO of Weider Health and Fitness, told the paper.

Richest representative: Jane Harmon tops the list of wealthiest Socal congresspeople, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. The South Bay Democrat has a net worth in excess of $168 million - much of that the result of being married to multimillionaire audio-equipment manufacturer Sidney Harman.

More price drops: Over the past two months, Socal pump prices have plummeted by more than 60 cents. In the latest href="http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=172211&tsource=2&hitscounted=N">Auto Club survey, the average price of self-serve regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area is $2.595, which is 8.4 cents lower than last week, 39 cents lower than last month, and 37 cents lower than last year.

Supermarket savings: Socal's three major supermarket chains lost a ton of money from the 2003-04 strike and lockout (it took a long time to bring back shoppers), but their parent companies considered it a necessary investment in the effort to reduce labor costs. Well, Vons parent Safeway reported a third-quarter profit of 42 percent. "There's no question the restructured labor contracts have had a positive impact" on the company's bottom line, one analyst told the LAT.

Fire sale: There's no other way to describe the sale of Baja Fresh to Anaheim investor David Kim for $31 million. You know how much Wendy's paid for the Mexican chain four years ago? $275 million. Once Baja Fresh tried to expand beyond Socal, it got eaten by the larger Chipotle Mexican Grill. El Pollo plucked: Owners of the Irvine-based chicken joint have pulled their IPO because if what the company called unfavorable market conditions.

Coastal congestion: Think traffic is bad now? The Center for Environment and Population calculates that more than half the U.S. population lives within 50 miles of the coasts. In the next decade, an additional 25 million people - half the total population increase - will join them there.