More than you think, argues the New York Post’s Keith Kelly. If you’re interested in either publishing or Washington’s attempt to save the auto business, you should read the entire piece.

But here’s the important part: Quadrangle Group, the big media investment group run by Steve Rattner, borrowed $125 million from Cerebus Capital Management to buy Maxim and other high-concept, big-print titles from founder Felix Dennis. Those magazines are in disarray (yesterday, Quadrangle shuttered music title Blender) and Quadrangle defaulted on those loans last year.

Still there? OK. Now Rattner has left Quadrangle for Washington, where he’ll advise the Obama administration on how to deal with companies that include Chrysler, which is owned by… Cerebus.

Which should make for an entertaining conversation or two, at the very least.

Car companies cut their ad spending by 10 percent, to $6.1 billion, through the first half of the year, according to Nielsen’s ad tracking service. That confirms anecdotal evidence media companies have been offering up throughout the year, and it means that the numbers for the second half of the year–when the economy really collapsed–are going to be brutal.

Which goes a long way toward explaining why everyone–from Time Warner’s Time Inc. (TWX) to GE’s (GE) NBC to every Web start-up you can think of–is looking at dwindling ad revenue for the foreseeable future.

And yes, you can point your finger most accusingly at Detroit, if that makes you feel better: While some imports, like Toyota (TM) and Honda (HMC), actually kept spending steady or increased it, the formerly Big 3 all made big cuts. General Motors (GM), the country’s biggest auto ad buyer, dropped spending six percent; Ford (F) and Chrysler dropped 22 percent each.

MediaPost has the full gory details.

[Image Credit: Hauke Sandhaus]

And who knows? Maybe John Chambers, Steve Ballmer and Brian Roberts will indeed say something important today and tomorrow at Quadrangle’s Foursquare conference. Chrysler’s Robert Nardelli is speaking too. He might have something newsworthy to say.

But you are unlikely to read about it.

That’s because there’s no press allowed at the private equity shop’s annual conference, which starts this afternoon at New York’s Plaza Hotel.

Or rather, there’s some press at the event. But they’ll be on stage. And they won’t be telling their readers and listeners what they saw and heard.

CNBC’s David Faber, Becky Quick and Maria Bartiromo, for instance, will be moderating panels over the next few days. So will the New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin. And network TV news bigshots Katie Couric, George Stephanopoulos and Brian Williams will answer questions themselves (Portfolio’s Matt Cooper will be moderating that one).

Am I crabby because I asked (nicely) and couldn’t get in myself? Nah. It’s Quadrangle’s event, and they can run it any way they want. But it does look like a pretty good gathering of worthies. Maybe I’ll park myself in the Plaza’s lobby and see if I can bump into some of them.

Want to join me? Here’s the agenda for next two days:

Tuesday 11/11
2:00 PM WELCOME
Joshua L. Steiner (Quadrangle)

ONE ON ONE WITH JOHN CHAMBERS (Cisco)
Moderated by Jim Citrin (Spencer Stuart)

WHO DO YOU TRUST: INFORMATION AND NEWS IN AN  OPEN WORLD
Tom Glocer (Thomson Reuters), Nancy McKinstry (Wolters Kluwer) and Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook)
Moderated by David Faber (CNBC)

ALL ABOUT WIRELESS
Jean-Bernard Lévy (Vivendi), Naguib Sawiris (Orascom Telecom) and Ben Wolff (Clearwire)
Moderated by Steven Rattner

4:15 PM BREAK

GOING IT ALONE IN AN INTERCONNECTED WORLD
Philippe Dauman (Viacom), Charlie Ergen (EchoStar) and Robert Kotick (Activision)
Moderated by Becky Quick (CNBC)

GLOBAL E-COMMERCE: $500 BILLION AND GROWING
Barry Diller (IAC) and Hiroshi Mikitani (Rakuten)
Moderated by Steve Hasker (McKinsey)

6:15 PM COCKTAIL RECEPTION
Grand Ballroom Foyer
The Plaza

Wednesday 11/12
8:30 AM WELCOME
ONE ON ONE WITH STEVE BALLMER (Microsoft)
Moderated by Ken Auletta (The New Yorker)

INNOVATION AND THE NEXT BIG IDEA
Jean-François Decaux (JC Decaux) Robert Stephens (Geek Squad founder?) and Jim Wiatt (William Morris)
Moderated by Andrew Ross Sorkin (New York Times)

A CONVERSATION WITH SAM ZELL (Equity Group, Tribune Co.)
Moderated by Joanne Lipman (Portfolio)

10:00 AM BREAK

COOP-ER-TITION: A CONVERSATION WITH PETER CHERNIN (News Corp.) AND BRIAN ROBERTS (Comcast)
Moderated by Ken Auletta

REBUILDING A BRAND FROM THE TOP DOWN
Dan Hesse (Sprint) and Robert Nardelli (Chrysler)
Moderated by Maria Bartiromo

NOON Concluding Luncheon
CAMPAIGN 2008: IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA AND BEHIND THE SCENES
Katie Couric (CBS), George Stephanopoulos (ABC) and Brian Williams (NBC)
Moderated by Matt Cooper (Portfolio)

[Image Credit: PinkMoose]