McGraw-Hill set Tuesday as the due date for bids for the ailing BusinessWeek magazine, and at least as of 7:30 pm eastern time, nothing at all has happened. Since this is one of those stories where I’ve encountered absolutely no fruitful sources, I’ve relied on reading the reports of other people.

So what’s going to happen to the business news weekly? Let’s catch up with the latest:

It will not go to Lazard chief Bruce Wasserstein. The owner of New York magazine has enough to deal with in the slumping publishing world already, so he’s gone, reports BusinessWeek columnist Jon Fine.

Fine himself is bowing out of the action after presenting us with most of it. He and wife Laurel Touby (a media maven in her own right) are taking a six-month sabbatical to do more fun things in other parts of the world.

Bloomberg LP remains interested, along with various other bidders, say various media reports. As you might expect, no one there is talking to us evil arch-rivals at Reuters. I hear from Bloomberg journalists that no one there is talking to them either. Too bad, because it was Bloomberg journalist Greg Bensinger who helped break the story. (And so much the worse, as Bensinger is on honeymoon at the moment.)

No matter who buys it up, New York Times reporter Stephanie Clifford tells us, via a memo she obtained, that Evercore — the banker group shopping BusinessWeek — is promising 20 percent layoffs across the board, including 55 of 217 journalists. 25 percent. Ouch!

The one bit of original reporting that I can offer you comes from the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference that I attended on Tuesday. I asked McGraw CEO Terry McGraw if keeping the magazine and scrapping the whole sale process is a possibility. His answer: “At this point all options are open.” He also said that this is a time for BusinessWeek to explore all options, such as going online only, or any other number of alternatives. They don’t all necessarily include selling the magazine.

My totally unfounded conjecture? He doesn’t want to sell BusinessWeek, but wants to show shareholders and his board that he gave it its best shot. Either way, Evercore gets paid.

But that is, as I said, unfounded conjecture. A deal could come at any time.

(Reuters Photo: McGraw-Hill CEO Harold “Terry” McGraw III, a man with a magazine to sell you)

Matt Winkler is more than the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg’s news operation; he is its creator and keystone, and largely responsible for its hard-charging, hard-working work ethic that has been described by nearly everyone who writes about the business news wire as “take-no-prisoners.” Still, even top editors like to take a break every now and again.

Winkler, who started Bloomberg LP’s news operation nearly two decades ago, is going to step back from some of his day-to-day duties. This comes after Bloomberg earlier this month said it would create several new units as part of a reorganization that included a shuffling of top management. That featured Winkler losing control of the TV, Internet and radio operations at Bloomberg but retaining control of print.

The company last month also was expected to offer more flexible work hours to its employees, a sign that it was responding to concerns among some workers that the kitchen was often too hot to cook in.

Here’s what Winkler said in a phone interview with Reuters on Tuesday, following a video presentation to Bloomberg employees:

This will free me up to spend more time with reporters and more time with our customers — more time thinking about the kinds of things we want to do, but haven’t done yet. A good part of my day, every day, when I’m not on the road, has been in story meetings. There are at this point better ways for me to spend my time.

Winkler will keep his position and remain involved, he said:

I’m still available for everybody whenever they want. I still will be involved on a day-to-day basis on some stories. It’s just that the amount of time I’ve had to devote to the stories every day in a hands-on way is finally diminished.

In turn, a corps of executive editors will get more say in the process:

We now have the depth and experience among our executive editors that enables us, I hope, to have a more streamlined and efficient structure. The 10 people who are executive editors at Bloomberg News have the freedom to make for their areas pretty much all the important news judgment decisions on a day-to-day basis.

Expect this change to come as early as this week.

(Photo: Courtesy of Bloomberg LP)

Big changes are underway at Bloomberg LP, both in the news division and the way the company is structured.

As we reported on Wednesday, the company’s multimedia operations will be set up as a new division, while a new incubator shop called Bloomberg Ventures will be run by the company’s former CEO and current sales chief, Lex Fenwick (see this piece for Fenwick’s insights). Bloomberg also is changing the way its sales teams hawk its news, data and financial products.

What does it all mean? From talking to around a dozen employees, we determined that it’s about shaking up the management a bit and consolidating power under the company’s two top executives, Dan Doctoroff and Peter Grauer. (Who shows up in Ian Austen’s New York Times story from last month about the rivalry between Bloomberg and this blog’s parent company, Thomson Reuters Corp.)

Here is what Grauer told The New York Times for Thursday’s paper:

[W]hile other media companies are forecasting layoffs, Bloomberg was continuing to grow. The company also announced a bonus system tied to personal and departmental goals. Terminal revenues are pegged at about $6 billion this year, for example, and if the company reaches $10 billion in sales in four years, every current employee will receive a bonus equivalent to 70 percent of their salary; reach the goal sooner, and the percentage increases; reach it later, and the percentage decreases.

Portfolio.com’s Jeff Bercovici delved into the personality aspects, noting that this may mark a shift in Bloomberg’s corporate culture. (Jeff referred to it as “famously bizarre” and noted one source’s comment: “It’s the beginning of an effort to really dial back the Kool Aid-y aspects of the company.”

Here’s more from Portfolio:

[U]ltimately more significant could be smaller adjustments meant to make Bloomberg a more rewarding place to work. These reportedly range from a newly-stated commitment to flexible work schedules to a rejiggering of one of the most distinctive features of life at Bloomberg, the program of bonuses known as ‘certs.’

And here’s a short passage illustrating life at 731 Lex:

To be sure, (Matt) Winkler is a notoriously combustible boss, and Bloomberg employees put up with a degree of regimentation and monitoring in their jobs unheard of elsewhere in the news business. One friendly acquaintance there I called while reporting this story was so terrified he might be tracked down as a leaker, he hung up on me, pausing only to berate me for using his office number.

You know what they say: loose lips might sink ships…

(Lex Fenwick photo: Reuters)