NYC- LLOYD Grove and his Lowdown gossip column were dropped by the Daily News because the paper is losing circulation and ad revenue, and its fickle owner Mortimer Zuckerman “was looking to save money,” Grove explained yesterday as a guest blogger on Gawker.com. Grove said he knew it was “likely” when he took the job three years ago that his contract wouldn’t be renewed. “Mort is obviously a brilliant businessman . . . but he is not a ‘media baron’ in the sense that Rupert Murdoch is.

I was an impulse buy. Mort, whom I had known for years, spotted me at a party and decided he wanted me. He is a very persuasive suitor. But . . . he’s not a constant spouse. In my relatively short time at the News, I served under three editors-in-chief, three features managing editors, three different publishers, etc.” With The Post inexorably gaining in circulation and advertising on the News, “Mort was looking to save money and I was a big-ticket item who could easily be dropped from the budget without too much disruption.”