After the Los Angeles Lakers lost the N.B.A. championship two weeks ago, the first television commercial many viewers saw starred a defeated Laker, Shaquille O'Neal. For marketers who believe context matters, it was like watching the losing quarterback of the Super Bowl turn to the camera and yell, "I'm going to Disneyland."

Faced with a major drop in corporate, private and government funding, lower ratings and an ongoing revolt over excessive programming costs by dozens of its 349 member stations, the Public Broadcasting System is in one of the worst crises of its history.

Like hundreds of other media organizations that still use paper as the principal means to deliver news in an increasingly electronic world, Newsday, The Chicago Sun-Times and the Spanish-language daily Hoy have been under pressure in recent years to maintain their readership and, ideally, increase it.

The nations' top advertisers ignited growth in the nation's media in 2003 by scoring a resounding 9% growth in their U.S. advertising to $90.31 billion, according to Advertising Age's 49th annual 100 Leading National Advertisers' report

Tasteful, upbeat and universally appealing ads comprised the roster of big TV ad winners here at a change-filled 51st Annual Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

Sex sells, but it's no longer only men who can be titillated, female executives from Leo Burnett Worldwide told colleagues in the advertising world during the industry's international festival here this week.

Frustration was the dominant emotion among media company executives yesterday as they digested a federal appeals court ruling that largely reversed the Federal Communications Commission's efforts to loosen limits on media ownership.

Shares of Interpublic Group traded lower Friday, following a board and management reshuffle. Before the bell, Interpublic said it had named Michael Roth, head of insurer Mony Group, as its chairman effective July 15.

Courteney Cox and David Arquette are stepping up their TV producing efforts. The actors, who recently became proud parents for the first time, have just hatched a production company, Coquette, while Cox has inked a first-look deal with Warner Bros. TV, the production company behind her hit sitcom "Friends."

A bill that would relieve marketers of an obligation to get written permission before sending commercial faxes received unanimous approval from the House Energy and Commerce Committee at a hearing yesterday.