WE MADE THE POST, FOX NEWS TOO -- Things were getting better in our town since the tragic murder of two beloved merchants nearly two years ago cast our bucolic burb into tabloid central for the better part of a week. The Community is no longer for sale - the local movie theater, that is.

COMO ESTA USTED, NIELSEN -- Nielsen's decision to conduct a test of a new financial incentive plan on its live TV ratings samples in New York and Los Angeles marks another fissure in the line separating media research pragmatism and Puritanism. Testing new research methods on live samples is normally deemed verboten, because the tests can impact the behavior of panel members, which can skew the results of ratings that are used as the currency for advertising buys and programming decisions.

PRESS HERE TO RESET -- In case anyone hasn't noticed yet, we're into a new kind of buyer's market. This isn't one of those every decade-or-so, cyclical market corrections in which network CPMs simply roll back a point or two, allowing buyers to keep their faces safe with clients for another day.

A TALE OF TWO MEDIA CONGLOMERATES - If the story behind the most recent uncoupling of CBS and Viacom were made into a major motion picture, it would be adapted from a Charles Dickens classic. It would be produced by a Viacom studio.

WHAT STINKS -- Something doesn't smell right about the timing of Greg Stuart's departure from the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Maybe it's "What Sticks," the new book co-written by Stuart and marketing evolutionary Rex Briggs.

TERROR IS A WASTEFUL THING TO MIND -- Great, now we're actually afraid of water. In the span of five years, we've managed to go from a society free to carry just about anything shy of a loaded pistol aboard a major airline to being banned from bottles of Evian.

REMEMBER WHEN PEOPLE WANTED THEIR MTV? Now, it seems, they want their Google. MTV included.

FORBES SELLS STAKE TO INVESTORS INCLUDING BONO -- NEW YORK, Aug 7 (Reuters) - A private equity group that includes Irish rock star Bono bought a stake in family-held publisher Forbes, becoming the first outsider to invest in its business media properties, the companies said on Monday. Three words: Monday, Bloody, Monday.