YM, the nation's second-largest teen magazine, said it was going to chop its paid circulation base from 2 million to 1.5 million - a 25 percent drop.

Note to the television networks: Pete Brandel is not missing. He's right here, but like a lot of other 20-something men he's just not watching as much TV. Mr. Brandel, a 24-year-old real estate agent in Chicago, says that these days he looks to the Internet for news and entertainment. Television, he says, is bogged down by commercials and teasers that waste his time.

French outdoor advertising firm JCDecaux said on Monday it would bid alone, rather than with a partner, for the world's biggest street advertising contract in New York City.

Radio shock jock Howard Stern is in discussions with investors about starting his own radio business, The Post has learned.

Sumner Redstone, Viacom Inc.'s chairman and chief executive, doesn't like to admit mistakes. But he confessed to one this month: The media company shouldn't have abandoned plans it was studying two years ago for a cable network aimed at gays, Monday's Wall Street Journal reported. Such a channel now could "be worth a billion dollars," Mr. Redstone told analysts and investors, and would have cost only $30 million to launch.

On March 25, 1954, Radio Corporation of America (RCA) began making color sets at its Bloomington, Ind., plant. It built 5,000 with 12-inch screens, known as the model CT-100 color receiver. They sold for $1,000 each, astronomical in those days. They didn't get much use that year, because color telecasts were so rare. But the American love affair with the tube had taken a leap forward.

Onetime cable television star Ashleigh Banfield - a publicity magnet even before she achieved celebrity in the aftermath of 9/11 - is out at NBC News.

The publisher of Consumer Reports urged the Senate Commerce Committee Thursday to press for "a la carte" cable-television programming that would give customers more control and potentially lower bills.

Bonnie Fuller: "It's All About Knowing the Reader" An original Q&A interview with the editorial chief of American Media

Siemens has ridden into town on a rail. Literally. Siemens has set up a rolling road show, a 1,000-foot, 14-car train that is part multimedia blitz, part conventional trade show. Some cars hold gas chromatographs and other Siemens machines; others are fitted with plasma screens showing videos of Siemens products at work; still others have interactive maps showing Siemens locations. All are staffed with Siemens specialists who are well versed in the technologies.