Television broadcasters on Monday piled criticism on a plan by U.S. communications regulators to switch to crisper digital signals by 2009, but some acknowledged the idea was not completely dead.

Tom Brokaw, an institution in U.S. broadcast journalism for more than two decades as the face of the "NBC Nightly News," will retire in December to pursue other interests, he said on Monday.

Investors with long memories could be forgiven for being surprised when executives from M&C Saatchi, the advertising firm started by Maurice and Charles Saatchi in 1995, said last month that they planned an initial public offering in London this year.

Many mailers gave their support to a rule proposal from the U.S. Postal Service published in the Federal Register yesterday that seeks to clarify when mail containing personal information may be eligible for Standard-mail rather than First-Class rates.

Media companies, artists and civil rights activists joined together Monday to protest a ruling last month by the Federal Communications Commissions against the musician Bono of the group U2 for his use of an expletive on last year's Golden Globes broadcast.

In another sign of video games going mainstream, advertisers who once largely ignored the medium now are trying to dot digital game landscapes with product placement.

An advertising snapback is in the air, and media giant Viacom is rousing after a long sleepy spell. Since hitting 47 in June, the stock has trailed the market, slumping to 37 in mid-March. (Viacom was last mentioned in this column on Feb. 24, 2003, when it was at 36.55.) It has since edged up to 40.78. Ads account for 50% of revenues, so when they are weak, Viacom suffers.

U.S. advertising is struggling to reassert itself as the nation continues its economic rebound.

Every spring for the past half century, Hollywood studio executives, talent agents and the rest of the television entertainment hierarchy have engaged in the ritual of planning program pilots, hoping to land the best lineup of new television series to be introduced en masse the following September.

David J. Pecker, chief executive of American Media Inc., has been a busy man of late. The company is rolling out nationally a glossy, redesigned version of The Star, retooling its car magazine into a new younger-skewing version for the fall and testing a magazine that features the Latina pop star Thalia. It is also hiring several big-name consultants, including a former chief executive of a media company; a former high-ranking Detroit automotive executive; and the governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who serves as executive editor and figurehead of two of the company's muscle magazines.