TV networks' latest variation on "Don't touch that dial" includes a crop of vignettes, micro-mini movies and other bits of between-show entertainment meant to keep viewers' attention focused on marketer messages in places other than traditional ad spots.

Sir Martin Sorrell's WPP Group is set to create Russia's biggest advertising agency in an alliance with the advertising group Video International, founded by an adviser to President Putin. WPP plans to merge its Russian operations with the advertising agencies owned by Video International in a joint venture to be called WPP Russia, according to reports.

Electronics makers are enticing consumers to take Seinfeld on the subway with portable video players that look like an iPod crossed with a digital camera.

TiVo has changed the way people watch television and added a new word to the vernacular. But that does not mean TiVo, the company, is thriving. TiVo, which helped introduce the digital video recorder, or DVR, in 1999, now faces an onslaught of competition from cable system and satellite operators, which are quickly eroding TiVo's once-dominant market share.

It sounds like the punch line of an old borscht belt joke. What would you call a cable show featuring a pair of arguing Jewish pundits? The answer: "Two Jews, Three Opinions.'' For now, such a show exists only in the imagination of John Odoner, a real estate lawyer in Manhattan. But if Mr. Odoner has his way, and raises enough money, the "Crossfire''-inspired program will be a cornerstone of Jewish Television, or JTV, the 24-hour digital cable channel he hopes to begin broadcasting early next year.

A turnaround at the struggling Interpublic Group of Companies is still very much a work in progress, as evidenced by the decidedly mixed results reported yesterday for the second quarter and first half.

The Dallas Morning News overstated circulation for its daily and Sunday editions, and its top circulation executive has resigned, the paper's parent company said.

Who's the boss? Ask Ereka Vetrini and she'll say Tony Danza Vetrini, the eighth person fired during the first season of NBC's hit reality show "The Apprentice," has been hired as Danza's announcer and sidekick for his new talk show, which will premiere next month.

Online shoppers, logging on to eBay's home page to search for antique teapots or the latest electronics gear, might be surprised to find themselves first confronting the two fearsome monsters from 20th Century Fox's upcoming "Alien vs. Predator" next week.

Sen. John Kerry is no fan of mega-mergers and big media even though he boasts plenty of powerful friends at some of the largest congloms in the country.