After Sunday's closing ceremonies, the Olympics will be fini at NBC Universal until Torino, Italy, hosts the 2006 Winter Games. But why? If NBC can draw a "Friends"-sized audience 16 nights in a row, it would stand to reason that a digital cable channel could draw the fraction of that viewership necessary to please distributors and advertisers.

Catching Blondie's reunion tour broadcast at 4 a.m. wasn't an option for XM satellite radio subscriber and single father Scott MacLean. So the 35-year- old computer programmer from Ottawa, Ontario, wrote a piece of software that let him record the show directly onto his PC hard drive while he snoozed.

Maybe at 21 the MTV Video Music Awards are finally maturing. The music net can usually be counted on for at least one outrageous moment or two at the annual trophyfest -a la the Madonna-Britney kiss last year. But at the 21st annual VMAs last night - held in Miami for the first time - there was nary a scandalous body part on display and only one naughty word slipped through the show's first-ever tape delay.

Back when we had a handful of TV channels, a few dozen magazines, a few radio stations per market, and outdoor, things were simple. Consumers, advertisers, and the media enjoyed such a simple relationship. No one really needed to define it as a contract. Yet it was there, a quid pro quo, something-for-something contract. It may have been unwritten, but it was real. Call it the advertising trinity.

In October, most major cellphone carriers plan to start compiling a publicly accessible listing of wireless phone numbers.

Ten days ago, the ad agency for left-leading political magazine The Nation sent a 60-second commercial to the cable networks promoting its brand of political news and commentary as free of White House influence and corporate agendas. The ad will appear on Time Warner's CNN, as well as NBC Universal's MSNBC and Bravo, but it will not appear on Fox News Channel.

Two familiar brand characters, a finicky cat and a peripatetic rabbit, are poised for comebacks in big campaigns.

Digital video recorder pioneer TiVo sent mixed signals Thursday about the progress of its ambitious effort to win new subscribers and become profitable.

A mauling put the series in doubt. Its content has raised concerns.

A public relations firm with automaker clients is trying to derail proposed stricter state clean air regulations with ads warning that the first-in-the-nation rules would force drivers to abandon SUVs for smaller cars that could endanger their lives.