ShopNBC, No. 3 after QVC and Home Shopping Network, is undergoing its first rebranding in the three years since it dropped the ValueVision brand name.

Have you noticed the increasing emphasis on "qualitative" measures in media? This upfront, four Cable TV networks and the Cable Television Advertising Bureau presented data on measures like loyalty, viewer involvement and brand resonance to suggest their viewers are more likely to see and remember commercials carried by their channels than by others.

Advertising executive Linda Kaplan Thaler encouraged insert media professionals to use her big-bang philosophy when coming up with ideas for clients. "Why do you need a big bang?" asked Kaplan Thaler, CEO/chief creative officer at ad agency The Kaplan Thaler Group.

"Insert media is a very complicated media to execute, but we realized early on that there were probably huge opportunities to reduce costs and improve results," said Dan Cirilli, former president of Grolier Direct, a marketer of children's book clubs now known as Scholastic at Home.

Advertisers are lapping up sports this fall. Sales of ads to air during post-season baseball rose by double digits during the spring "upfront," when marketers buy ad time in advance, says Fox Sports spokesman Dan Bell.

Billy Davis, a Detroit singer and songwriter turned advertising executive who was involved in many of the most memorable R&B hits and musical ad campaigns of the late 20th century, died on Sept. 2 at his home in New Rochelle, N.Y. He was 72. Mr. Davis's sister, Gladys Adams, did not announce a cause, saying only that he had been ill for some time.

The Donald is ready to do a new deal with NBC. With the second season of "The Apprentice" debuting tonight at 8:30, a third slated for January and Donald Trump's contract with NBC about to expire, Trump says he wants more.

Sony has developed a computer chip that allows viewers to zoom in on any part of a TV image, such as a favorite soccer player or an intruder on security-camera footage, while keeping the image sharp.

John Kerry's campaign has bought or reserved airtime in 20 states to run ads between now and Nov. 2. His commercials are slated to start in each state and media market on a staggered basis, and in some states they may not run at all.

A group of leading medical journals yesterday released a plan to stop publishing the results of clinical trials unless a test is registered at its outset in a public database.