Why Smaller Units Should Show Smaller Audience Numbers.

The Nickelodeon cable channel is joining the list of marketers that are putting down physical roots as a way to open new avenues of communication with consumers. The company has begun promoting a Holiday Inn Family Suites Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., near the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, that will reopen this spring under the Nickelodeon name.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy on Oct. 4 chose a new advertising agency, Foote Cone & Belding, to lead its $200 million-per-year anti-drug advertising effort aimed at parents and children. The previous agency, Ogilvy & Mather, was accused of overbilling the government, but that's hardly the only controversy dogging the government's six-year-old anti-drug ad effort.

ABC is looking a lot less desperate this season. The typically cellar-dwelling network Sunday won huge audiences for critics' favorite Desperate Housewives, which eclipsed CSI: NY as this fall's top-rated premiere.

After conquering the reality genre, Donald Trump is setting his sights on scripted series. Sources said "The Apprentice" star/executive producer is in talks with NBC for a primetime drama series that would be set, at least in part, at the Trump Tower, Trump's posh skyscraper in Manhattan that also hosts the contestants in "The Apprentice."

The new season is young, but it already feels like a winds-of-change-are-blowing moment for the primetime business. Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno set the tone last week by announcing their late-night pas de deux -- even if it is a delayed reaction until 2009. But it wasn't just that news that made it an eventful week.

The Federal Communications Commission is, for better or worse, at the heart of some of the most important technology disputes of our era. How strictly the FCC decides to regulate emerging technology promises to have a lasting impact on areas as disparate as voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), fiber to the home, instant messaging and even digital video recorders.

He was a Greenwich Village bon vivant who enjoyed gourmet food, a drop of wine on festive occasions, a silk bed and his velvet collar. Fido Graham was 11 when he died of heart disease and back problems. The miniature dachshund's ashes were sprinkled on New York's Bleecker Street, where he took his daily walks. The first obituary column expressly for dogs is just one of the features of "The New York Dog Magazine," a glossy new magazine that debuted on newsstands across the United States on Friday.

DVD recorders are getting cheaper and easier to use, but that may not be enough to spark demand for the sluggish selling devices.

While hurricanes have been dropping rain on the Southeast, a Weather Channel exec has been making rain of another sort. Paul Iaffaldano, executive vice president and general manager, was dubbed a "rainmaker" by Advertising Age magazine in its annual listing of the nation's top 25 media buyers, planners and executives. Iaffaldano was the only Atlantan in the list of "media mavens."