A U.K. news digest, Guardian Weekly, is ramping up its efforts to reach American readers, having launched a direct-mail campaign soliciting U.S. subscribers.

The DMA expects to offer guidance in the next seven to 10 days that will help the list industry gauge how to implement best practices in light of recent Federal Trade Commission scrutiny.

On news racks in cities from Budapest to Barcelona to Boston, free copies of the distinctive jade green Metro newspaper are attracting the younger readers that have proved elusive to many established papers. But executives at the rapidly expanding Metro International do not expect plaudits or Pulitzer prizes from their peers. They are receiving a higher compliment - imitation. Across Europe, newspapers including Le Figaro are battling back against Metro by introducing their own free tabloid editions.

In the latest mainstream experiment with addressable cable TV advertising, Ford Division dealerships are running a pilot campaign for trucks in New Jersey and parts of New York.

Detroit is exhuming another face from the past to pitch its cars to a new generation. A digitally revived Steve McQueen, who died in 1980, will be reprising the character of Lt. Frank Bullitt in a commercial promoting the redesigned and retro Ford Mustang. The ad is part of a heavy push by the Ford Motor Company to convince Americans that a new crop of cars coming out this month are worth buying on their own merits, not because of a $5,000 rebate or zero-interest financing.

Experian, Costa Mesa, CA, said yesterday it bought Simmons Market Research Bureau, a provider of syndicated consumer research, for an undisclosed sum.

Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell has rejected lawmakers' requests that the agency stop Sinclair Broadcasting from airing a documentary critical of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry.

Premium cable network Home Box Office International has suspended its president and five other executives in connection with a probe into allegations of self-dealing, the Los Angeles Times reported on Friday.

It has been three years since anthrax infiltrated the U.S. mail system, and it's still on the minds of many as reports of white powder close offices, newspapers, postal facilities and mail firms around the country on a weekly basis.

Bill Gates predicts a future for the entertainment industry in which traditional broadcast television is rendered irrelevant. It's a positive vision, however, because new and better business models made possible by technology are emerging.