It's halftime in a college football game, so it's no surprise to see an advertisement for Old Spice Red Zone deodorant leap onto the screen. But this commercial is the most realistic part of the proceedings. It's a real ad, set in the middle of a make-believe football game.

By picking Sen. John Edwards as his running mate, presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry tapped a man who has benefited from Hollywood's largesse but opposes allowing media companies to grow larger.

SELF magazine is planning a sweeping redesign for the September issue. It marks the first time in six years that the mag will be overhauled.

It'll be a pampered run down the Salmon River for a group of corporate and media titans.

Chrysler Group won't be back as the automotive sponsor for the second season of NBC's popular reality show The Apprentice, according to several executives close to the car industry.

Newspaper and magazine publishers facing lawsuits and probes for lying about their circulation numbers are getting circulation managers to take the blame -- either by firing or by getting them to resign.

In early 2003, when Jeff Gaspin became president of the Bravo network, he was faced with a daunting task: "To make some noise in the cable world," in the words of Jeff Zucker, then president of NBC Entertainment, which acquired Bravo in December 2002.

After a month of post-season play, the returns are decidedly mixed for the Big Four broadcasters and their push to pump up the volume of original primetime programming during the summer months.

A marketing firm will debut clothing turned into portable commercials for clients.

The second half of the year is beginning for Madison Avenue the way the first half ended - with a flurry of account changes and assignments in competitive categories. The shifts reflect in part a growing if still wobbly confidence that additional advertising spending may well stimulate consumer spending.