A colorful, celebratory campaign scheduled to begin today to promote the opening of the 2005 Major League Baseball season is all about the fans, unlike the campaign that helped start the season last year, which featured players.

"The Jane Pauley Show" will call it a wrap next month. NBC Universal Television Distribution confirmed Friday that the first-run daytime talk show hosted by the former "Today" and "Dateline NBC" anchor will end production by the middle of April, though original episodes will run through early September.

Robert Iger, who was chosen to succeed Michael Eisner as chief executive of Walt Disney, has the massive challenge of bringing stability to the media giant as the Magic Kingdom struggles to reclaim its past glories. Eisner, 63, had been scheduled to depart the company when his contract expired next year. On Sunday Disney's chairman, George Mitchell, announced Iger will assume the job Sept. 30. Iger, 54, has been the president of Disney since 2000 and was previously a senior official with Capital Cities/ABC before it was acquired by Disney about a decade ago.

As Disney names him its next CEO, he gets only a quote in the news release. Experts question his virtual silence.

In a coup for the Interpublic Group of Companies, the Intel Corporation today named agencies that are part of the largest Interpublic division, the McCann Worldgroup, to handle its $300 million global brand marketing account.

Two former Walt Disney board directors have sent a letter to current board members asking them to reconsider plans to let the chief executive, Michael D. Eisner, sit in on interviews of candidates for his job. In a letter to the board written by Roy E. Disney, the nephew of the company's founder, and his financial adviser, Stanley P. Gold, the two criticized directors for allowing Mr. Eisner to sit in on the interviews. Mr. Disney and Mr. Gold are also expected to take out full-page ads in The Wall Street Journal Friday.

With $46.5 billion, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is still the world's richest person, while Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, worth $12 billion, is the wealthiest media tycoon and Jeffrey Katzenberg and Martha Stewart are newly minted billionaires, according to just-released data from Forbes.

Interpublic Group of Cos. is delaying the release of its annual report and may have to restate previous financial results, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission today.

Bob Schieffer stood tall next to his anchor desk and engaged in a brief conversation with correspondents in the field to open his first broadcast as interim anchor of the CBS Evening News. CBS expects him on the job for at least three months, until top executive Leslie Moonves names a replacement ? or two.

A federal investigation of newspaper circulation has spread to the magazine industry as authorities examine questionable "swap" payments between top publications and a major Long Island news distributor that may have contributed to inflated circulation, Newsday has learned. The publications whose arrangements with the distributor are under scrutiny include Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, New York magazine, Crain's New York Business, National Geographic, the National Review, Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, and the Harvard Business Review, among others, according to numerous sources familiar with the company and the probe. While prosecutors are believed to be examining allegations …