How to describe sneaky advertising, flying into our minds under the false flag of news or entertainment? To sum up such sneaking in one word, call it "corrupt." To sum it up in five additional words, call it "the wave of the future."

Does the world need another brightly colored magazine filled with articles about TV stars and the latest gossip from "Desperate Housewives"? Gemstar-TV Guide International, whose new celebrity magazine, Inside TV, hit supermarket checkout lines last Thursday, sure hopes so.

As WPP Group, the London-based advertising and marketing powerhouse, digests its latest acquisition, Grey Global Group, a previous deal is still causing it headaches.

On Jan. 24, the Fox network showed an episode of its hit drama ''24,'' the real-time thriller known for its cliffhanger tension and often- gruesome violence. Over the preceding weeks, a number of public controversies had erupted around ''24,'' mostly focused on its portrait of Muslim terrorists and its penchant for torture scenes. The episode that was shown on the 24th only fanned the flames higher: in one scene, a terrorist enlists a hit man to kill his child for not fully supporting the jihadist cause; in another scene, the secretary of defense authorizes the torture of his son to …

As a news event, it hardly compared to the capture of Saddam Hussein. But in January, just weeks after she was caught lip-syncing on Saturday Night Live, pop singer Ashlee Simpson took the stage at the Orange Bowl and was promptly booed by the crowd of 72,000. The halftime spectacle, broadcast live on ABC, became an Internet classic: Within days a 34-second video clip of the incident posted on the ABC News Now site had been played nearly 1 million times. That gave Walt Disney Co.'s fledgling news site a boost in the bruising battle with its rivals. "We were …

The business of publishing glossy magazines can still at times, like a gracefully aging actress, reveal glimpses of the glamour and seduction it once effortlessly radiated.

The European Commission raided Dutch media group VNU and its market research unit ACNielsen last month as it investigated whether their contract and price policies broke antitrust law, VNU said on Friday.

In 1966, when the Neil Simon musical "Sweet Charity" opened on Broadway, a waiter in one scene asked a customer, "A double Scotch, again, sir?" In the revival, soon to open at the Al Hirschfeld Theater, the waiter asks, "Gran Centenario, the tequila?" Madison Avenue has come to Broadway.

In a blow to six agencies that have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to pitch the U.S. Army for its advertising account, the government today canceled the long-running review, according to executives familiar with the matter. The Army intends to restart the bidding process.

London-based ad holding company WPP Group said Friday that quarterly revenue jumped 16% from a year ago to 1.1 billion pounds ($2.1 billion). The gains were fueled by strong organic revenue growth and reflect a first-time contribution from Grey Global Group, which WPP acquired last year. The acquisition was completed in March.