More than 30 million viewers are expected to tune in tonight to see whether Alabama rocker Bo Bice or country crooner Carrie Underwood wins the fourth-season finale of "American Idol." But there's little suspense surrounding which network will win the TV ratings race for the 2004-05 season, which officially ends tonight.

Burger chain Carl's Jr. tells watchdog group infuriated over scantily clad soap-up to 'get a life.'

National Basketball Association uniforms sport the team's city or nickname across the chest. At the right price, some team executives would insert corporate logos such as McDonald's Corp.'s Golden Arches or Nike Inc.'s Swoosh instead.

Television audiences have grown accustomed to on-demand programming, mostly in the form of pay-per-view movies and services like HBO on Demand that cost extra. For several years, however, many television and technology companies have also been developing free video-on-demand services with all the determination - and uncertain futures - of oil prospectors. Now their free video-on-demand channels are expanding, seeking more viewers and asking advertisers to help pay the way.

Advertisers' calls for better accountability and ROI made measurement a hot topic at this week's Outdoor Advertising Association of America's annual conference. Industry leaders at the Hilton Chicago Hotel predicted that within the next three to five years out-of-home advertising venues will have a system to measure marketers' return on investment comparable to or better than those of other consumer media, thanks to a move from "opportunity to see" data to "likelihood to see" data.

With most signs pointing to a soft "upfront" season for selling commercial time, one media guru is predicting falling major network ad sales for a second straight year.

The broadcast networks' launch of yet another season of billions of dollars worth of primetime programming, most of it destined for cancellation, was not the most important financial or strategic industry story last week. The more formidable news came from the E3 annual video game conference in Los Angeles: Time Warner's experiment with "eBay on TV," Google's launch of customized service pages and spiked traffic to ad-supported Web sites related to the boxoffice breaker "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith." They all are part of a plethora of new interactive and targeted advertising opportunities that threaten to …

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, added a new role to his portfolio last week: journalism professor. After singling out Newsweek for its article, now retracted, on reports that interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had flushed a Koran down the toilet, Mr. McClellan broadened his critique of the magazine's journalistic practices to apply to those at the rest of the mainstream news media.

Meredith Corporation announced this morning that is is acquiring four Gruner & Jahr USA magazines -- Family Circle, Parents, Child and Fitness in a deal worth $350 million.

Renetta McCann, CEO of Publicis Groupe's Starcom MediaVest Group warned some of the globe's most senior print publishing industry executives yesterday saying that their future depends on adapting content for delivery via the screen.