The shades in the small office were drawn tight on a bright afternoon last week, as three men huddled around a small television monitor. Had the producers of the program been there, they would surely have been elated that the three people gathered around an editing console - Kevin Reilly, president of NBC Entertainment; Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Universal Television Group, and John D. Miller, chief marketing officer of the television group - were laughing, heartily and continuously. The more crucial question, at least as it pertains to the fortunes of Mr. Reilly and Mr. Zucker, is this: will …

Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi said it has launched a new research and development think tank in the U.K. that will run by Vicky Moffatt, a former Red Cell executive who is managing director and director of strategy at Saatchi's London office.

Will 2005 be the year the broadcast network upfront market breaks? Danged if I know. But the air of desperation is hanging heavier, as broadcast-TV executives confront restive customers, potent competitors and an 80-year-old business model well past its prime.

As the winner of the second "Apprentice," Kelly Perdew should be in line for a top job in the Trump organization. But you'd never know that from his office. His desk is in a small, windowless space next to the assistant to Donald Trump's wife, Melania (Perdew has no assistant). The walls are bare, except for a dry-erase board and a U.S. map, stuck with pins marking the distributors he's signed to buy his boss's new line of bottled water, Trump Ice. "This is going to be big," he vows.

Hoping to lure more listeners to traditional radio amid growing competition from satellite radio and iPods, Infinity Broadcasting on Thursday said it was dividing the frequency of a Chicago radio station into two to air a new station targeting a younger audience.

Microsoft Corp. unveiled its new Xbox 360 on Thursday, taking aim at Sony Corp. in the video game console market with a machine sporting high-definition graphics and features that make it an entertainment hub for the living room.

U.S. television's top-rated family sitcom, "Everybody Loves Raymond," ends its nine-year run on CBS next week, bringing to a close one of the most understated success stories in recent prime-time history.

Credit Suisse First Boston maintained a "strong buy" rating on Interpublic Group after General Motors replaced Interpublic's GM Mediaworks and LCI divisions with rival Starcom MediaVest for the automaker's $3.2 billion domestic media business. Starcom MediaVest is a unit of Paris-based Publicis Groupe. "The bark of the GM account loss is bigger than its bite, in our opinion.

Here's one way to get the young, hip and easily bored to watch your still fledgling television show: bring the TV screen to them. FreeCar Media, a Los Angeles-based firm that specializes in unconventional advertising tactics, has devised a high-tech piece of clothing to do just that.

In another blow to the Interpublic Group of Companies, General Motors said yesterday that it would consolidate responsibility for its media assignments in the United States at an agency owned by an Interpublic competitor, the Publicis Groupe.