Add another voice to the list of groups questioning how drugs are pitched to consumers. The American Medical Association, the nation's largest organization of physicians, agreed yesterday to study whether consumer drug advertising leads to unnecessary prescriptions, potentially harming patients and driving up health costs.

Theater chains AMC Entertainment Inc. and Loews Cineplex Entertainment Corp. are planning to combine to create the nation's second-largest theater chain as the ailing movie exhibition business continues to consolidate. The proposed merger, announced Tuesday, comes amid a box-office slump and an abundance of screens hampering the industry. In addition, analysts contend, film fans are increasingly showing a preference for watching movies at home on DVD. Moviegoers, they note, are balking at rising ticket and concessions prices as well as at the increased number of in-theater commercials that chains depend on to generate revenue.

Even as more marketers embrace new digital media, top honors in the first round of awards at the annual Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival went to creative new uses of primarily traditional media.

Denying press reports to the contrary, Sony Electronics issued a statement saying the company has not awarded its $100 million advertising account to Havas' McKinney & Silver of Durham, N.C.

A federal judge sentenced Adelphia Communications Corp. founder John Rigas to 15 years in prison for defrauding investors in the cable television firm and siphoning millions of dollars for personal use. Rigas' son, Timothy, received a 20-year sentence from New York U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand.

Want to lose weight? Eat more dairy products. That is the message the milk industry and sellers of yogurt and cheese have been promoting recently in TV and print ads. But now a group of physicians is challenging the scientific validity of the claim, arguing that it is based primarily on the clinical research of one scientist who is financed by the Dairy Council, the nutrition marketing arm of the dairy industry, and General Mills, which makes Yoplait yogurt.

Marketing people spend 95% of their time on brand maintenance when the real opportunities lie in brand creation. Look what the iPod has done for Apple Computer. In the first quarter of 2005, Apple sold 5.3 million iPods. This year alone, iPod sales should reach $5 billion. The iPod brand dominates its market segment, accounting for 91% of all MP3 players with disk drives.

Omnicom Group Inc.'s LLKFB agency now runs its business under the Unit 7 name. The New York agency offers direct marketing services. New management at the shop includes executive vice president and chief creative officer Joe Cupani, who was previously at OgilvyOne Worldwide and Wunderman, as well as Mark Klapper, another Wunderman veteran who leads planners, analysts and psychologists as executive vice president of planning and consulting services at Unit 7.

Already facing an antitrust suit alleging that it is maintaining its "monopoly by securing, from time to time, multi-year, staggered contracts," with big TV companies, Nielsen Media Research Tuesday announced an extension of its first such long-term contract: It's a "landmark" seven-year contract with Time Warner.

Joe Mansueto, the billionaire chairman of Morningstar Inc., has emerged as the winning bidder for Inc. and Fast Company magazines - the final two titles remaining in Gruner + Jahr's disastrous U.S. magazine portfolio, according to people close to the situation. The $40 million deal could be announced as early as today, these people say.