Sirius Satellite Radio will launch one of its Howard Stern-produced channels in September, even though the syndicated morning man is contractually forbidden from appearing on-air at Sirius until January 2006.

Conde Nast Publications has raided The Wall Street Journal to hire Joanne Lipman, the deputy managing editor who launched the Personal Journal and Weekend Journal sections, to launch a monthly business magazine and Web site.

For about eight weeks last winter, the Saatchi 17 were the most notorious executives in the ad-agency world. Now they spend their days as a quasi-agency tucked away in a back corner of the 15th floor of Interpublic's Lowe, New York, where not even the receptionist knows for sure who they are.

As I mentioned in my last post, I am conducting interactive communication Q&A sessions with a number of ANA Annual Conference speakers. Jim Speros, Chief Marketing Officer at Ernst & Young, is my first guest.

Perhaps life really does imitate art. Levi Strauss & Co. said yesterday that it will introduce a line of clothing imprinted with images from the works of Andy Warhol, who turned everyday images like Campbell's Soup into high art.

The American Legacy Foundation today hailed a Delaware judge's decision as a victory in its legal fight over whether its Truth anti-tobacco ad campaign has "vilified" tobacco companies.

Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) prescription drug advertising continues to be controversial. On the Friday before the Fourth of July Congressional recess, Senate Majority Leader (and noted heart surgeon), Bill Frist (R-TN) took to the floor and called for a two- year moratorium on advertising of any newly approved DTC drug products. Senator Frist stated that this moratorium was necessary among other reasons because "...drug advertisements are fuel to America's skyrocketing prescription drug costs." In addition, Senator Frist called for pre-approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of all DTC advertising.

When will the bubble burst for magazines' genre du jour, the celebrity weeklies? The short answer: Not anytime soon. According to the first half of 2005 sales data released this week by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, newsstand sales of the genre's brightest stars -- Wenner Media's Us Weekly and Bauer Publishing's In Touch Weekly -- grew 32.6 and 49.4 percent respectively over the first six months of 2004. Considering that both magazines currently sell about a million copies each week, their continued surges are astounding when compared with the industry as a whole.

DirecTV CEO Chase Carey sounds sincere when he says he has "no bone to pick with TiVo." But that isn't stopping him from turning the No. 1 satellite company - until recently TiVo's most important ally - into the digital video recorder (DVR) pioneer's potentially most dangerous rival. For the first time since 2000, DirecTV has stopped encouraging its 14.7 million customers to buy receivers equipped with TiVo DVRs, which can record and pause live TV. In October, it will urge them instead to snap up units featuring a product developed in-house: the DirecTV Plus DVR. The new DVR "is …

During the past decade of upheaval in the television business, there was at least one tradition on which the industry could count: NBC crowing at the end of May about another big finish. The network's primetime dominance was a dynasty begun during President Ronald Reagan's first term, but the house that Grant Tinker and Brandon Tartikoff built now needs top-to-bottom refurbishing. NBC's fall from No. 1 to No. 4 among the Big Four networks during the 2004-05 season -- the beginning of the post-"Friends" era -- was swift and severe, NBC executives concede.