After a series of starts and stops, the U.S. Army, which is having recruitment problems in light of the war in Iraq, has reissued its request for proposals for its up to $1 billion ad contract -- the government's largest ever.

Directors of the Walt Disney Company may have dodged a bullet, but battles over executive compensation - and especially supersize severance agreements - are here to stay. After yesterday's ruling that Disney directors did not violate duties to shareholders when they allowed the hiring, firing and payment of $140 million in severance to Michael S. Ovitz, the company's onetime president, the relief in corporate boardrooms was palpable.

Two Comcast officials told the New York Times last week that the cable giant has no plans for a sports network to compete directly against ESPN. And that was probably the smart thing to say. No need to telegraph your intentions if you're planning to challenge the champ. But let's follow the money.

Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. on Tuesday said it was looking at various ways to get a return on its $500 million investment in radio shock jock Howard Stern, including rebroadcasting his show on the Internet.

Media companies are lapsing into an investor purgatory that could stifle their willingness or ability to aggressively grow new digital broadband initiatives that will strengthen and expand their foundations.

Can a woman named Brandon be the new Jane? Brandon Holley, the founding editor of 31/2-year-old teen magazine Elle Girl, has been tapped to succeed Jane Pratt as the editor in chief of Jane, the Fairchild title aimed at twentysomething women.

For the foreseeable future, the news division will compensate for Mr. Jennings's absence in much the way it has since he departed his broadcast on April 5. Charles Gibson will keep his morning duties while alternating in the evening with Elizabeth Vargas, an anchor of "20/20," and, to a lesser extent, Bob Woodruff, who is the anchor of the network's Saturday news broadcast, and Terry Moran, the network's chief White House correspondent and anchor of its Sunday-evening news broadcast.

What happens when you mix navy, as in the retailer Old Navy, with strawberry, as in an agency named StrawberryFrog? That is the question Madison Avenue has been asking since June, when the Old Navy division of Gap announced that it had hired the New York office of StrawberryFrog to create a major part of its big back-to-school marketing campaign. The StrawberryFrog work, aimed at parents and teenagers, is now appearing on television and in magazines.

The only industry in America that doesn't believe in advertising is the advertising industry itself. Because they don't do any. Well, hardly any. And certainly nothing like the volume of advertising they convince their clients to spend.

I am an agency media researcher by training which today seems akin to being an endangered species without government protection. It's no news that many of our best and brightest have left the trade or switched allegiance to suppliers or to the sell side. Beth Uyenco, David Marans, Tony Jarvis, Jon Swallen, Ira Sussman, Barbara Zack, Joanne Burke. The troubling question is "why?" Perhaps because there is no monument on Madison Avenue to media research. Perhaps it's because we forget so quickly.