The rate at which consumers are purchasing digital video recorder services is slowing in a manner that may indicate the devices don't have broad mass-market appeal, according to a new report from Magna Global. In its just-issued "On Demand Quarterly," Magna Global reports that in the second quarter around 965,000 subscribers signed up for DVRs, down from 1.15 million in the prior quarter and 1.32 million in the fourth quarter of 2004. There are currently around 8 million DVR subscribers in the U.S.

Cingular Wireless will offer a riff of sorts on Apple's iconic iPod ads in a TV, print, online and out-of-home campaign breaking this week for the Motorola ROKR phone, which is compatible with Apple's iTunes online music service.

As I continue my conversations with ANA Annual Conference speakers, please find Jerri DeVard's (SVP, Verizon) comments below on the impact of technology on brand building.

Neal Shapiro, who led NBC News through the Sept. 11 terror attacks and the conflict in Iraq, and who oversaw the first anchor succession on a network nightly newscast in nearly a quarter-century, announced yesterday that he was resigning as president of the news division, effective Friday.

In a surprise switch of automotive advertising assignments, the troubled carmaker Volkswagen of America dismissed its creative agency of more than a decade, Arnold Worldwide in Boston, and shifted the assignment yesterday to Crispin Porter & Bogusky in Miami. To work for Volkswagen of America, Crispin Porter is resigning a creative client of more than four years, the Mini Cooper line of cars sold by BMW of North America. Volkswagen is estimated to spend $325 million to $425 million on American advertising each year, more than 10 times as much as Mini spends.

During the last year, America's hard-core game players have shifted four more hours of their weekly TV-watching time to online activities, according to a new survey by Ziff David Media Game Group.

Their song was irresistible. It promised success, ripe wisdom and a new life to any man who came to them. And so the Sirens of Greek legend lured sailors off course to their destruction on the rocks. Like the Argonauts we are pulled by the promise of the new and the unknown, but it's wise to consider what is still seaworthy before we abandon ship. Certainly Television isn't going away. Most ad dollars are spent on traditional media; so much of our effort should still go to making them work better.

Omnicom, the world's largest advertising group, made a takeover approach to Aegis, the UK-listed media buying and research company, towards the end of 2004, The Sunday Telegraph has discovered.

It's girl's night out on XM Satellite Radio. XM, the largest of the two main satellite radio players with over 4 million subscribers, is launching a new women's channel whose programming will include the high-profile personalities Ellen DeGeneres and Tyra Banks.

The protagonist of Anita Shreve's forthcoming novel "A Wedding in December" is an innkeeper, so, along with garden-variety publicity for the book - national advertising, book tour, television interviews - her publisher added another product-placement destination: a bookshelf at the Gillum House Bed & Breakfast in Shinnston, W.Va.