The New York Times Co. is firing 500 employees in a belt-tightening move due to slumping advertising sales. Investors anticipating the cutback announcement made after markets closed yesterday had pushed up shares 21 cents to $32.13, reversing a recent stock slump.

Here's a shocking prediction: Consumer confidence numbers this month will take a hit from Katrina. That's a problem. But the bigger question is what happens to confidence and the indicators it represents -- jobs, spending and GDP -- in the months ahead. Short-term job losses and other fallout from Katrina, high gas prices and higher heating bills this winter all could give consumers less discretionary income and more reason to lose confidence going into holiday shopping.

ABC News is in serious talks to replace "Nightline" anchor Ted Koppel with network news vets Cynthia McFadden, Terry Moran and - in a surprise move - Martin Bashir, according to industry sources. Koppel is set to leave the network and his signature show in December, and the deliberations about who will succeed him have been intense.

Martha Stewart might be planning her big TV comeback Wednesday when her version of The Apprentice airs, but investors have been tuned in for months. Investors have been puffing Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSLO) stock up even while the company burned 14% of its cash in the past year and struggles with weak revenue.

Telephone company Verizon Communications, which plans to start selling video services, said on Wednesday it signed a long-term agreement for use of programming from Disney Corp.

There was a time when sure bets were easier to make on a more traditional media and entertainment playing field defined by producers and actors with hit track records, primetime television dominance and Big Media mergers. But on the digital broadband frontier, all bets are off. The only sure thing is the good idea that taps into the newly empowered consumer psyche and pays off in tangible revenue and profits -- not unlike Apple's iPod and its multibillion-dollar community of related products and culture.

Swedish clothing chain Hennes & Mauritz said Tuesday it will drop a planned advertising campaign with model Kate Moss after she admitted to recently using cocaine. H&M initially said it would proceed with the campaign, but company spokeswoman Liv Asarnoj said Tuesday that "after evaluating the situation, we have decided that a campaign with Kate Moss is not consistent with H&M's clear disassociation from drugs."

The Securities and Exchange Commission has denied Interpublic Group of Cos.' request to kill a shareholder proposal for the sale of the company, an action that could lead to a shareholder referendum this fall on whether to put Interpublic on the block.

News Corp. has named Paul Carlucci as publisher of the New York Post, replacing News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch, who made the announcement, said the change is effective immediately. Murdoch had returned to the post as publisher following the abrupt resignation of his son Lachlan in August.

Nearly seven months after being stripped of her day-to-day duties, CNBC Chairman Pamela Thomas-Graham landed a new job yesterday. Thomas-Graham served as president and CEO of CNBC from 2001 until earlier this year, when she was bumped upstairs amid a steep ratings slide at the network and at a time when the network's primetime lineup was in disarray. While NBC Universal, CNBC's parent, spun her February appointment to the chairman's post as a promotion, in reality she has had little to do with the operations of the network since then and spent much of her time looking for a new …