Talk about reaching a captive audience. NBC Universal has signed a deal with the VST Media Network that will allow it to run three-minute clips--the average time it takes to fuel one's vehicle--at service-station pumps. Pumpers will see local news, weather, sports, and entertainment--both video and headlines--plus local advertising. State Farm Insurance and Tropicana are among the initial advertisers. A pilot program has already begun in Southern California. According to Broadcasting & Cable, each service station that is participating in the program has about 20,000 visitors per month. Shell is the first company to sign on to the program, but …

The New York Post says Michael Eisner, late of The Walt Disney Company, is trying to launch a private investment firm but is having trouble attracting participants. "Sources in the financial community have said Eisner is having a tough time getting investors, given that during his time at Disney he rarely kept investment banks on the payroll," reports Tim Arango in an "exclusive" story in yesterday's paper. The story also makes mention of other activities that have been keeping the post-Disney Eisner busy. He's got a brand-new talk show on CNBC, off to a decent start. And he's just invested …

Now it has turned into a full-fledged stampede. PBS is thinking about making several of its programs available on the Web. Free of charge, of course. In doing so, it would be following its commercial cousins onto the new platform, basically cementing in the public's mind that just about anything one can watch on television can later be seen, at one's leisure, online. Paula Kerger, the new president of PBS, yesterday told an industry group, "My goal in running PBS is that no matter what choice consumers in the digital age decide to do... we recognize the need to make …

Michele Greppi of TVWeek.com does a nice job of summarizing what for television affiliates is not a very pretty picture. Their long-held exclusivity arrangements are now essentially gone. Programming that could be seen on their air and their air alone is rapidly becoming available, often at no charge, on the Web--which, among other things, offers audiences total time-shifting freedom. Each of the major networks has lately announced deals to make shows viewable on the Web, and while only Fox has said it will share revenues from any on-demand extensions of its programming (with CBS likely to follow), the fact of …

It's a prediction no one in the magazine industry wanted to hear, at  least not yet.  Yesterday Merrill Lynch said it believes the Internet  will take in more advertising dollars in 2006 than will magazines.  If  that comes to pass, few would be shocked, but it would nevertheless  represent a pivotal moment for both industries.  Great news for Web  companies, less good for publishers.  However, Nina Link, who heads the  Magazine Publishers of America trade group, did manage to put a  positive spin on Merrill's …

Newsweek this week runs a catching-up-with interview with Sumner  Redstone, the 82-year-old multi-billionaire who heads both Viacom and  CBS Inc.  Redstone, full of bluster, as always, addresses the subjects  of succession, family turmoil, Brad Grey's troubles, even upcoming  films from his Paramount Pictures unit.  He also is asked about, and  answers, interviewer Johnnie L. Roberts' questions about Tom Freston  and Les Moonves, the two men atop Redstone's twin corporate empires.   Are they competing against one another? Roberts inquires.  "I think  they may very …

As is frequently the case, the Christian Science Monitor waits a while  before tackling the meaning of a cultural or business trend, but when  it finally weighs in, it does so stylishly and with real credibility.  And so it is this week with the subject of on-demand TV, which rather  suddenly is shaking up local stations that, until days ago, had  locked up exclusive access to the best programming.  And now--not.   "The rise of the on-demand world has local suppliers of content  everywhere unsettled," writes …

Entertainment industry reporter Nikki Finke is feeling vindicated.  Last  August the feisty L.A.-based journalist wrote that the Los Angeles Times was being hurt by a sharp fall-off in movie advertising.  For  the Times, that would represent a major hit, as it is the dominant  paper in a one-industry  town.  Times management  vigorously rejected Finke's assertions.  But she's now reporting on  her new blog, Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily, that the latest  evidence bears her out.  "That admission [of the advertising decline] …

"Why Can't I Have Just the Cable Channels I Want?" is the headline on a particularly insightful Media Frenzy column by Richard Siklos in yesterday's New York Times.  Siklos does a very nice job of summing up both sides of the long-simmering controversy.  Some in the industry believe the current system of "bundling" works great; others, including the Federal Communications Commission, have come around to the conclusion that the formula must be revised so that customers can buy channels on an a la carte basis.  Siklos sees the value on both side of the argument.  Ultimately, he says, U.S. …

A small newspaper in Kentucky has figured out a way to use Google, the ubiquitous search engine, to help sell classified advertising. Mark Van Patten, the general manager of the Bowling Green Daily News, came up with the idea when he began reading about mashups, Google Earth's ability to be mashed up, as it were, with other data so that site-specific information can be precisely overlayed on a local map. The Daily News now offers customers who place yard-sale classifieds an opportunity to have their ads attached to a mashup on the paper's Web site.  All the customer needs …