If the upfront ends up being tough for the networks, that does not mean advertisers have turned sour on TV advertising, says MediaWeek. Rather, according to buyers who talked to the magazine, it is part of a plan to hold back in the upfront as a hedge for the second half of the season ---and to have cash ready to go if the networks begin expanding alternate distribution of their programming. "Money will be held back for a number of reasons, but primarily to allow us to get a better read on the marketplace and what the networks will have …

Excepting a few high-profile urban centers, Meredith has decided to pretty much yank Child magazine from newsstands, Ad Age reports. With just 8,000 of its more than 900,000 issues going at retail, the publisher decided the trouble and expense were no longer worth it. Even at its peak, “the newsstand has never been a major source,” says Meredith executive vice president Bob Mate.  “We've decided to really concentrate whatever limited newsstand we will have on key markets and in those places where we sell well. It's the amount of time and effort. For 1 percent of the circulation, it …

Google isn’t "doing what people are clamoring for" by introducing video ads into its online video programming, an analyst tells the San Francisco Chronicle. And  the search giant faces at least one other obstacle to its new ad sales program. David Card, an analyst for JupiterResearch, says it will have to change the way online advertising is bought by successfully straddling the separate departments advertisers have for buying television and the Web.

The tax man may put le kibosh on any plans to dismantle Vivendi, writes Dow Jones. A break-up looks "enticing" on paper, and would "be the logical conclusion to the dramatic restructuring of the company that chairman Jean-Rene Fourtou began in the wake of Jean-Marie Messier's megalomania but which has perhaps stopped halfway." However, Vivendi benefits enormously from French tax laws, in part for creating jobs in France, and "a break-up would put all that in jeopardy."

The International Herald Tribune examines the saturation of endorsements by the big names in soccer, with top players spending as much time making a pitch as on it. Brazilian superstar Ronaldinho alone appears in eight different ads, reports Eric Pfanner, which has give some industry experts reason to question the value of this kind of very expensive advertising. "There is a danger that the ads all look alike," says Rino Ferrari, president of Rino Publicidade, an independent ad agency in São Paulo. "When you throw a bunch of money into something, this is always the easiest way to do it, …

If consumers' habits are not quick to change, Business Week's Jon Fine posits that advertisers' are even slower--and nowhere is that more apparent than in the upfront buying season. "This is all very old-school stuff: vaudevillian dazzle, copious applications of food and alcohol to lubricate the ad spigots, a frenzy of dealmaking primarily compressed into several days in one city" he writes. "And all the more so in a TiVo'd, rapidly digitizing world. But the upfront ritual keeps chugging along, and the advertisers keep buying it.... Even though the rites come amid a steady string of digital TV initiatives and …

While media companies spend big to extend their content to the very smallest screens--cell phones--the head of a company named Digital Chocolate argues that originality is the only way to go. The first big mobile hit will be a completely novel creation, Trip Hawkins tells The New York Times. "If you're going to really establish something as a new medium, you can't do that with content that is derivative and a second-class version of another medium."

As the networks throw their biggest hits against each other on Thursday nights come fall, Ad Age reports that is "sure to send consumers to their DVRs and Internet browsers--with the potential consequence that many of the ads in these expensive shows end up getting zapped." Each is "trying to program for appointment viewing--and perhaps their digital futures--making it difficult for buyers to decide where to spend their $9 billion or so dollars," in the upfront Still, though, some are looking forward to the Thursday faceoff, as such stiff competition could raise overall viewing levels. "I see Thursday as an …

Digital video recorders may be having less impact on viewing habits than advertisers may think, according to the results of a British study, MediaLife reports. Among the key findings: TV watchers say they time-shift way more than they actually do--and even when they do fast-forward through ads, they still pay attention--and stop to watch some of them. Says Todd Chanko, an analyst at JupiterResearch, "everybody is all freaked out that people are fast forwarding the ads. But. . . this is a great advertising opportunity. Just create different kinds of ads that work in a real-time environment and can still …

With Ted Turner stepping down from the board of Time Warner on Friday, Business Week's Tom Lowry pays tribute to the man who did so much to make cable TV what it is today. "Even though Turner has been relegated to background status these past years, his footprints are all over the media landscape," he writes. "A complicated mix of arrogance and vulnerability, Turner is one of the rare visionaries, like his arch-nemesis Rupert Murdoch, who trusts his gut over financial models." Turner also came up with the idea of dual revenue streams by starting with an ad-supported broadcast model …