The London Underground may not win many points for ambience, but it does offer a respite from the intrusions of modern technology, writes Eric Pfanner in the International Herald Tribune. He notes that cell phones and BlackBerries don't work, so passengers have had to rely on print media for distraction. But not for long: The digital era is burrowing in as Viacom Outdoor readies a big deployment of video in the Tube, ponying up $136 million to install 2,200 screens in the subway network. They will be placed near escalators, hallways, and other high-traffic areas--and starting next year, the company …

Time Warner Cable hopes to hit a home run in the Los Angeles market with a new free video-on-demand offering: Dodgers on Demand, reports Multichannel News. Part of its overall sponsorship deal with the team, the cable operator has acquired archival footage for the platform--and will shoot new stuff like game highlights to keep the site updated frequently. It will be accessible to 2 million Southern California homes, and will also have coverage of Dodgers charity events and press conferences--while continuing to operate even in the off-season. And the system looks to be unique: Jeffrey Hirsch, the Los Angeles president …

Columbia Journalism School Dean Nick Lemann couldn't have been clearer in a recent article about the growing influence of the Web, writes David Hirschman in Editor & Publisher. But Lemann, who wrote that "as journalism moves to the Internet, the main project ought to be moving reporters there," turned his own words on their heads. Last week, he told staffers at CJR Daily that he will slash the site's budget in half to prop up the money-losing print edition of the Columbia Journalism Review. "It's not unusual for a media company to make cuts to balance the bottom line," Hirschman …

If you went to college, you probably remember the school newspaper as the publisher of everything from sorority news to sex surveys--along with ads for happy hours at the village pub, writes Gary Robertson in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. "It was mainly news about you, the college student, and everybody you knew," he says. But now a major communications company has bought a college newspaper, "and people are wondering if this is the start of something big." He refers to Gannett Co.'s buyout of FSView & Florida Flambeau, the student newspaper of Florida State University. He also asks why a media …

German publisher M. DuMont Schauberg will buy a chunk of Haaretz Group, publisher of one of Israel's best-known daily newspapers, in a deal worth $32 million, the Associated Press reports. Cologne-based DuMont says the two companies seek "a longstanding business relationship." Germany's fourth-largest newspaper publisher, it owns daily newspapers that include the Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger, Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, Express, and the recently acquired Frankfurter Rundschau. The buy-in to Haaretz is its first investment in a foreign company, AP notes.

Chicago radio listeners are in for fewer local voices, writes Phil Rosenthal in the , as WLIT-FM replaces Melissa Forman with a Whoopi Goldberg syndicated product. And "there was a time when piping in a drive-time show from New York was unthinkable in Chicago," Rosenthal says, "as local listeners wouldn't hear of it, literally." He notes that even Howard Stern was a bust his first time out in the Windy City. "Local powerhouses such as Crazy Howard McGee, El Pistolero and Spike O'Dell, along with Chicago headlines and traffic, are likely to always have an edge," he adds, as …

With the dirt still fresh on the grave of Elle Girl's print edition, its rivals are busily divvying up the late mag's subscriber rolls even while it tries to survive online, Ad Age reports. Hearst, parent of Seventeen and CosmoGirl, bought most of the Elle Girl list a few months ago, taking the best demos and fits for its own titles. "We're writing to share some good news!" reads a letter received by one Elle Girl subscriber--along with a copy of Seventeen. "Special arrangements have been made with Seventeen magazine to service your subscription for its full remaining term." Elle …

MTV2 says it has not decided if it will re-air a cartoon criticized as offensive for depicting women being led around on leashes, reports the Associated Press. And it is also uncertain if the series, "Where My Dogs At?" will even come back for a second season. One episode, aired in the early afternoon, featured an appearance by a cartoon Snoop Dogg accompanied by two women in neck collars and chains. The net says the episode was a satire of an actual Snoop appearance where women were in collars and chains. "We certainly do not condone Snoop's actions, and the …

As automotive sales slump, the media is beginning to feel the pinch, reports MediaLife. With Detroit's big three carmakers struggling against profit squeezes, rising costs and further incursions by foreign competitors, they are cutting back on spending--especially in consumer magazines. For the month of July alone, automotive advertising--the sector's largest category--was down 11.4% for a year-to-date slump of more than 16%. And that hurts, MediaLife says, "in what should have been a strong year for consumer magazines."

CBS will air an updated version of a documentary about the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and the firefighters who responded that day five years ago, writes the Hollywood Reporter. The award-winning documentary, produced by a pair of French brothers and a retired firefighter, will be broadcast Sept. 10. And "airing the documentary represents something of an act of courage by CBS, given the gritty language that [it] contained in its two previous airings and the chill that is going through the airwaves over federal efforts to curb broadcast indecency," it reports. CBS has made no cuts to …