R&R Partners has collaborated with Playboy on print ads that seem indistinguishable from the magazine's famous cartoons. The ads are for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, and they appear in the November issue of the magazine. Cartoons by Doug Sneyd, one of the magazine's regular illustrators, depict a man and woman on a couch with him saying, "I read Playboy for the articles," while she responds: "I go to Vegas for the shows." According to Randy Snow, executive vice president at Las Vegas-based R&R, "We thought about doing something inside the magazine, because contextually it makes sense, …

When David Marks, the new Famous Dave's restaurant franchise owner in Philadelphia, got six radio commercials from his corporate office, he had to pick one. Marks, who uses both gut feeling and statistics, decided to try Spot Q, a new service for advertisers at B101. Fans of the soft-rock station's Web site listen to commercials and rate them. B101's owner, Jerry Lee, started Spot Q last year to help his advertisers and make the station sound better. Says Blaise Howard, vice president and general manager, bad ads "make people go away just as a bad song makes people go …

In his speech to a crowd of 500 at the Online News Association conference, Dallas Mavericks owner and HDnet founder Mark Cuban says he can't understand why newspapers aren't more expensive. "The value proposition is much better than what you're having to pay for," he says, adding that it's possible publishers "just don't have the guts" to boost prices. In addition, Cuban doesn't think new media is really going deep enough. "Every high-school talent show and every high-school theatrical performance should be reviewed and put up on your Web site," he says, which would better serve communities with user-generated content …

Toyota will sponsor 45-second vignettes to be broadcast during the "NBC Sunday Night Halftime Show" that examine the passion for high-school football in the United States. Hosted by two 22-year-olds, "Jon & J.J. Visit the Line of Scrimmage" debuted Sunday with a feature on a team based in Clovis, Calif. The show will run through the end of the year, as the pair travels to high schools in Ohio, Georgia, Texas and elsewhere in search of football programs that stand out. In one episode, the show found that in Massillon, Ohio, a rubber football is placed in the crib of …

Keith Olbermann's blistering tirades against the Bush administration have made him a ratings hit--and "the latest media point-person in the nation's political divide." The tipping point came after the host of MSNBC's "Countdown" read an account of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's speech equating Iraq War opponents to pre-World War II appeasers. The very next night, Olbermann delivered a scathing attack on Rumsfeld's interpretation of history and understanding of what it means to be American. That was just the first in a series of harsh broadsides on the administration and its policies. "As a critic of the administration, I will …

Recent French and German moves to curb online betting, followed by a U.S. outright ban, have had a dramatic effect on Internet gambling companies' efforts to develop their brands through sponsorship, advertising and other marketing initiatives. "The first consequence is that marketing budgets will be lowered," says Konrad Sveceny, a spokesman for gambling company Bwin. "That, of course, has effects on agency partners and other businesses." Companies like his have collectively spent hundreds of millions of dollars to market themselves in recent years, helping to turn Internet gambling into a $12 billion annual business. They have sponsored soccer teams …

"Studio 60" and "30 Rock" may be helping NBC revive "Saturday Night Live," the show those two prime-time programs are based on. Ratings show a slightly improved picture for the long-running comedy-sketch program. That's good news for NBC. It also happens to mirror a story line on "Studio 60," when the fictional NBS entertainment president congratulates the staff on a ratings uptick. But in real life, NBC has struggled with "SNL," which averaged only about 6 million viewers last season--its lowest ever. Plus, there have been reports that the network has made huge budget cuts on the series, leading to …

Reports that former News Corp. deputy chief Lachlan Murdoch might return to the media company have been met cautiously by Australian investors. News Corp. spokesman Greg Baxter dismisses the reports as "speculation," while Murdoch's wife, Sarah O'Hare, says the family is very happy in Australia. A recent story in Britain claims that News Corp. boss Rupert Murdoch had raised the possibility that his eldest son might return to a senior position within News Corp., saying "Lachlan might come back." Last August, Lachlan resigned from his position as News deputy chief operating officer, and returned to Australia with his family. He …

Europe is fast becoming the home of the free newspaper, and it is no fad. The trend began more than a decade ago when Sweden's Metro International rolled out the first of what would become a worldwide chain of free dailies. Free papers now account for 20 percent of European newspapers, and are distributed in public-transport systems and in other high-traffic locations. But now comes the next big thing: Home delivery--free papers delivered straight to your door, in a move that could push the market share of freebies even higher. In Denmark, two free home-delivered dailies have popped up in …

Former Vice President Al Gore will bring his user-generated content TV channel to the United Kingdom, courtesy of James Murdoch's British Sky Broadcasting. Gore launched Current TV, a channel made of clips created by viewers and producers, in August 2005. He said that the channel was "democratizing television." Murdoch--who claims that BSkyB was the first media company in the world to go carbon neutral--and Gore share a passion for the environment. Murdoch has also urged News Corp. officials to follow his son James' lead and tackle climate change issues. Current TV's agreement for the channel to be carried on …