For the Beijing Olympics in 2008, you can go to China to see the games live or you can just turn to NBC. As NBC Universal gets ready to begin a new round of negotiations, it will offer the first real-time coverage of the games, streaming up to 1,000 hours online. In addition, NBC has finally persuaded the International Olympics Committee to schedule two of the most popular sports--gymnastics and swimming--when the network can broadcast live in prime time in the U.S. Dick Ebersol, NBC Universal Sports & Olympics chairman, says: "We're not prepared to make the hard announcement, …

One way to understand the rough times of the newspaper business is to talk with Greg Besson, an executive with Houston's Group 1 Automotive Inc. He says his company's 101 auto dealerships don't use newspapers like they used to, but increasingly turn to the Internet. A dealer can spend $2,000 to get on a car shopping Web site that will generate 100 live leads and 10 to 12 buyers. "We can pretty much measure it--cost per lead," Besson says. "But if you put an ad in the Sunday paper, it will probably cost more than $2,000 and you have …

If Goodwill Industries of North Central Wisconsin was up for election, it would have had a much better chance of getting its message out in prime time. "This is our very busiest time with back-to-school and Halloween," says Bob Pedersen, president and CEO. "It's important for us to get air time." But the group's choice of air times for its 30-second spots have been largely pre-empted by political campaign ads. Common Cause of Wisconsin, a government watchdog group, said spending by candidates in the Dairy State could top $20 million, squeezing out advertisers that need the time. Most of …

Google is branching out as an advertising broker with a new program that will allow businesses to use the online giant to buy ad space in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and other newspapers. The company will run a three-month test designed to make it easy for advertisers to find a newspaper they want to advertise in, browse ad rates, and buy an ad. Google is already brokering ad sales for magazines, but has had little success in the space. It will also broker ads for radio and television. Advertising revenue has been falling at newspapers …

More than 2 million New Jersey households are closer to having more choices when it comes to cable television service. On Thursday, the Garden State's leading telephone provider, Verizon, sought regulatory approval to offer television in 316 communities, bringing more competition to a state where television has been dominated by cable companies. Verizon says its plan would include 2.1 million homes, or 70% of the state's households. It hopes to begin offering the service in late December, and to have it available to 500,000 homes by March. For $42.99 per month, Verizon will offer over a fiber-optic network nearly …

The World Health Organization says that new restrictions on advertising junk food to children need to be introduced to fight rising rates of obesity. The group warned that by 2010, 150 million adults and 15 million children across Europe are likely to be obese. Britain has the fastest-growing rate of childhood obesity in the region--an estimated 1 million children will fall into that category within the next four years. In an attempt to reverse the trend, WHO announced a new European charter to counteracting obesity. It includes restrictions on promoting unhealthy foods to kids. Francesco Branca, a nutritional advisor …

The ratings are looking better at MSNBC, with the channel registering double-digit gains in viewers and adults 25-54 for October, largely on the back of "Countdown With Keith Olbermann." That program jumped 67% in viewership and 61% in the key demo over October 2005. "Countdown" averaged 637,000 viewers (including 233,000 in the demo) for the month, according to Nielsen Media Research. While it lags behind "The O'Reilly Factor" by a huge margin, it beat CNN's "Paula Zahn Now" in the demo and narrowly missed tying it in viewership. "Keith Olbermann is the right person at the right time, …

Following a handful of unimpressive bids to sell the company as a whole, Tribune Co. is now soliciting offers to sell off individual properties, including the Los Angeles Times, KTLA-TV Channel 5 and the Chicago Cubs. A Friday deadline for non-binding preliminary offers resulted in bids valued at about the company's current share price, say sources familiar with the process. That led Tribune's bankers to call people who may want to buy specific assets. In Los Angeles, David Geffen, former home builder Eli Broad and former supermarket magnate Ron Burkle have expressed interest in buying the newspaper. Local …

The vision of a new rival to CNN is near realization, and is vowing to take a pluralist and French world view to offset the "unified, Anglo-Saxon" outlook of the U.S. news channel. French President Jacques Chirac promised a "CNN a la francaise" in 2002, and the idea gained steam during the fuss over his opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq. The success of Arabic news stations such as Al Jazeera has also encouraged others to enter a field once dominated by CNN. Now, in a building south of Paris, France 24--in which state-owned broadcaster France Television and commercial …

Walt Disney Co. is near to cutting multiyear deals to continue supplying billions worth of content to the two largest U.S. cable operators, according to unnamed sources. The negotiations--with Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable--have been going on for years, and are focused on license fees Disney will charge for ESPN, the Disney Channel and its other networks. The Comcast deal, which could possibly be announced within weeks, also calls for the company to buy Disney's 39.5% stake in E! Entertainment Television for about $1.2 billion. Comcast already pays Disney about $1 billion a year in fees for the …