TNT is rolling out another sponsored "nanodrama" series with the debut of "The Charm" on Wednesday during a 9 p.m. showing of "Law & Order." Presented by Capital One, each of five 60-second segments is set for the first position of the first commercial pod after the opening titles of the cop show. The story focuses on a New York man who tries to return a lost charm to a young lady he met on the subway. And as he runs around trying to find her, he uses a Capital One card to get through subway turnstiles and pay for …

A show with Dr. Ruth Westheimer giving sex tips to college kids is one highlight of the fall schedule of MTVU, a 24/7 ad-supported cable network available to students on more than 750 campuses. TWestheimer joins sex columnists from college newspapers to answer questions submitted via mtvu.com. Also, renewed for another season on the net is "Stand In," a show where MTV pretends to be taping a class with a nondescript professor who turns the class over to a celebrity like Elie Weisel, Madonna, Sen. John McCain or Bill Gates. "The students are clueless, until the famous person …

AT&T has put its $3 billion-plus media-buying and planning account into review, and the telco says it will be issuing RFPs to incumbent shops including OMD, Mediaedge:cia and GSD&M. And it has signed up Select Resources International to handle the search, expected to be complete by the end of 2007. "This move will consolidate all of AT&T's media planning and buying at one agency and is part of the company's ongoing efforts to maximize efficiencies created, in part, by AT&T's acquisition of BellSouth at the end of last year," the company says, adding that it "is pleased …

Last week, NBC put an end to Fox's 28-week run as tops among 18-to-49-year-olds, a big boost for the net that has struggled of late. Fox had won that demo every week since the Super Bowl, with the help of "American Idol" last winter and spring, and shows like "Hell's Kitchen" and "So You Think You Can Dance" this summer. "Kitchen" and "Dance" wrapped their seasons the previous week, making competition easier, but NBC also gained on the finale of reality show "America's Got Talent." That program was No. 1 among younger viewers, pulling an audience of nearly …

Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos is the new lead agency for Chili's restaurants. The shop will handle both creative and media for Chili's, which dumped Omnicom Group's GSD&M in April. Other contenders in the review were not disclosed, but a management shuffle at the restaurant chain, coupled with a same-store sales slump, drove the split with GSD&M, insiders say. GSD&M had worked for Chili's for about 20 years. The win adds to a hot new-business streak for Hill Holliday that in the past year has added assignments from AOL, Novartis, Procter & Gamble, Toys R Us and …

Billboards for tobacco products are more than twice as common in black neighborhoods as they are in white ones, according to a review of a handful of separate studies. In the review, which appears in the September/October issue of Public Health Reports, researchers found there were 4.5 tobacco billboards per 10,000 residents in white areas and 11.8 per 10,000 in black neighborhoods. Data also shows any given billboard in a black market is 70% more apt to be for tobacco than those in white ones. "If these populations are more exposed, we should be thinking about making sure …

NBC Universal is expected to announce a $350 million pact to acquire Sparrowhawk Media, a British private-equity firm that owns the international operations of the Hallmark Channel. While neither Sparrowhawk nor NBC Universal is talking publicly, insiders say talks are at an advanced stage. Sparrowhawk bought the business for $242 million in April 2005, and has since added new brands, including a made-for-TV movie service and joint venture KidsCo, a partnership set to launch in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine next month. KidsCo will be the first kids' channel in NBCU's international portfolio. The acquisition …

In a big marketing shift, word-of-mouth is the new focus for Beam Global. The liquor giant is moving to generate more talk around brands like Jim Beam bourbon and Sauza tequila. Distillers, long barred from advertising in some mainstream media, have been heavily into on-premise and word-of-mouth marketing for years, using those methods to grab market share away from beer over the past decade. But there has lately been a flood of liquor ads on TV, and while that won't stop, Beam Chief Marketing Officer Rory Finlay says that is only one means. "Advertising is not dead; it's …

Hewlett-Packard is rolling out a new $300 million marketing campaign to promote its Web-based printing services as it tries to push new uses for printers, its most profitable business. The effort, to break in traditional media, outdoor ads and online, promotes the company's "Print 2.0" effort that was announced earlier this year and aims to tie printing to the Web. "As more and more content moves from the desktop to the Web, HP is working to make printing relevant and meaningful," the company says. Onboard is Omnicom's Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, in charge of HP ads …

The advertising slump at the nation's newspapers may finally be bottoming out, with July revenue results not quite as bad, when compared to prior months, according to John Janedis, an analyst at Wachovia Equity Research. In the papers he tracks, ad revenue fell about 7.2% for the month, an improvement over June, which was down 7.5% and May, where the drop was 8.1%. Still, "based on anecdotal comments from industry contacts, the trajectory of ad improvement in [the fourth quarter] will likely disappoint," he says. Retail classified advertising had the worst monthly number he has ever seen -- …