With Warner Bros.' blockbuster movie "Speed Racer" going bust, it is faced with finding ways to appease the movie's tie-in partners, including McDonald's, Target, General Mills and Esurance, that got far less exposure than expected. One option is to offer a "make good," similar to TV, in which the sponsor gets exposure in better-performing shows to snag viewers it missed the first time around. Producer Joel Silver says, "I can't say Warner will go, 'Here's two "Harry Potters" for one "Speed Racer,"' but there are lots of movies around here." The film has $80 million in …

Without debate and with a voice vote, the Senate voted Thursday night to invalidate the FCC's December decision to loosen the newspaper-broadcast crossownership rule. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) had been pushing hard for the resolution of disapproval, arguing that media consolidation has already lead to a lack of localism and diversity in media. Dorgan got a similar resolution passed in 2003, the last time the FCC tried to revise its media ownership rules, but that effort got stuck in the House, and a federal court remanded the rules back to the FCC. In supporting the FCC decision, …

To increase efficiency, Chrysler is centralizing its media and brand teams and migrating its media director Jim Helberg to its media agency, Omnicom's PHD. Helberg, who joined Chrysler in January from OMD, will lead PHD's Troy, Mich. office, as executive vice president. He will report to Daryl Simm, CEO of Omnicom Media Group. Chrysler marketing chief Deborah Wahl Meyer says that PHD will now also become more closely aligned with the carmaker's creative agency, Omnicom's BBDO, to allow for more integrated marketing programs. In addition, she says she has established a separate, centralized interactive group to service the …

The international production arm of U.K.'s ITV boosted its first quarter sales by 41%, partly due to new business in the U.S. The global content operation increased sales from $79.5 million last year to $110 million this year. The growth was driven by a strong performance in international production, "and major prime-time commissions and format sales to Fox, NBC and CBS in the U.S," says executive chairman Michael Grade. ITV was out performing the U.K. TV advertising market for "the first time in years," according to chief operating officer John Creswell, who also indicated that the company is …

At the MPA's Independent Magazine Group conference Thursday, the talk was all about jumping from being a print to a multiplatform publisher. Bryan Welch, publisher at Ogden Publications and IMAG chairman, says it means a change in mind-sets. "I hear a lot of my peers saying, 'I have this medium or I have this revenue stream,' " but they need to move away from having a mission by medium and move toward having a mission in terms of building communities, Welch says. "We have about a million paid subscribers to our print publications and 400,000 registered users …

Sports coverage is going mobile in a big way. NBC Sports said Thursday that it is adding several offerings to its mobile NBC 2Go platform, including tennis' French Open and more NHL coverage. NBC's mobile service provides access to simulcasts of live NBC Sports events and highlights and is available to customers of the FLO TV service, which also provides content from NBC, MSNBC, CNBC and Bravo. This month, the service provided access of the Kentucky Derby for the first time.