Rodale's Prevention is stepping up its coverage in the food arena. New food director Judith Hill, formerly of Martha Stewart 's Everyday Food, is overseeing the initiative, called Cook! It consists of a 50% larger food section in the magazine and a redesigned food channel with recipe finder on Prevention's Web site. Prevention also plans to add food publications, books, and supermarket cooking events. The publisher says that tighter budgets are forcing people to eat more at home. But they lack healthy cooking know-how, so the new content will meet both a consumer and advertiser demand. Other …

Many media sellers finally gave up meeting their 2008 targets last week, and despite cautiously optimistic messages from top management, media players are girding for intense battles over shrinking ad budgets. Booming financial advertising stalled in the first half of 2008, matching the $4.5 billion spent in the first half of 2007. Look for a big decline in the second half of this year, say experts. Ad-industry analysts are concerned with the domino effect on consumers. The financial industry moves "could affect unemployment drastically over time, which affects travel and credit cards and consumer spending. I think …

Al Gore has a hankering to get into the magazine business. Industry insiders say he plans to buy a stake in Plenty, a 4-year-old title about environmentally conscious living. Gore, who already owns the TV-Internet network Current, also happens to be on the cover of the magazine's current issue. While Gore's ownership role in the magazine is not yet clear, the title seems to be a good fit with the former vice president's emphasis on curbing global warming. Plenty uses more than 85% recycled paper and keeps its production process carbon-neutral by buying offsets. The bimonthly magazine has …

TV ads for radio fail to produce significant boost in radio listening, according to a study by Arbitron and Edison Media Research. The study, the first of its kind in the radio industry, examined the impact of TV campaigns on two Philadelphia radio stations using Arbitron's portable people meter. Researchers separated the listeners of one station into light, medium and heavy users, who were all equally exposed to the TV campaign. Increased listening among heavy and light listeners was negligible. But listening among moderate listeners rose between the first week and the 11th week of the TV …

What a difference a month makes. Cablevision CEO James Dolan said Thursday that he doesn't expect to sell his firm's cable networks amid current market conditions. A month ago, when deals with better price tags were relatively easier to finance, he thought offloading networks was a good possibility. Asked by investors if his family could try again to take Cablevision private, Dolan said, "I would never rule it out, but it's not really on our radar." Cablevision's top priority amid the market turmoil is to manage the company's $1.7 billion in debt. Dolan said current credit facilities …

LG Electronics, maker of plasma and flat-screen TVs, is a sponsor of the Emmy Awards Sunday on ABC. As part of its sponsorship, LG is providing 60-inch plasma screens that will flank the Emmy stage. Coincidentally, LG is also taking home some Emmy hardware of its own. The company's president Woo Paik was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award as the "father of digital TV," due to his leadership in the development of digital compression technology for DTV broadcasting.