For three and a half minutes last Friday and Saturday, 10 performers danced at a New York movie theater in what Screenvision says is a first-of-its-kind live in-cinema ad. The dancers streamed onto the stage at the Ziegfeld Theatre prior to a showing of the movie "Amelia." Near the end of the dance it was revealed that the live show was actually an ad for Daffy's, a clothing retailer. The "Fitting Dance" was accompanied by images on the movie screen behind the dancers. The dancers and on-screen images showed people piling on clothes. As part of the promotion, …

Quincy Smith, the fast-talking, sneakers-loving CEO of CBS Interactive is leaving to start his own Silicon Valley consulting firm. Smith was seen as primarily a deal-maker and the company lately has moved away from buying to building its assets. Neil Ashe, president of CBS Interactive, will inherit most of Smith's duties, but not the CEO title. Smith had signed a three-year deal with CBS in 2006. He is staying in his current post through the rest of the year and will continue to advise the company after he is gone as part of a multi-year consulting deal. …

Barbara Cipolla, former U.S. president at MediaCom, has joined OMD Worldwide in the new post of chief marketing officer. Cipolla left MediaCom in July after a two-year stint at the shop. She will report to OMD Worldwide CEO Mainardo de Nardis, whom she has known since they both worked at Mediaedge:cia from 2000-06. At MEC, Cipolla was credited with helping the agency win key accounts such as Cingular, Energizer and Paramount. Cipolla is one of several senior GroupM media agency veterans to join Omnicom media shops this year. Earlier this month, Steve Piluso, managing director of Mindshare …

Federal regulators are considering taking back some airwaves from television broadcasters and auctioning them off to wireless companies that want to add new wireless Internet services. FCC officials are focusing on the portion of the airwaves set aside for digital TV broadcasts. "The record is very clear that we're facing a looming spectrum gap," says Blair Levin, a former telecom analyst who is in charge of crafting the FCC's national broadband plan. The plan, which is due in February, will lay out various ways to increase broadband availability and usage. Some broadcast-station owners are already expressing concern …

Forbes embarked on a fresh round of layoffs this week, just six months after the company eliminated a reported 50 jobs and treated remaining workers to pay cuts, furloughs and a suspension of retirement contributions. It's the magazine's fourth round of cuts in a year. As of Tuesday, the only employees let go were an estimated 30 staffers on the business side. Editorial layoffs are slated to come down today. Insiders predict that Forbes will retain its biweekly frequency, and instead lower its rate base, currently set at 900,000, to save money. Some media observers, however, insist …

A new "Colbert Report" app offers iPhone users every "The Word" video done by satirist Stephen Colbert and will be updated weekly. The $1 app, released this week by Comedy Central, arranges clips alphabetically and can be sorted by air date and popularity. Users can also can press the "Surprise me!" function and get a random blast of the segment, The popular video segments are known for turning linguistics, sloganeering and marketspeak upside-down. The Word iPhone app is ad-supported.

As expected, big broadcast networks had to lower ad rates for many of their popular programs, such as "Grey's Anatomy" and "Desperate Housewives," during this year's upfront market. But several top-name comedies actually commanded better prices this year. Aside from the comedies, this season's schedule has few gainers. At CBS, "How I Met Your Mother," saw the average cost to advertise rise to $145,106 from $142,117. And "Big Bang Theory," one of this season's most-expensive programs, saw the average cost of a 30-second ad rise to $191,900 from $135,357 last season. On NBC, the average cost for a …

As holiday retail season nears, advertisers are slowly returning to the malls. Several categories have significantly increased spending in the second half of the year, per Eye Corp., which sells advertising in 250 malls nationwide. Pharmaceutical, insurance and sports marketers spent four times as much on mall advertising between July and October, compared to last year. Energy and fuel, fashion and communications categories have doubled spending. "We're not seeing growth limited to one or two areas. The ad dollars are coming in from virtually all sectors," says David Gibbs, CEO of Eye. But it's hard to gauge whether …

A pair of companies is launching the first free, ad-supported, in-flight wireless network. Dubbed SkyTown Center, the network lets airline travelers watch live television, play games and check out information about their destination city. It will be offered under a partnership between Wi-Fi provider Row 44 and JiWire, an online media company. Under the plan, airline passengers will be able to log onto SkyTown free with their computers. If they want to navigate away from SkyTown to text, check e-mail or browse the Internet, they will probably have to pay a fee. Content partners on the network …

Radio ads delivered by on-air talent, one the oldest forms of sponsored entertainment, are back. Called live reads, the ads are often worth 1.5 times the average 60-second spot, say insiders. Live reads work best as part of an integrated marketing campaign or part of the personality's ongoing relationship with a brand, says Greg Kahn, senior VP at Optimedia, which has inked multiple deals with radio talent this year. Clear Channel, for instance, is working company-wide to connect local talent with advertisers, and has lured Las Vegas Tourism and Purina onto the air. At Clear Channel, DJs fill …