The British government is keeping the ban on product placement in British TV shows, despite economic difficulties and a three-month lobbying effort by broadcasters. Media minister Andy Burnham says he does not see a convincing economic case for product placement, which is widespread in the U.S. "My priority is to protect the standards of broadcasting for which Britain is known worldwide. There are very serious concerns about blurring the boundaries between advertising and editorial." The European Union greenlit limited TV product placement in 2007, but individual governments still have the power to outlaw the practice. British broadcaster ITV, …

Through a multi-year deal with Air America Radio, Montel Williams is getting his own national radio show. The program, "Montel Across America," is slated to debut weekdays 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. EST. Williams' new show will take the time period currently occupied by "The Lionel Show." For 17 years, Williams was host and executive producer of "The Montel Williams Show," one of the longest running daytime talk shows in TV. He is currently launching a multimedia business based on his "Living Well with Montel" brand. This latest addition to Air America's lineup follows the network's news earlier …

A 31-year-old independent newspaper, The Brooklyn Paper, has been purchased by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. The new owners "don't want the product to change," says the paper's longtime editor Gersh Kuntzman. A sale price was not disclosed. In 2006, Murdoch purchased a rival group of papers, The Courier-Life chain, which publishes 12 papers in Brooklyn. At the time, some industry pundits said the chain might help the sales staff at News Corp's New York Post upsell ads from the local papers to the Post and offer Post advertisers more reach via the small papers. Last year, when the …

Eli Broad, a wealthy philanthropist who once looked at buying the Los Angeles Times, is still interested in the newspaper business. Real estate magnate Sam Zell took Tribune Co.--owner of the L.A. Times--private in an $8.2 billion deal that loaded the company with debt. Tribune filed for bankruptcy protection last year, and the L.A. Times is expected to be put up for sale again. "I would like to see our foundation and others join together to own the Times," says Broad. He acknowledges that the paper would have to change. "I am not sure it can be a …

In promotional spots for its own shows, Fox is using some of the tricks it has learned from its advertisers. In recent weeks, the network has started sprinkling its commercial breaks with what it's calling "TiVo-busters"--spots designed to be effective even when viewers use a DVR to fast-forward through advertising. The first campaign is a 10-second tune-in spot for new drama "Lie to Me." A viewer watching Fox in real time would see actor Tim Roth leaning in toward the camera in slow motion and hear intense music and Roth saying, "I know when you're lying." People who hold …

For many newly frugal households, subscriptions to TiVo, cable or satellite television are starting to look more like a luxury than a necessity. Such a trend could have a serious impact on traditional TV ads. Only one in four people age 18 to 29 says cable or satellite TV is a necessity, per the Pew Research Center. They have discovered plenty of places to get free or super-cheap TV shows and movies that they already watch. Among the inexpensive options: a new digital converter box, Netflix, DVD kiosks at stores, free DVDs at the public library and Web sites like …

Sirius XM Radio Inc.'s fourth-quarter loss widened on costs related to the merger of Sirius and XM Radio. The company's net loss for the quarter widened to $245.845 million from $166.223 million in the corresponding quarter last year. The satellite-radio company, which faces a mountain of debt, was perilously close to bankruptcy last month before media titan John Malone's Liberty Media Corp. lent it $530 million for a 40% stake.

Martin Nisenholtz, New York Times Co. digital chief, says that newspaper competitors working together on a cooperative news outlet is a real possibility as the industry struggles. In the paper's "Talk to the Newsroom" series, a reader asks whether newspapers have considered forming a cooperative news site where people would have to pay a monthly subscription fee to access the papers' articles. Nisenholtz says such a plan is possible--"particularly as more publishers question the advertising-only model. I can easily imagine such a venture taking shape among many newspapers." As for charging money for content on the NYT's site, that …

While many in the industry have been wringing their hands over the death of the sitcom, CBS has asserted its dominance over the genre. From both a cultural and commercial perspective, no other network -- including former comedy champ NBC -- comes close to matching CBS's Monday night lineup of laughs. It's an achievement for CBS to have hit shows in a genre that advertisers of all stripes covet. Plus, comedies have been the genre best able to generate back-end revenue from syndication. CBS has four of the five most-watched live-action comedies, with "How I Met Your Mother" …