Andy Heyward's recently launched A Squared Entertainment and Archie Comics have partnered with comic king Stan Lee for a multimedia comic book property, "Super Seven." Lee, the Marvel legend and chairman and founder of POW!, is creating "Seven," about seven aliens who find themselves stranded on Earth after their spaceship crashes and are befriended by Lee himself. Archie Comics will publish "Seven," and A Squared will focus on developing the project as a TV series and online property as well as handling licensing and merchandising.

Cyrus Mehri, a civil-rights lawyer, he is filing charges against ad companies with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.The EEOC will investigate the charges of discrimination against agencies where the plaintiffs have been employed or applied for jobs. All filings are confidential. Mehri would not disclose the number of individuals, their identities or accused companies. Mehri, who specializes in class-action suits, sees two potential outcomes: a class-action suit or settlements between the agencies and individuals. "It's a very difficult thing to do, because bias is hard to prove," said Hadji Williams, author of "Knock the Hustle." "[The ad industry] …

Weakness in auto biz, among others, dragged down Omnicom's fourth quarter, though CEO John Wren says the recession is behind them. Omnicom Group, hit by declines in its automotive, sports/event marketing and recruitment businesses, said 2009 fourth-quarter profit fell 15.3% to $229.6 million from the year-earlier period. Earnings per share dropped to 73 cents from 87 cents. Wren said those three sectors accounted for 100%of the 6.3 percent drop in the company's 4Q revenue -- to $3.27 billion -- when viewed in terms of organic growth, a measure that factors out the impact of currency fluctuations, acquisitions and related …

The AP and Google have been negotiating a new licensing agreement to continue the publication of AP content on Google News, but the AP's efforts to more closely monitor the flow of articles to and through Google and other Web portals have hampered progress. The AP recently reached a new licensing agreement with Yahoo, though people familiar with the matter said the agreement did not include all the protections the AP was seeking. Around Christmas, Google stopped adding new articles hosted on its news site in preparation for no new deal being reached when the contract was set to …

Fox Cable Networks is in advanced discussions to sell action sports channel Fuel TV to Viacom.Sources say Viacom will pay a sum in the low to mid-nine figures to secure the channel.Fox launched Fuel TV in July 2003. The channel now has close to 30 million subscribers through a mix of digital- and sports-tier carriage. Fox's decision to sell Fuel TV fits with its new strategy to nix niche cable channels that would find it hard to exist on their own. At the end of March, Fox will replace another niche channel, Fox Reality, with Nat Geo Wild, …

Shock jock Howard Stern said he's considering leaving radio to become a judge on "American Idol" next season. Stern confirmed a Page Six report that Fox is interested in hiring him to replace Simon Cowell on the top-rated show. "There's not a better job on the planet than judging that f----ing karaoke contest," Stern told listeners during his Sirius satellite radio show, according to excerpts published on MTV.com. One snag: Stern, who lives in New York, is believed to be reluctant to commit to a show that would require him to tour the country as a judge and spend much …

Nexstar Broadcasting Group has agreement to bring news, video and content from its 33 local community Web portals to mobile users through LSN Mobile's Local Wireless media-to-mobile platform. Nexstar's differentiated community Web portal strategy, launched in 2007, complements the reach of its 63 TV stations. The mobile function puts local content on every Web-enabled mobile hand-set, complete with video clips to video-enabled phones. Nexstar will also be offering local wireless apps for the iPhone, Blackberry, Droid and other smartphones as well as SMS/text messaging delivering geo-targeted mobile alerts for breaking news, weather, sports scores and more. Since its …

News Corp.'s FX is betting that a lineup of pure original programming, coupled with top-tier theatrical films, will help the cabler reach ad-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds. FX's unprecedented lineup of 11 originally-produced, scripted series, launching over the next 12 months, involves a variety of character-based stories, including an old-fashioned lawman who doles out his own brand of justice ("Justified") and a struggling comedian who deals with his divorce through a mix of stand-up routines and sketches ("Louis"). Over the next two years, the network will showcase a lineup of more than 100 commercial-television premieres, including the rights to "Avatar," now the …

MTV redesigned its iconic logo to take out the music video. The new look features the original 3-D large "M" with the small, graffiti-style "tv" on the right side. But the new design is expanded, so that photos of MTV talent, including the cast of "Jersey Shore," "The Buried Life" and "My Life as Liz," can be seen through it. More telling: the "music television" tag line is history. Over the past few years, MTV has come under fire from critics and fans who say the network known for music television no longer played music videos. And while fans …

A consortium led by Walt Disney Co. is in advanced talks to buy into China's largest in-bus digital media and advertising company, a deal that could offer the U.S. entertainment giant a new platform to promote Mickey Mouse in China. Google is a minority investor in the Disney-led consortium, which plans to buy a stake of between 30% to 40% in Bus Online for more than $100 million via a purchase of old and new shares. A source noted: "To Disney, the deal is not just about sharing in the growth of China's advertising market but more about the …