How many times have you picked up the phone and attempted to be the 25th caller to your favorite radio station, only to be greeted by a busy signal?

Who needs that elusive 18- to 34-year-old male audience anyway? Nielsen Media Research reports that women make up between 61 to 68 percent of the 18 to 49 age group for shows like "Everwood," "Two and Half Men," "Grey's Anatomy," "Joey," "The OC," and "One Tree Hill." And they're older women, too. "Two and a Half Men" on CBS ranks highest in median age with 49.8; "Joey" on NBC is second at 45.4, while "Lost" is third with 43.1, Nielsen reports. At least one network, ABC, has read the signs. "ABC's goal is to be the choice …

The public broadcasting service was once a commercial-free haven. Now select PBS kids' programming is part of PBS Kids Sprout, a round-the-clock channel and video-on-demand service featuring "Sesame Street," "Bob the Builder," "Barney" -- and ads.

When a comely 160-page magazine bearing the Google logo was dropped on our doorstep the other day, we had little idea what to make of it. An offline publication professing to unlock the secrets of the online world's preeminent brand? What hubris! Nonetheless, we were intrigued. And then we opened it.

The brickbats have been flying at the reality TV fortress. As the new fall season commences -- with ABC's scripted ratings monsters "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" picking up where they left off last spring -- here's been a lot of chatter in the press about the lackluster performance of nonfiction programming.

Every year it's the same. I wait too long to get started on the holiday shopping, and then I go through the blank-sheet-of-paper hell of wondering what to buy for all of the people on my list. It lasts right up until the moment I stop for a second and think about what they love, what their passions are, and what makes them most happy. That always seems to do the trick. A little consumer understanding and the right gift ends up with the right person. Seems like a no-brainer, really. The better we understand a person, the more likely …

London is calling New Yorkers with a simple message: If you like to shop, London is an ideal travel destination. Targeting affluent shoppers and tourists in New York, street teams this fall distributed pink shopping bags promoting VisitLondon.com. The street brigades handed out 50,000 bags in such prime shopping districts as SoHo, Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, Herald Square, Penn Station, and Times Square over the course of a month. Apart from the URL, the bags included such phrases as, "If you like hopping in SoHo, you'll love shopping in Covent Garden." The site offers information about London's …

It's pretty hard to fast-forward through the ad on the vehicle ahead of you, so Los Angeles-based Advermotion is capitalizing on California's car culture by selling ad space on automobile windows.

Attention, this is your captain speaking: JetBlue Airways and American Express have joined forces to market an AmEx JetBlue credit card through "Share the Love," a reality show in which two families compete to see which one can rack up the most rewards points on their cards by making purchases for other people. This fall AmEx selected two families who were flown to New York or Los Angeles, given a JetBlue Card from AmEx, and allowed 48 hours to earn enough American Express Award Dollars to fly home. The winning family received a year's worth of travel on JetBlue. …

Your cell phone just got a lot better at entertaining you in doctors' office waiting rooms. Now you can watch a new MTV series for a quick chuckle. Motorola and MTV Networks International's "Head and Body" is a weird and funny eight-episode -- sorry, eight-mobisode program about a headless body and his hapless head. The twentysomething odd couple work out, try to meet women, and attempt a skin-scraping shaving scene that will make you cringe with recognition. The show provides a new way to connect with young people who use cell phones as an everyday source of entertainment, says Gideon …