Porn porn porn. Cable companies are hoping to "quietly" sell enough pay-per-view porn to make, you know, a profit. Ad Age wrote a whole story about it just so it could use this quote:

Your jobs are gone. Your money is gone. But America's iconic brands will never leave you! (Until the rest of your money is gone). Advertising is the last optimistic thing around. And it's faking it.

A new politically themed subway poster remix! The Post thinks this is the work of our friend Poster Boy, but we're not sure. It's a little slicker than his earlier political soliloquies:

In his memo yesterday, Conde Nast CEO Chuck Townsend told the company's employees that "difficult decisions" are coming. How bad could Conde's 2009 really be? Catastrophic, potentially.

People in the UK got upset over this ad, because of drugs. Hold on there: it's an anti-drug ad, allegedly. The lesson is, ad people love to work while high. [via Adrants. Click to enlarge]

Hmm, we're no 'Mascara Marketing Guru' but we suspect that "Light up Your Eyes" is not the best tagline for a new ad starring Rihanna, who was recently beaten about the eye area.

PETA ads: sometimes ill-advised, often nonsensical, frequently stupid, always predictable. But at least they were trying. Not any more. They went ahead and hired strippers.

The most unfortunate ad campaign of the week thus far? This one for Covergirl mascara, which appears in the new issue of People and features the words "Light up your eyes" next to a photo of Rihanna who, as you may have heard, was punched in the eye by boyfriend (husband?) Chris Brown recently. [Guanabee via Gawker]

Advertising is a proven, effective tactic. Newspapers are important. But running ads telling people that newspapers are important is just throwing money into a fire, for amusement.

Brian Tierney, the boss of the recently bankrupt Philadelphia newspapers, vowed last week he would "never close" the Philly Daily News. But he never said he wouldn't desperately rebrand it to save a nickel!

Pop culture scientists are now telling us that commercials actually make television more enjoyable. "The findings are simultaneously implausible and empirically coherent." That's what I'm saying! But we have detected some wackiness in this study:

Some sort of Play-Doh knockoff begs: "Let the kids build a better world." Hmmm. Is this how we define "better world," more interracial dating by the Klan? Points for edginess, regardless! [Copyranter]

In your blizzardy Monday media column: rumored layoffs at Men's Health, David Simon is righteously angry again, Ladies Home Journal's integrity—its most valuable asset, next to yarn—is questioned, and more!

MoMA, which allegedly stands for "Museum of Modern Art," has fired a guy for wantonly associating the MoMA name with art, of the modern variety.

Bon Appetit and Gourmet are both Conde Nast-owned food magazines with similar reader demographics and ad rates. They're both equally popular among Gawker readers. They're both troubled. Why does Conde need both?

Newspaper publishers have long imagined their journalism filled Google's results and fueled its profits. But Twitter is building a popular, potentially profitable news search engine from mostly amateur content.

• Fox News remains in first place in the cable news ratings race. MSNBC is showing modest gains, while CNN is dropping like a lead balloon. [NYT, MM]
• Cablevision says it plans to charge readers to access to Newsday.com. [NYP]
• Hearst is launching an e-reader for magazines and newspapers. [Fortune]
• The Times is launching several local "citizen journalism" sites. [E&P]
• Sony CEO Howard Stringer has pushed aside two senior execs. [WSJ]
• Old Navy's newest ad campaign resembles a celeb tabloid. [Jossip]
• Peter Scarlet has resigned as the Tribeca Film Fest's artistic director. [THR]
• Take a tour of the White House with Katie Couric if you'd like. [YouTube]
• Denver's Rocky Mountain News says goodbye. [RMN]

So it has come to this: The makers of three different wearable blankets arguing, in the New York Times, over who pioneered this obesity-accelerating technology. We are truly a pathetic nation.

Dinosaurs: "They would still be here if they hadn't caught a cold," says this ad for aspirin-plus-vitamin-C. Product slogan: "So you don't catch a cold." Can you spot the two flaws in this campaign?

• Jerry Seinfeld has a new project in the works for NBC. The Marriage Ref will feature celebs "judging couples in the midst of marital disputes." [THR]
• The Times is scaling back the number of issues it publishes of T. [NYP]
• The Gray Lady does say it has enough cash to last through '09, though. [E&P]
• Denver's Rocky Mountain News is shutting down on Friday. [AP]
• Fox has renewed The Simpsons for two more seasons. [Variety]
• ABC collected $72 million for the 26 minutes of ad time it sold during the Oscars. Overall, ad spending fell by 10 percent this year, though. [TVW, NYT]
• Doubledown Media, which ceased operations recently, is bankrupt. [MM]
• You can now download CBS shows to your iPhone. Enjoy. [NYT]