LOS ANGELES

Go to your Portfolio &<87;

An ice sculpture of Scrat, star of &S220;Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs,&S221; at a recent event in Santa Monica, Calif., for the film's Blu-ray and DVD release.

Hobbled by a depressed DVD market and drooping sales of movies to foreign television networks, Hollywood studios are finally reining in runaway marketing budgets. Lionsgate, already one of the leaner operations, boasted that it cut marketing expenses by 66 percent in the second quarter from a year ago, while Disney dismissed about a dozen marketing executives early this month in an effort to shrink spending.

But don&S217;t think that Hollywood believes it can get by with less promotion. This, after all, is the place that perfected the hard sell. As studios cut &S220;paid media&S221; (newspaper ads, television spots and billboards) they are leaning more heavily on armies of publicists generating what they call &S220;earned media,&S221; free coverage in magazines, newspapers, TV outlets and blogs.

The biggest movies are still backed by megawatt ad buys. On the other hand, Paramount Pictures did not buy a single billboard to promote &S220;Paranormal Activity,&S221; its recent horror film. The studio also saved tens of millions of dollars by forgoing a national television campaign. Instead, Paramount depended on its publicity arm to fan interest on blogs and in traditional media. The flack attack worked: the film, made for just $10,000, has sold $104 million in tickets.

Over at Disney, publicity executives are coordinating their efforts more closely with those of their advertising counterparts: If the P.R. team for the company&S217;s ABC unit can land an article about &S220;Dancing With the Stars&S221; on the cover of TV Guide, for instance, the network will make certain not to also buy advertising space in that issue to push the show.

Disney recently went so far as to develop a computer program to help it determine how much monetary value was coming from such publicity efforts. It can quickly plug in data &<51; &S220;Access Hollywood&S221; had a 30-second interview with a star of &S220;The Middle,&S221; a new ABC comedy &<51; and the program spits out what that same 30 seconds would cost to buy.

There is another advantage to a publicity machine on overdrive. &S220;At least with publicity &<51; placed stories &<51; there is a feeling that the message has gone through a filter,&S221; said Paul Pflug, the co-owner of Principal Communications, a public relations firm that specializes in entertainment. &S220;Journalists and their editors had to consider the pitch worthy of space. The message has been vetted in some way.&S221; He said an article was more valuable to the studios because it is more credible to viewers than an ad.

Social networks like Facebook and Twitter have also changed the publicity game in Hollywood. The P.R. apparatus has largely assumed the responsibility of monitoring, shaping and creating attention on that part of the Web. Movie characters now have Twitter profiles and Facebook pages, for instance. Guess who updates the accounts?

The Web has also given studios a way to bring consumers into the movie-making process long before the first ads roll out. Casting announcements are one example. Five years ago, nobody but the trade newspapers cared who was cast as the third lead of &S220;Inglourious Basterds.&S221; Now teams of digital publicists convey every little pip and squeak of the early process to hundreds of bloggers.

And because one errant blog post can start an online brush fire, publicists do reconnaissance on bloggers &<51; What is their audience reach? Is their writing snarky? Which other blogs pick up their links? &<51; and manage accordingly.

Universal Pictures, looking for a way to bolster coverage of &S220;Couples Retreat,&S221; a comedy starring Vince Vaughn about an island vacation, decided to stage a lavish junket, one of those all-expenses-paid promotion-a-thons for writers and TV reporters. Instead of hosting the event at a Los Angeles or New York hotel, as is standard practice, Universal flew the participants to Bora Bora.

It cost about twice as much as a standard junket, but generated at least four times as much media coverage, the studio estimated. (The New York Times and many other media outlets ban the acceptance of these freebies on ethical grounds, because there could be an appearance of buying favorable coverage.)

&S220;You&S217;ve got to remain responsible with your resources while continually finding new ways for your campaigns to stand out,&S221; said Michael Moses, Universal&S217;s executive vice president of publicity.

Standing out on the cheap often means staging silly stunts that entertainment news outlets are happy to consume. The divisions responsible for pushing DVDs, particularly desperate for attention now that sales are declining, are big fans of this tactic.

Trying to drum up publicity for the DVD of &S220;Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs,&S221; 20th Century Fox invited reporters to witness the construction of a 48-foot-tall ice sculpture resembling the star of the movie, Scrat the squirrel. To promote the DVD release of &S220;Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure,&S221; Disney publicists went so far as to get the United Nations to name the character an &S220;honorary ambassador of green&S221; to help promote environmental awareness among children.

AT a time of supposedly stark cuts, studios still send loads of giveaway items to the news media in the hope that it will prompt coverage. Disney just shipped jars filled with 90 toy soldiers to promote &S220;Toy Story 3,&S221; which doesn&S217;t open until June. (&S220;Attention troops!&S221;) The studio, which has lost money in the last two quarters, also found the cash to send one-pound boxes of beignet mix to promote its animated musical &S220;The Princess and the Frog,&S221; which is set in New Orleans.

And to support &S220;The Informant!&S221; earlier this year, Warner Brothers shipped, at four pounds each, gallon-paint canisters filled with popcorn kernels. We guessed that the tie-in was that Matt Damon&S217;s character in the film works for a company involved with corn syrup, but we still aren&S217;t sure.

Scene Stealer: Ad Budget Tight? Call the P.R. Machine

WASHINGTON – Taking aim at Wall Street and the U.S. central bank, an important House committee voted Thursday to assess fees on large financial firms to pay for the failure of their peers and to require a sweeping congressional audit of the secretive Federal Reserve.

The votes were the final brush strokes to the House Financial Services Committee's response to last year's banking meltdown.

In a surprise, however, Democratic committee Chairman Barney Frank delayed final action on a long-awaited regulatory overhaul bill until after next Thursday's Thanksgiving national holiday. Frank said members of the Congressional Black Caucus requested the delay because they were "troubled by a lack of response to the economic situation."

Lawmakers have been pressing the Obama administration to take further steps to help the unemployed and create more jobs. "This is a critical issue for my constituents," said committee Democrat Maxine Waters, a member of the black caucus.

The votes on fees and on the Fed audit came despite objections from the Obama administration. They illustrated the strong sentiment in Congress to curb the central bank's power and assure voters that taxpayers will not lose money in future Wall Street failures.

If Frank can win final passage in his committee in two weeks, the House could vote on the full overhaul next month.

The Senate Banking Committee began its own rewrite of the rules that govern Wall Street on Thursday, but the committee's top Republican panned the bill proposed by its chairman, Democrat Christopher Dodd.

From the sidelines, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner prodded Congress to move quickly on the measures.

In seeking to have large firms pay upfront fees to dismantle failing nonbank financial institutions, the House committee rejected warnings from the Obama administration and objections from big Wall Street companies.

The money would be paid into a $150 billion "dissolution fund" by firms with assets of more than $50 billion. Hedge funds with assets of more than $10 billion also would have to pay. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. would use the fund to unravel and break up collapsing nonbank financial firms. The FDIC, formed to protect individuals' deposits in banks, also could borrow an extra $50 billion, provided Congress approved.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Wall Street prefer that the fee be assessed after a failed firm has been dismantled. Such a step, however, could require upfront payment by taxpayers.

"This amendment will end taxpayer financed bailouts, eliminate `too big to fail' (firms) and will create a system going forward where we force the big-bank, Wall Street fat cats to pay any mess they make," said Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez.

On auditing the Fed, the committee adopted a plan by Republican Rep. Ron Paul that had the support of a bipartisan roster of more than 300 members of Congress. It would give the Government Accountability Office the authority to audit the entirety of the Fed's balance sheet, credit facilities and all securities purchase programs. Critics, led by Frank and Democratic Rep. Melvin Watt, argued that Paul's proposal was too intrusive and could indirectly lead to higher interest rates. They proposed a more limited audit.

"If we open all of the discussions, the deliberations, the transactional gives and takes, what we will do is scare off capital because other governments will not deal with our Fed," Watt said.

Paul, who ran a long-shot campaign for president last year, argued Watt's more limited proposal would exclude much of the Fed's work from scrutiny.

"There is no reason in the world why this country and our people can't know eventually about what's going on in the Federal Reserve," Paul said.

In the Senate, Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, top Republican on the Senate's banking panel, sharply criticized Dodd's proposed legislation.

"It significantly expands the federal government's ability to bail out not only banks, but any large, politically connected company," Shelby said. Dodd could still pass the bill with Democratic votes in his committee but would find it far more difficult to get the needed votes in the full Senate without some Republican backing.

Dodd argued that a year after the near collapse of the financial system, it was now time to correct the government's oversight.

"As we sit here today, with gaping holes in our regulatory structure, we cannot tell our constituents that we're ready to prevent another shock," he said.

US Panel sets fees for big firms, aims to slow Fed

Shares were mixed Tuesday as investors sorted through another round of economic data and retail earnings.

Retailers&S217; earnings came in above expectations and the Labor Department said inflation remained in check in October. Overseas markets retreated slightly after big gains the previous day.

Investors are examining earnings from retailers, looking for signs of strength in consumers. A report showing a rebound in retail sales helped push major indexes higher on Monday.

Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of all economic activity in the nation, and a rebound in spending &<51; especially during the holiday season &<51; is necessary for a strong economic recovery.

Home Depot, Saks and Target all reported better-than-expected third-quarter results Tuesday morning.

However, the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, reiterated Monday that an economic recovery is likely to be only moderate. He also said the pace of the recovery will keep unemployment from declining quickly. Consumers&S217; anxiety about their job security has been the primary factor behind their modest spending.

Traders received a disappointing report on industrial production. The Fed said production at the nation&S217;s factories, mines and utilities rose 0.1 percent, less than the 0.4 percent predicted by economists polled by Thomson Reuters.

In early trading, the three major Wall Street exchanges were all flat.

The Labor Department&S217;s Produce Price Index, which measures inflation at the wholesale level, rose 0.3 percent in October, after falling by 0.6 percent a month earlier. Economists had predicted a 0.5 percent rise.

Excluding volatile food and energy costs, the core index dropped by 0.6 percent in October.

The report provides further evidence that inflation will remain stable &<51; a forecast repeated by Bernanke on Monday &<51; as rising unemployment, wary shoppers and tight credit keep a lid on prices.

A bigger-than-expected rebound in retail sales in October helped push stocks sharply higher Monday, sending major indexes to their 13-month highs. The Dow jumped 136 points and the S&&8;P closed above the 1,100 level for the first time in more than a year.

Retail sales rose 1.4 percent in October, nearly double the 0.8 percent increase forecast by economists and a sharp rebound from the 2.3 percent decline in September.

A weakening dollar on Monday also sent the price of commodities and materials and energy companies&S217; stock higher. Stocks have frequently been moving in the opposite direction of the dollar during the latest part of the market&S217;s rally.

On Tuesday, the dollar mostly rose against other major currencies, while the price of gold declined after setting a record high a day earlier.

European and Asian stock markets fell modestly Tuesday, a day after a stronger than anticipated rebound in American retail sales helped many of the world&S217;s major indexes rise to their highest levels this year.

The FTSE 100 in London was down 0.6 percent; on Monday it closed at its highest since September 2008.

Meanwhile, the DAX in Frankfurt fell 0.4 percent while the CAC-40 in Paris dropped 0.5 percent. Both indexes are near yearly highs as well.

Earlier in Asia, Japan&S217;s Nikkei 225 stock average lost 61.25 points, or 0.6 percent, to 9,729.93 with exporters hit by the appreciating yen. Hong Kong&S217;s Hang Seng fell 29.83, or 0.1 percent, to 22,914.15.

Markets Mixed as Investors Sort Through Data

LOS ANGELES &<51; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is back on the block.

The film studio, crumbling under the weight of almost $4 billion in debt, said late Friday that it would seek a buyer. MGM could also try to merge with another media company or remain independent with new equity investors, an option that is regarded by analysts as unlikely.

The announcement, which was expected, is a fishing expedition to see how much the studio can fetch in its diminished state, analysts said. Estimates for the studio, which owns a 4,000-title film library and holds the rights to the James Bond franchise, range from a bargain-basement price of $1.5 billion to more than $3 billion.

A consortium that includes Sony, Comcast, Providence Equity Partners and the Quadrangle Group took MGM private in 2004 for $5 billion.

Although MGM has not yet opened its books to potential buyers &<51; that process starts now &<51; interested parties have been evaluating the company. Time Warner, sitting on a deep cash reserve, is considered a candidate; Warner already plans to co-produce two &S220;Hobbit&S221; movies with MGM.

Other potential bidders include Qualia Capital, a private equity fund run by the Hollywood veteran Amir Malin; 20th Century Fox, which distributes MGM&S217;s home entertainment products; and Lionsgate.

MGM also said that it had gained additional concessions from lenders to allow it to pursue a merger or acquisition, a process that is expected to take a couple of months or more. MGM can now skip interest payments until Jan. 31. Previously, lenders had agreed to allow MGM to skip payments for September, October and November.

Once the most powerful studio in Hollywood, MGM has only released one movie in the last year, a remake of &S220;Fame&S221; that sputtered at the box office. A studio spokeswoman said MGM had enough cash on hand to market and complete a handful of films planned for next year, including a ribald comedy called &S220;Hot Tub Time Machine.&S221;

The company is currently under the leadership of the turnaround expert Stephen F. Cooper, who took over in August after the company fired Harry E. Sloan as chief executive.

Burdened by Billions in Debt, MGM Puts Itself Up for Sale

NEW YORK -- Airline stocks were mixed Thursday with major U.S. carriers posting modest gains. At last check, the NYSE Arca Airline Index slipped a ration to 26.60 with eight of its 13 components trading up. Shares of US Airways , Continental and Delta were up fractionally, while American parent AMR Corp. rose 1% 1.6% to $5.96. Crude oil for December delivery fell 60 cents, or 0.8%, to $78.68 a barrel in electronic trading on Globex.

Airline Stocks Mixed; Major Carriers Trade Up

PIERRE, S.D. – An official says uncertainty about the economy has prompted the South Dakota Retirement System to consider quick action to improve the system's financial condition.

The Retirement System's Board of Trustees is looking at limiting annual inflationary increases in benefits to help offset investment losses caused by the recession.

State law does not require that the board recommend changes until certain conditions have been met for three years. But Retirement System executive director Rob Wylie says the board is working to make recommendations to the next session of the South Dakota Legislature so the system is in better shape to withstand whatever happens in the economy.

The Retirement System has more than 70,000 members.

South Dakota Retirement System seeks quick fix

CHARLOTTE, N.C – Regulators on Friday shut banks in Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and California, bringing the number of bank failures this year to 120 amid the struggling economy and a cascade of defaults on loans.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over United Commercial Bank in San Francisco, with $11.2 billion in assets and $7.5 billion in deposits. East West Bancorp Inc., parent company of East West Bank based in Pasadena, Calif., is buying all of the deposits and most of the failed bank's assets.

The FDIC also closed United Security Bank, based in Sparta, Ga., with $157 million in assets and $150 million in deposits; Home Federal Savings Bank in Detroit, with $14.9 million in assets and $12.8 million in deposits; Prosperan Bank, based in Oakdale, Minn., with $199.5 million in assets and $175.6 million in deposits; and Gateway Bank in St. Louis, with $27.7 million in assets and $27.9 million in deposits.

Ameris Bank, based in Moultrie, Ga., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of United Security, while Liberty Bank and Trust Co., based in New Orleans, is buying the assets and deposits of Home Federal Savings.

Alerus Financial of Grand Forks, N.D., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of Prosperan Bank, while Central Bank of Kansas City is buying the assets and deposits of Gateway Bank.

The failure of United Commercial Bank is expected to cost the federal deposit insurance fund an estimated $1.4 billion; the failure of the other four banks a combined $132.7 million.

With United Security, 21 Georgia banks have failed this year, more than in any other state. Most of the failures have involved banks in the Atlanta area, where the collapse of the real estate market brought economic dislocation. Failures also have been especially concentrated in California and Illinois.

As the economy has soured, with unemployment rising, home prices tumbling and loan defaults soaring, bank failures have cascaded and sapped billions out of the federal deposit insurance fund. It has fallen into the red.

Depositors' money — insured up to $250,000 per account — is not at risk, with the FDIC backed by the government. The FDIC still has billions in loss reserves apart from the insurance fund. It can also tap a Treasury Department credit line of up to $500 billion.

Last week, regulators shut nine banks owned by holding company FBOP Corp. It was a new milestone: nine was the highest number of banks closed in a day since the financial crisis began taking down banks last year. Minneapolis-based US Bancorp bought the deposits and most of the assets of the banks, which included two others in California, three in Texas, two in Illinois and one in Arizona.

Banks have been especially hurt by failed real estate loans. Banks that had lent to seemingly solid businesses are suffering losses as buildings sit vacant. As development projects collapse, builders are defaulting on their loans.

If the economic recovery falters, defaults on the high-risk loans could spike. Many regional banks, especially, hold large concentrations of these loans. Nearly $500 billion in commercial real estate loans are expected to come due annually over the next few years.

The 120 bank failures are the most in a year since 1992 at the height of the savings-and-loan crisis. They have cost the federal deposit insurance fund more than $27 billion so far this year, and hundreds more bank failures are expected to raise the cost to around $100 billion through 2013.

The number of banks on the FDIC's confidential "problem list" jumped to 416 at the end of June from 305 in the first quarter. That's the most since June 1994. About 13 percent of banks on the list generally end up failing, according to the FDIC.

The 120 failures this year compare with 25 last year and three in 2007.

To replenish the insurance fund, the FDIC wants the roughly 8,100 insured banks and savings institutions to pay in advance about $45 billion in premiums that would have been due over the next three years.

The Obama administration recently proposed a plan to provide infusions of money to small banks at low interest rates, provided they agree to increase lending to small businesses. Banks and credit unions that serve low-income areas would get aid at even lower rates to help small businesses in the hardest-hit rural and urban areas. The aid would come from money still available in the $700 billion federal bailout fund, which went mostly to large banks.

___

Gordon reported from Washington.

Banks in Ga., Mich., Minn., Mo., Calif. closed

LONDON -- European shares declined on Friday afternoon after U.S. nonfarm payrolls dropped 190,000 in October, a bigger fall than economists were expecting, and the U.S. jobless rate rose to 10.2%. Construction firms were weak in Europe, with Lafarge down 4.1%, as investors also eyed up earnings. The U.K. FTSE 100 index declined 0.5% to 5,100.67, the German DAX index lost 0.8% to 5,437.60 and the French CAC-40 index fell 0.9% to 3,676.68.

European Shares Lower After U.S. Jobs Data

NEW YORK -- Alaska Air Group subsidiary Alaska Airlines said late Tuesday its total October traffic rose 3% to 1.5 billion revenue passenger miles from 1.4 billion revenue passenger miles a year ago. A revenue passenger mile is equal to one passenger flown one mile. Total October capacity fell 1.6% to 1.9 billion available seat miles from a year ago. Load factor, or the percentage of available seats filled with passengers, in October rose to 77% from 73.6% last year.

Alaska Air Posts October Traffic Growth

DUBLIN (AFP) – Irish low-cost airline Ryanair on Monday reported that its net profit nearly quadrupled in the first half of the year but warned a fall in fares would make for losses in the second half.

"Ryanair?s ability to grow both traffic and profits during the half year is a testament to the strength of Ryanair?s lowest fare model, and our relentless cost discipline," Ryanair chief executive Michael O&&9;Leary said in a statement.

"However these results are heavily distorted by a 42 percent fall in fuel costs, which has masked a significant 17 percent decline in average fares," he said.

"We expect average fares to decline by up to 20 percent during Quarters 3 and 4, which will result in both these quarters being loss making," he added.

Ryanair posts profit, issues fares warning

Of all the changes coming to Francisco Baez&S217;s cramped corner grocery store in Newark&S217;s North Ward, he is most excited about the new scanner system at the two checkouts.

Anne Gross runs a food mart in Cleveland.

But Newark officials, who are paying for the new equipment, are most interested in the new refrigeration units that will be installed near the front of the store. Those new refrigerators, to be filled with fresh fruits and vegetables, are part of a new effort by Newark &<51; with variations in other cities across the country &<51; to improve the diets of low-income residents.

Until recently, small corner grocery stores were seen by public health officials as part of the obesity problem.

The stores, predominantly family-owned, offered convenience, but the accent was on snack chips, canned goods and sugary drinks. Now, because they are often the sole source of groceries in areas with no full-size supermarket, the stores are becoming linchpins in public health campaigns.

&S220;If you are educating people to make good choices, but those choices aren&S217;t available nearby and they don&S217;t have a car to drive out to the suburbs to the supermarket, or an hour to ride two buses to get there,&S221; said Kai Siedenburg, of the Community Food Security Coalition, a group based in Portland, Ore., that promotes access to healthy food, &S220;then it&S217;s really hard for them to make good choices.&S221;

Store owners in Cleveland, New York, Louisville and elsewhere are being approached by public health organizations and economic development agencies with offers of new equipment, marketing expertise or neighborhood promotions to encourage them to stock more fresh produce, whole wheat bread and other healthy offerings.

Newark&S217;s program combines community health concerns with targeted grants to reinvigorate stores and neighborhoods.

&S220;Bags of chips and cans of soda are the options in too many of our small groceries and bodegas,&S221; said Stefan Pryor, a deputy mayor and chairman of the Brick City Development Corporation, Newark&S217;s economic development agency. But, he added, &S220;With the thin margins that small groceries operate under, it&S217;s unrealistic to expect them to make the investment themselves.&S221;

Other initiatives do it differently. The Cleveland Corner Store Project encourages small groceries to sell fruit near the check-out &<51; prime locations where candy and chips are usually found &<51; and promotes these stores with sidewalk signs and posters and at neighborhood health events. New York&S217;s &S220;Healthy Bodegas&S221; initiative has reached out to 1,000 stores in a variety of ways, including helping owners secure zoning permits to allow fruit and vegetable displays on the sidewalk. In Louisville, two small groceries were awarded $20,000 this year to expand their offerings of fresh produce.

The idea of using corner stores in campaigns to improve diets has spread from a few cities over the last decade &<51; among them, Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Hartford and Oakland, Calif. &<51; to &S220;probably a hundred or more organizations that are now either starting interventions or that are in the planning stages,&S221; Ms. Siedenburg said.

Rural areas, too, that have lost local supermarkets to distant big-box retailers are looking for ways to encourage convenience stores to offer healthier choices.

&S220;There are all these neat programs popping up,&S221; said James Johnson-Piett, a consultant to Newark&S217;s program who previously worked with the Food Trust, a nonprofit group that developed some groundbreaking initiatives in Philadelphia.

The movement is driven, in part, by a decades-old problem: the paucity of food shopping options in poor neighborhoods. In Newark, with three supermarkets for a population of 279,000, the city says nearly 40 percent of the money spent on food by residents is spent outside the city.

Campaigns to entice supermarkets, with their expansive produce departments, not to mention scores of local jobs, have met with mixed results. In Philadelphia, a ShopRite opened last year in a low-income neighborhood with help from a Pennsylvania program that provided a $1 million grant and $7 million in federal tax credits. New York is considering a similar plan that would include tax and zoning incentives, but few other cities have such a program in place.

Pushing Fresh Produce Instead of Cookies at the Corner Market

In about a dozen videos posted over the last two months to YouTube, a man claiming to be &S220;the world&S217;s fastest nudist&S221; streaks through high-profile locations in New York City clad only in running shoes, tube socks, and a strategically positioned frontward fanny pack.

&S220;The first time you run by, they&S217;re like, &S216;Oh my god, that guy&S217;s nude,&S217; &S221; he says in one video. &S220;But the next time you run by, they&S217;re like, &S216;That&S217;s the world&S217;s fastest nudist!&S217;&<60;&S221;

Popular blogs like Gothamist, The Huffington Post and Gawker featured the videos in September, with Gawker&S217;s post drawing more than 25,000 views. On YouTube, the videos have garnered more than 60,000 views.

On Sept. 29, &S220;Anderson Cooper 360&S221; on CNN broadcast a video, with Mr. Cooper joking that, &S220;This does not faze New Yorkers &<51; believe me we have all seen much worse than this.&S221;

It turns out, however, that the nudist was actually an actor in a viral video campaign for Zappos, the online shoe store that since 2007 has sold clothing as well.

The campaign, by Agent 16 in New York, underscores that Zappos sells clothes, as demonstrated in the latest video, uploaded to YouTube on Oct. 21, which mentioned the company for the first time. The runner &<51; played by Kyle Overstreet, 30 &<51; is sprinting when a van screeches to a halt and several passengers emerge wearing Zappos T-shirts and carrying Zappos boxes. Moments later, the passengers reboard and the van pulls away, revealing that Mr. Overstreet is wearing a pair of pants and a dress shirt.

&S220;I&S217;d say I got too big for my britches, but as everybody knows I don&S217;t wear britches&S221; explains a caption on YouTube. &S220;Thank you Zappos.com for snuffing out the most important part of being the world&S217;s fastest nudist with your blazing fast delivery of clothes and shoes.&S221;

Robert Manni, president of Agent 16, said that since the agency did not pitch to Mr. Cooper&S217;s show, to &S220;have a viral video go out over CNN was a breakthrough.&S221;

A CNN spokeswoman did not respond to a message seeking comment.

&<49;

Mr. Overstreet, the actor, said in a telephone interview that the largely improvised videos, shot in July, were challenging.

&S220;A van would drop me off in my shorts, with my shirt off,&S221; Mr. Overstreet said. &S220;I really didn&S217;t know what I had gotten myself into until those shorts first came off and I was like, &S216;Oh my god, this is insane.&S217; But I would drop trou, run, and try not to run into any policemen or children.&S221;

He was not quite nude.

&S220;I had this thing called a &S216;Houdini&S217;&<60;&S221; said Mr. Overstreet, who also works as a bellman at the Bowery Hotel. &S220;And I was wearing sheer panty hose, too, so with the nudity laws I could sort of defend myself to a cop.&S221;

Viral campaigns generally introduce material online, often making no reference to the brand until the video or Web site grows popular. The revelation is, ideally, followed by fans transferring goodwill about the videos to the brand &<51; but it doesn&S217;t always work that way.

In September, Amber Duick, of Los Angeles, sued Toyota Motor Sales USA for a 2008 viral marketing campaign, by Saatchi &&8; Saatchi Los Angeles, that enabled a friend to sign her up to have a fictional character, an Englishman named Sebastian Bowler, repeatedly send her e-mails saying he was on the run from the police and en route to her house with his pit bull. After a week Ms. Duick was informed that this was a well-intentioned prank and a promotion for the Toyota Matrix. She is seeking $10 million in damages for &S220;emotional distress.&S221;

Mr. Manni, of Agent 16, evoked both the Toyota campaign and the recent suspected hoax involving a Colorado boy erroneously believed to have floated away in a homemade balloon &<51; and compared his Zappos campaign favorably.

&S220;We&S217;re not preying on anyone&S217;s emotions,&S221; Mr. Manni said. &S220;This was all about fun.&S221;

One media outlet, however, may think otherwise.

&<49;

On Oct. 9, The Park Slope Courier in Brooklyn (part of Courier-Life Publications, a unit of News Corporation) published an interview with the naked runner. The interview was conducted over the telephone with Mr. Overstreet, who stayed in character and told the reporter, Gary Buiso, that his name was Donnie Montero and that last year in Barcelona, Spain, he won the World Nude 10K race, which does not exist.

The reporter requested the interview through the character&S217;s Twitter account, fastestnudist, according to Agent 16. Informed that he had been misled, Mr. Buiso declined to comment and referred questions to Kenneth Brown, editor in chief of Courier-Life Publications. Mr. Brown did not return messages seeking comment.

Bloggers first posted the videos because they found them entertaining, with little discussion about their provenance &<51; The Huffington Post even posited that that the videos might be a &S220;viral marketing ploy&S221; &<51; but the reporter who got snookered ends up looking as exposed as the fictional streaker.

Mr. Manni, of Agent 16, brushed aside questions about deceiving the reporter, stressing that the agency did not pitch to him, but rather responded to his request.

&S220;We&S217;re not going around trying to fool everyone &<51; if the reporter was really doing his job he would have asked follow up questions&S221; and discovered the truth, Mr. Manni said.

Mr. Overstreet, meanwhile, who avoided New York&S217;s finest in his streaking excursions, has come full circle: next month on an episode of &S220;One Life to Live,&S221; the ABC soap opera, he plays a cop.

A Campaign for Clothes by a Guy Not Wearing Any

A strengthening dollar and worries about an overheated market pounded stocks on Monday.

Shares started the day higher but turned sharply lower at midmorning as interest rates rose and a rebound in the value of the dollar stalled a rally in commodities. Early gains in prices for oil and other basic materials had pushed up shares of energy and materials companies.

The sharp swings in currency and commodity markets sent the Dow Jones industrial average whipsawing in a 200-point range, surrendering an early advance for a loss of 104 points. Stocks have fallen in four of the last five days.

Oil gave up early gains to slide $1.82, to $78.68 a barrel, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That hurt the shares of major oil companies like ConocoPhillips.

Changes in the dollar&S217;s value against other currencies like the euro or Japanese yen frequently send commodity prices up or down. Since most commodities are priced in dollars, they become more attractive to non-American investors when the dollar is weak and more expensive when the dollar is strong.

Analysts also said some investors were looking to pocket gains after a stock market run that has stretched nearly eight months and taken last week&S217;s share prices to their highest levels in a year.

Technology shares fared somewhat better than other parts of the market after the Marvell Technology Group, which makes chips used in phone networks, raised its fiscal third-quarter revenue forecast. That helped the technology-focused Nasdaq composite index limit its losses.

RadioShack&S217;s third-quarter sales topped expectations, giving hope to retailers.

Richard Ross, global technical strategist at Auerbach Grayson in New York, said the direction of the dollar as well as volatility continued to drive trading. &S220;You&S217;re seeing this sort of waltz between the dollar and volatility and stocks,&S221; he said.

The Dow fell 104.22, or 1.1 percent, to 9,867.96.

The broader Standard &&8; Poor&S217;s 500-stock index fell 12.65, or 1.2 percent, to 1,066.94. The index, which is the basis for many mutual funds, is down 2.8 percent from its recent peak a week ago.

The Nasdaq fell 12.62, or 0.6 percent, to 2,141.85.

About three stocks fell for every one that rose on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 1.4 billion shares, compared with 1.3 billion on Friday.

The Dow fell 0.2 percent last week, while the S.&&8; P. 500 fell 0.7 percent.

Bond prices slipped as the government prepared to auction more than $120 billion in debt this week. The dollar rose against most other major currencies, while gold fell.

David Hefty, chief executive at Cornerstone Wealth Management, said the market&S217;s recent gains would give investors reason for caution. Last week, major indexes hit new highs for the year. &S220;Anytime you&S217;re flirting with the top, it&S217;s hard to push through,&S221; he said.

Traders looked to another busy week of earnings reports. Investors will look for clues about a possible pickup in consumer spending when companies including Kellogg, Procter &&8; Gamble and Visa report earnings.

Marvell rose 41 cents, or 2.8 percent, to $14.99, while Radio- Shack rose $2.49, or 16 percent, to $18.15. ConocoPhillips fell $1.23, or 2.4 percent, to $50.74.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 7.18, or 1.2 percent, to 593.68.

The Treasury&S217;s 10-year note fell 17/32, to 100 18/32. The yield rose to 3.55 percent, from 3.49 percent late on Friday.

Following are the results of Monday&S217;s Treasury auction of three- and six-month bills and five-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities:

Shares Sink on Jitters and Dollar’s Rise

LOS ANGELES

At peace: Michael M. Lynton and Amy Pascal are co-chiefs of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Go to your Portfolio &<87;

Their leadership arrangement sprang from strife, but Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal have found ways to make it work.

DAYS after Michael Jackson died last summer, an executive at Sony Music phoned Amy Pascal, the co-head of the company&S217;s movie studio, to tell her that the pop singer had left hours upon hours of rehearsal tapes for his planned run of 50 concerts in London.

Ms. Pascal watched 12 minutes of the tapes and saw a surprisingly limber Mr. Jackson strutting across the stage. She told her partner at the helm of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Michael M. Lynton, that the studio should be aggressive in securing the movie rights. Mr. Lynton quickly agreed, and after days of negotiations, the pair sealed a deal with an offer to pay $60 million upfront.

The film created from those rehearsal tapes, &S220;This Is It,&S221; opens this week for a 14-day run at theaters here and abroad. Days before opening, it had already sold out at more than 1,600 theaters domestically, according to Fandango and MovieTickets. &S220;It&S217;s not &S216;Spider-Man,&S217; but it can make us good money,&S221; Mr. Lynton says.

The Jackson deal was just the latest coup from a pair who are putting on a leadership display that is rare in any industry, outside of family-run businesses: a man and woman, equal partners, at the helm, and operating in sync. It has worked at Sony Pictures, say executives who know both people, because Mr. Lynton checked his ego after first being offered the job alone, while Ms. Pascal has put aside her resentment at not getting the chance to run the show herself after a long run at the studio.

What&S217;s more, they say, it combines Ms. Pascal&S217;s talents at picking films with Mr. Lynton&S217;s penchant for minimizing financial risk. During their tenure, the studio has had its best year at the box office, in 2006, when it released &S220;The Da Vinci Code,&S221; and, over all, raked in more than $1.7 billion domestically.

&S220;Amy is a gut-level decision maker,&S221; says Matt Tolmach, one of two presidents of Sony&S217;s Columbia Pictures, which is releasing the Jackson film. &S220;She responds very viscerally to material and to people. Michael is very analytical and Socratic.&S221;

It&S217;s an arrangement that sprang from strife six years ago, and one that few in Hollywood &<51; a land of ego, extravagance and desperate, daily scorekeeping &<51; gave a chance of succeeding. A result has been that Sony, which entered Hollywood in 1989 with the purchase of Columbia Pictures and suffered through bouts with dysfunction and chaos, now has a management team that has been more durable than those at some other major studios.

That stability is a big advantage at a time when the industry is facing deep despair over the economic recession and a steep decline in DVD sales, which have been the recent lifeblood of the industry. At the same time, the Internet and social networking have fractured audiences across the media universe.

In some ways, the economic realities of the movie business have necessitated a different style of leadership: fiscally conservative, cooperative and less top-down.

While keeping tight reins on their budget, Ms. Pascal and Mr. Lynton have also tried to change the hierarchical culture of the studio by creating a campus-style environment and eliminating executive perks like the corporate dining room (in favor of a commissary where rank-and-file eat alongside top management).

More important, in addition to playing down their personal rivalry, they have shown a willingness to set aside corporate rivalries within Sony. The studio has worked more closely with the company&S217;s electronics division, a sharp contrast to previous practices at the studio.

The Jackson deal was a rare example of Sony&S217;s movie division and its music company, which held the rights to Mr. Jackson&S217;s recorded music, working together &<51; something that Howard Stringer, Sony&S217;s chief executive, has stressed during his tenure, but that in practice has been more aspiration then reality.

Over breakfast recently at his office in New York, Mr. Stringer said of the partnership between Ms. Pascal and Mr. Lynton: &S220;I never really thought it wouldn&S217;t work. I didn&S217;t think it was as risky as people thought it was.&S221;

THE idea of creating an equal partnership between them was not Mr. Stringer&S217;s original thought.

In 2003, when he phoned Ms. Pascal to tell her he planned to install Mr. Lynton, an outsider, as her boss, she was virtually apoplectic. She had served as president of Columbia since 1996, and felt that she had earned the promotion.

Mr. Stringer says: &S220;I had complete confidence in Amy with the movies. Amy had a pretty good argument for, &S216;Why are you bringing in this guy?&S217;&<60;&S221;

But Mr. Stringer was trying to refashion Sony in a way in which its film, television and music business would serve its hardware business. A movie studio, he said, could no longer be viewed as a corporate faction where television shows and movies are made, but as a &S220;place where the future was invented.&S221;

He trusted Ms. Pascal as a movie picker but thought that Mr. Lynton, who formerly ran AOL Europe, was needed to navigate the changing media environment brought on by new digital technologies and to help Sony expand internationally.

At many Hollywood studios, the management ranks have been thinning. Scene Stealer, Page 5.

Sony’s Version of Tracy and Hepburn

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) &<51; Amazon.com shares surged Thursday after the company said its third-quarter profit soared 62 percent, showing that consumers are comfortable opening their wallets to the online retailer despite the still-shaky economy.

Throughout the recession, shoppers have flocked to Amazon for deals on all kinds of products, from books to baby strollers, even while offline competitors were struggling.

The most recent report shows that the summer months were no exception &<51; and that Amazon expects to carry the momentum through the holidays. It said it expects revenue in the current quarter to grow more than 20 percent.

The results and outlook sent Amazon shares up $8.35, 8.9 percent, to $101.63 in after-hours trading. Before the earnings report the stock had finished regular trading up 3 cents at $93.45.

Amazon said Thursday that it earned $199 million, or 45 cents per share in the third quarter. This far exceeded the 30 cents per share that analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting.

Revenue climbed 28 percent to $5.45 billion, also surpassing analyst estimates for $5.03 billion.

Revenue from items like books, CDs and DVDs rose 17 percent to $2.93 billion. Revenue from electronics and other general merchandise jumped 44 percent to $2.36 billion.

Amazon said its revenue rose 23 percent in North America, and increased 33 percent internationally.

For the current quarter, Amazon predicted revenue of $8.13 billion to $9.13 billion. Analysts were expecting $8.11 billion.

The company declined to give details about sales of its electronic reader, the Kindle, beyond saying it is the company&S217;s best-selling product.

Though e-books still make up a small portion of the overall book market, the market has grown rapidly. Now Amazon faces tougher competition from such companies as Sony and Barnes &&8; Noble &<51; which both soon will release devices that, like the Kindle, can wirelessly download books.

Amazon said Thursday that it intends to release software next month that lets people buy Kindle books and read them on a computer, regardless of whether they own a Kindle device. This is similar to an application already offered to owners of Apple&S217;s iPhone and iPod Touch, and may provide Amazon with a way to expand its e-book revenue.

Also Thursday, Amazon lowered the price of its international version of the Kindle by $20, to $259, matching the cost of a version sold only in the United States that it is discontinuing. Now all Kindles will have wireless access that works around the world.

Amazon Reports 62% Rise in Earnings