Upfront

NEW YORK -U.S. advertising spending will rise 4.8 percent to $610 billion this year, reversing last year's slump when the U.S. economy entered a recession, according to investment bank Veronis Suhler Stevenson. From last year to 2006, ad spending will grow at a compound annual rate of 5.5 percent, reaching $760 billion, New York-based Veronis Suhler predicted in its 16th annual communications-industry forecast covering broadcast, cable and satellite television, radio, Internet, film, music, publishing, direct mail, public relations and billboard advertising businesses.

Housing officials yesterday unveiled a federally funded program designed to help middle-income people buy houses in the city's poorer neighborhoods by paying part of their down-payments and taxes.The "Empowerment Zone Housing Venture Fund" will pay up to $5,000 toward the initial costs of buying a house for the first 400 working people who promise to live in the city's poorer neighborhoods for at least five years.The initiative is designed to stabilize communities at risk of falling apart and help people who might not otherwise be able to come up with enough cash upfront to buy a home, said Michael Preston, a spokesman for the Empower Baltimore Management Corp.

For nearly a half-century, television network executives and advertising buyers have gathered each May in New York to negotiate the cost of commercial spots for the fall season. And for nearly a half-century, the ritual has remained a relatively predictable and temperate affair, as both groups depended on a single ratings source: the Nielsens. But when the weeklong "upfront" bargaining begins today, network chiefs will be ready for battle. Faced with radical changes in the way people watch television, NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox hope to introduce new ways of measuring - and getting paid for - the growing number of viewers who download, stream or replay TV shows.

When Dorothy arrived in Oz, she was flummoxed by the question, "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" "I'm not a witch at all," she proclaimed. And at the lavish network "upfront" presentations last month where the shiny new fall shows were first announced and glimpsed, there was a similar, new distinction for its upstart genre: Is it a good reality show or a bad reality show? As recently as January, executives were positively giddy about reality TV's unscripted formats, comparing their effect on ratings to crack cocaine.

Three decades ago when then-Gov. Marvin Mandel heard from constituents about the high cost of automobile insurance, he bucked opposition from industry and pushed through legislation that set up a unique state agency to act as an insurer of last resort. Now a provision of that 1972 law has come under fire for contributing to today's high costs for 70,000 Maryland motorists who rely on the state for their auto insurance. The provision requires that residents insured through the Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund pay the entire annual premium upfront - an average of $1,700.

When you're at work and take 10 minutes to post an item for sale on eBay, view the latest scores on ESPN or see how your stocks are faring, you probably don't think anything of it. Perhaps you should. Increasingly across the country, employers have been monitoring what their employees are doing with technology while they're on the clock -- everything from what keystrokes they make to Web sites they surf to where they drive company-owned vehicles. And while workers nationwide aren't losing their jobs en masse because of "playing" when they should be working, it does happen.

In an interview in July, former Eagles band member and would-be TV star Glenn Frey said he didn't know what a short order was and, frankly, he didn't care.Frey knows now.His "South of Sunset" TV series was canceled last week after just one episode aired. It was one of the fastest cancellations in the history of television. And it was canceled in part because of a new practice called a short order, which is spreading throughout the TV industry and changing the way decisions about canceling prime-time shows are made.

Just months after Erickson Retirement Communities filed for bankruptcy, the company's new owners say they are poised for expansion with the same business model that seized up along with the housing and credit markets last year. Local entrepreneur Jim Davis, whose Redwood Capital Investments LLC bought Erickson for $365 million this month, said the Catonsville-based company is more financially sound than ever after wiping out most of its debt through the bankruptcy. That will enable Erickson to move forward in the next year with new housing at about a dozen of its existing communities that are not fully developed, he said.

Don't do it, Virginia! Our neighbor to the south is weighing legislation that would allow lenders there to make car-title loans with triple-digit interest rates to consumers in Maryland and other states. This only four months after Virginia lenders were banned from making such loans out of state. Car-title loans, which allow you to borrow against the value of your vehicle, are such bad deals that more than half of the states, including Maryland, basically don't allow them.

For as long as most Marylanders can remember, motorists who were issued a traffic ticket would automatically be scheduled to have their day in court. Unless they paid up in advance, it was assumed they would tell it to the judge. That would change if the General Assembly passes a bill that is receiving overwhelming support from Maryland police departments for its potential to cut into the time officers wait in court to testify against defendants who don't show up. The bill, endorsed by the O'Malley administration, would reverse the current presumption that motorists prefer to appear in court.