According to the Nielsen Company, product placements on broadcast television increased 39 percent during the first quarter of 2008. All told, there were 117,976 brand occurrences on cable and broadcast networks in the first three months of the year. The show with the most product placements was NBC's "The Biggest Loser," followed by "American Idol" on Fox, "The Apprentice" on NBC, "Deal or No Deal" on NBC, and "Extreme Makeover Home Edition" on ABC.

On the heels of last month's New York Times investigative report exposing the hidden relationship between media military analysts and the Pentagon and defense industries,

New York Times reporter Melody Petersen, who covered the pharmaceutical industry for four years, has now published a book titled Our Daily Meds: How the pharmaceutical companies transformed themselves into slick marketing machines and hooked the nation on prescription drugs.