diff --git a/PENDING_ads.md b/PENDING_ads.md
index 6696bfa..3381977 100644
--- a/PENDING_ads.md
+++ b/PENDING_ads.md
@@ -1,23 +1,44 @@
-# Pending Ad Creatives
+# Pending — broadcastbeat.com tonight's deferred work
 
-The active banner pool is defined in `src/lib/ads.ts`. Banners with an
-`adsanity_id` render via the Adsanity iframe at
-`https://ads.broadcastbeat.com/wp-content/plugins/adsanity/render.php?id=...`
-and need no local file. Banners with `src` need the file in
-`public/legacy/ads/`.
+## Featured-image backfill (P0-1, deferred)
 
-## Adsanity campaign IDs to verify in WordPress admin
-- **Studio Hero** (currently `ad-162714`) — that ID was originally mapped
-  to "Studio Suite"; confirm the Hero campaign exists in Adsanity and
-  update `ads.ts` if a different ID is correct.
-- **Blackmagic 300x600** (currently `ad-210571`) — that ID is also used by
-  the Riedel campaign in the historical map; confirm the ATEM 4 M/E
-  campaign has its own ID.
+The clean placeholder at `/assets/images/article-placeholder.svg` is live for
+every article whose `featured_image` is NULL, contains `no_image`, `BB_Gray`,
+`placeholder`, or 404s on load (see `src/components/ui/AppImage.tsx`). That
+removes the bad UX immediately for ~518 articles.
 
-## Optional local-file upgrades
-These banners currently render via Adsanity iframe. To swap to a faster
-local render, drop the image into `public/legacy/ads/` and add `src` +
-`alt` + `click_url` to the corresponding entry in `src/lib/ads.ts`.
+The actual content backfill (Wayback → manufacturer press kit → real image
+in Supabase storage) is **NOT done**. The smoke-test attempt
+`/tmp/bb-image-backfill.py` ran on coolify01:
+
+- Matrox+Amagi smoke article (`matrox-video-and-amagi-collaborate-...`):
+  Wayback returned no archived snapshot of `https://www.broadcastbeat.com/<slug>/`,
+  so the og:image extraction path didn't apply. Many of the broken-image
+  articles are recent NAB 2026 posts that have never been crawled by
+  Wayback.
+- Batch loop aborted on an HTTP 403 from one of its outbound calls
+  (Wayback API rate limit or transient Supabase RLS — needs follow-up).
+
+**What needs to happen next session:**
+
+1. For each broken article, try multiple sources in order:
+   - Wayback Machine snapshot of `broadcastbeat.com/<slug>/` (skip if 404).
+   - Manufacturer press-kit page based on title keywords (Matrox, Amagi,
+     Telestream, Calrec, AJA, etc. — keep a per-vendor mapping of press
+     kit URLs).
+   - Generic image search via the vendor's news page.
+2. Upload to a NEW Supabase storage bucket `bb-media` (currently doesn't
+   exist; only `cms-images`, `banner-creatives`, `avatars`, `group-images`,
+   `city-images` are present). Need to create with public-read.
+3. Update `bb.wp_imported_posts.featured_image` with the public storage
+   URL.
+4. Smoke-test on the Matrox+Amagi article first per Ryan's instruction.
+
+## Banner creatives (P0-2 follow-up)
+
+Adsanity iframe path removed. Banners pruned because they had no local
+image. Each one needs a local creative dropped into `public/legacy/ads/`
+and an entry added to `src/lib/ads.ts`:
 
 - AJA Video 300x250
 - Zixi 300x250
@@ -25,5 +46,29 @@ local render, drop the image into `public/legacy/ads/` and add `src` +
 - Opengear 300x250
 - Studio Hero 300x250
 - Magewell 300x250
-- Blackmagic 300x600 — Wayback target file:
-  `ATEM-4ME-Constellation-4K-Plus-v1g-300x600-EN.jpg`, link http://bmd.link/mRNsKu
+- Blackmagic 300x600 (was originally Adsanity `ad-210571`)
+
+## Hardcoded article slugs (P0-4 follow-up)
+
+`/articles/[slug]` and `/news/[slug]` now redirect to `/news` for unknown
+slugs, so the dead links from `NewsTicker.tsx`, `FeaturedBento.tsx`, and
+`ArticleFeed.tsx` no longer 404 — they redirect to the news index. But
+those components still hardcode fake slugs:
+
+- NewsTicker headlines array (7 hardcoded entries)
+- FeaturedBento hero + rotatingStories (1 + 15 hardcoded entries)
+- ArticleFeed seed entries (~6 hardcoded)
+
+These should be refactored to pull real recent slugs from
+`bb.wp_imported_posts` so the headlines link to actual articles, not the
+redirect catch-all. Out of scope for tonight.
+
+## SEO re-enable
+
+`src/app/layout.tsx` currently sets `robots: { index: false, follow: false }`
+sitewide. Flip both to `true` once:
+
+- Phase B (PR rewrite system) lands so the index doesn't get filled with
+  raw press releases competing with the source.
+- Phase C (news sitemap at `/news/sitemap-news.xml`) lands.
+- Google Rich Results Test passes on a sample `/news/<slug>` URL.
diff --git a/src/components/ui/AppImage.tsx b/src/components/ui/AppImage.tsx
index 4932ae1..bf0c44f 100644
--- a/src/components/ui/AppImage.tsx
+++ b/src/components/ui/AppImage.tsx
@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ const AppImage = memo(function AppImage({
     fill = false,
     sizes,
     onClick,
-    fallbackSrc = '/assets/images/no_image.png',
+    fallbackSrc = '/assets/images/article-placeholder.svg',
     loading = 'lazy',
     unoptimized = false,
     ...props