• by September 1, 2005

THE 43RD MARKET - When Nielsen Media Research released its new TV universe estimates last week, there was a lot of jostling among media markets, reflecting the steady migration of the U.S. population from northern industrial states to markets with warmer climes and better real estate values. Amid all the Nielsen re-ranking, we were surprised to see that New Orleans remained status quo as America's 43rd largest media market. Maybe it was the larger-than-life nature of the Big Easy, but it always seemed bigger than that to us. An LPM market, for sure. One week, and a category 5 hurricane later, and the media world has to wonder if it's still even a designated market area. While virtually every one of America's 110.2 million TV households was tuned to the devastation that was the Crescent City, few if any of New Orleans' 672,150 TV households were even able to tune in. Most had no electricity to do so. Many no longer had houses to hold TV sets.

There are similar stories for other key media markets along the Gulf Coast. Last week they ranked as No. 62 and No. 158, but this week the Mobile-Pensacola and Biloxi-Gulfport DMAs are question marks on any spot TV plan, and it may be, if we are to believe President Bush and state officials, years before they are back. And by that, we don't simply mean their populace. While media markets are ranked based on their populations they are also, to borrow Arbitron's parlance, "areas of dominant influence" for reasons that go beyond any federal or local census. It's because the people who reside there represent important consumers for big advertisers. Those big advertisers invest big ad budgets to support local media, which provides news, entertainment, sports and other forms of media content that we've come to know as civilization.

So in a strange and ironic way, Madison Avenue is party to the rebuilding of the Gulf State metros. Without media commerce, how will local media sustain themselves? Without local media, how can the markets replenish?

This conversation may seem crass in light of the horrific tragedy that seems to be growing worse each day, but we know it is one that is taking place all along Madison Avenue, and it is a dialogue that could affect billions of dollars worth of media commerce to municipalities that could little afford there loss.

The good news is that media planning tends to lag actual market developments. That's because it's often hard to pull campaigns out of flight. The bad news is that they tend to lag on the other end of market developments too. It often takes Madison Avenue longer to rebuild media budgets than it does to take them away. Only time will tell, of course. But we hope by the time the American Association of Advertising Agencies brings its annual media conference back to New Orleans in 2007 - assuming it does so - that this is all just a distant memory, and that the rebuilding and repopulation that takes place re-ranks the DMA in a positive direction.