• by January 6, 2006

2006 PREDICTIONS--PART I - When something big happens in Media Town, it is always big news in the media, so we were not surprised by the coverage devoted to New York's mass transit strike. What did surprise us was the apparent disinterest in another big story: the protracted work stoppage of Real Media Riffs. Perhaps it was the paucity of people patronizing picket lines. In any case, we're pleased to announce the impasse is over. Management has yielded to our demands. And a good thing, too. If we had waited much longer, we would have missed the opportunity to weigh in with our obligatory predictions for the New Year. Here we go:

Wall Street's overwhelmingly positive reaction to corporate media split-ups by Viacom, Clear Channel and other big media conglomerates will encourage even more deconsolidation.

Tom Freston will further dismantle his new Viacom Inc., spinning off key assets into three separate businesses: M Inc., T Inc. and V Inc.

Walt Disney Co. will follow suit, unbundling its broadcast division into a separate, public company trading under not one, but three classes of common stock: A, B and C shares.

Kooky media cook Paul Woolmington will regret his decision to leave The Media Kitchen to launch Naked Communications New York, and will negotiate a merger of the two companies. It will be called the Naked Chefs.

The perennial debate over the upfront will finally end in early 2006 when grammarians declare the word to be redundant. Buyers and sellers immediately become embroiled in a new debate when, during a panel discussion at the ANA's 2006 Television Advertising Forum, Fox sales chief Jon Nesvig proposes "simply using the word 'up.'"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you Jon," MediaCom honcho Jon Mandel will counter. "We'll go with 'front.'"

Former Carat chief David Verklin, fresh from his appointment as CEO of Havas, will form a committee to resolve the dispute. It will be code-named BUDGE.

Just as 2006-07 up, er, front negotiations begin in earnest, a new controversy will emerge over Nielsen's so-called "live" ratings, when a proprietary study by Magna Global USA reveals that Nielsen's sample actually includes dead people.

Nielsen will add a fourth data stream: "Live plus six feet under."

Inclusion of the new demographic will immediately drive CBS' ratings skyward.

MTV Networks will cry foul.

Fox will secretly funnel money backing a new anti-Nielsen pressure group, which will spin the press and lobby Congress on the grounds that the new system biases people of color. "Far more white people die each year," a well-placed Washington-based public affairs consultant will tell the Los Angeles Times, leaking proprietary stats from the National Mortuary Association to back the claim up.

CBS will move its Television City TV viewer lab from Las Vegas to Arlington, and will commission new, independent research demonstrating the value of the new Nielsen market break.

"Do you have any idea how much discretionary spending power is tied up in the tomb," CBS research guru Dave Poltrack will tell Mediaweek, adding, "They also have one of the lowest DVR indexes, and they hardly ever view in playback mode."

Telmar and IMS will simultaneously rush new media planning software modules to market but will end up in trademark litigation over use of the term "post-mortem analysis."

Industry guru Erwin Ephron will propose a brand new media planning theory: deceasency. "Think about it," Ephron will say, in an exclusive interview with Jack Myers Report. "The most important media impression you can register is one that lasts an eternity."