• by John Gaffney , June 25, 2002

You Go, Martha: I personally don’t give a fat rat’s butt about whether Martha Stewart unloaded ImClone stock on an inside tip. If she improperly handled her own stake in Omnimedia, or if she misled employees and investors about Omnimedia’s financial performance, I’d have a problem. This company has a sound business model, solid management and an attractive audience for advertisers. Media planners and buyers need to care about little else. Does a page in Martha Stewart’s Living have less value now than it did before this distraction? No. Was this poor personal judgement? Yes. If we’re going to hang people on Wall Street for poor personal judgement, you’d have to build a scaffold bigger than Manhattan.

The Most Powerul Librarian In The World: Regardless of how qualified the Librarian of Congress is, he should not have the power to cut down a fledgling business. Last week the Librarian all but killed internet radio by assigning a 7 cent per word fee to all songs played, which is within the office’s copyright setting mandate. But this was wrong. Everybody knows advertising on internet radio is as scarce as rain in Arizona. But the format deserves a chance to grow. It may someday be an effective ad vehicle; it may someday be an effective vehicle for developing artists and other formats traditional radio has no time for, like classical and jazz. I know this ruling will not kill internet radio. I think record companies will wake up to its potential, although right now it looks like limited potential. They will cut some breaks to internet radio players that can survive this blow.

WSJ Blues: Dow Jones is having a tough time of it right now, and The Wall Street Journal’s revenue dive hasn’t helped. But the WSJ is doing all the right things right now, and you have to hope for the sake of intelligent business sense that they work. It’s holding CPMs. It redesigned and repositioned the content for better access without compromising quality. It’s experimenting with targeted publications to take advantage of growth areas, such as pharmaceuticals. All of these work at attracting an audience that will attract advertisers. As far as I know that’s the best way to play this game.