Planners and buyers, because of the nature of their jobs and lifestyles, are heavy media users.

Debate on increasing rates, antiquated rituals, 12-month buying cycles, and dimishing network ratings may fundamentally alter the upfront process.

The editors of MEDIA sat down for breakfast with several media agency heads and industry consultants to discuss one of the over-riding issues facing agencies today - compensation for the services it provides

E.W. Scripps aims to converge commerce and content platform with its Shop At Home Network

They are our mothers, wives, sisters, and friends, and perhaps marketers' most important target.

Compiling a list is never the simple task you might think it is when you start putting it together. Creating one that is comprised of names that anybody in an industry should know proved an especially difficult one. It's not that we struggled to come up with the 100 names on MEDIA Magazine's list, so much as we had a hard time whittling it down from the hundreds more that could - and maybe should - have been on the list.

Hot issues are driving advertisers to highly-rated, but divisive politically-themed news shows.

What makes a Media Agency of the Year? Frankly, as the staff of MEDIA Magazine began planning its first award for that honor, we weren't sure exactly what the criteria should be. New business wins? Client retention? Overall billings growth? Client sales growth? Great media deals? Breakthrough planning and research? Best of class management systems? Overall industry esteem? In short, all of the above. And much, more.