I see that a new report from research firm Insight Out of Chaos says marketers are having a tough time defining what customer relationship management means in theory and practice.

Some of the most creative media planning and buying comes in the form of sponsorships. To me, it’s a ticket to unpredictability and strong emotional consumer connection. I’m not talking about old-fashioned sponsorships.

I actually like some of the shows ABC introduced at “Upfrontstock” yesterday. What I liked the most about ABC’s strategy is its willingness to launch new shows in January, which they will do after Monday Night Football is over.

Couple of things surprised me in last week’s Publisher’s Information Bureau report on magazine revenue for April. If you missed it, it showed revenue is down big time on a year-to-date basis over 2001. And 2001 stunk.

If it ain’t broke…. you know the rest. NBC sure does. I thought the long awaited announcement of its fall lineup was decidedly underwhelming and when you’re number one, that’s OK.

I used to work for a guy who claimed that the economy was like a toddler: moody, occasionally brilliant and just beyond your control. I thought about that this week. This was the kind of week that turns an ad economy.

If the big story coming out of NCTA is the move toward developing more Video On Demand services, I’m yawning. I think the story nobody wants to talk about is the pressure on cable channels for more flexibility in creative units.

It kills me sometimes how talent agencies want to be ad agencies. Case in point: Michael Ovitz sold his floundering talent/ad/celebrity agency, Artists Management Group, to The Firm, a music management company that counts Korn, Limp Bizkit and The Dixie Chicks among its acts. Ovitz was once deemed too powerful in Hollywood. When he ran the Creative Artists Agency during the high flying late 80’s, he set it on course to drift from brokering talent to getting a piece of the ad agency pie back in his high-flying late 80s days. CAA, in fact, recently signed K Mart as a …

Several reports yesterday had Al Neuharth seriously contemplating a national newspaper for kids. Let me guess - it will have really short stories and a lot of color graphics, right?

Hey, it’s cool to be jaded and cynical, but diminishing the importance of winning a National Magazine Award is off-base. Content excellence needs to be celebrated.