by John Gaffney on Oct 17, 12:00 AM
OPRs (Other People’s Riffs) For the week that was: Translation: “This Thing Just Wasn’t Making Any Money:” Said Time, Inc. president Ann Moore after closing SI For Women this week, "SI Women was smart, interesting and attractive.
by John Gaffney on Oct 16, 12:00 AM
The baseball version of Riffs: Here Comes Dick Parsons To The Mound: It’s easy to say things like this when you’re not writing the checks or apologizing to Wall Street analysts, but I think SI For Women got a quick hook. AOL/TimeWarner shut the book down reportedly for not filling the growth mode among active female athletes that the company thought it would fill.
by John Gaffney on Oct 15, 12:00 AM
Cut Charmed; Heavy Up on 60 Minutes: Lot of buzz so far this week about a New York Sunday Times article about advertising to the 18-34 demographic group. The core of the article is this: “People over the age of 50 account for half of all the discretionary spending in the United States.
by John Gaffney on Oct 14, 12:00 AM
Go Donny, Go Donny: First trade show I ever went to: 1985, National Association of Record Merchandisers. LA. I was just a year removed from college keg parties, I had a very hard time getting my head around the fact that there was a whole floor of record company suites at the Century City Plaza that wanted nothing more than for me to come in and drink with them.
by John Gaffney on Oct 13, 12:00 AM
If You Gotta Ask You’ll Never Know: Is great journalism compatible with business? Hell, yes. The questions comes from an Editor and Publisher story last Friday concerning a discussion among 24 media executives and journalists who convened for three days in June at the sixth annual Aspen Institute Conference on Journalism and Society.
by John Gaffney on Oct 9, 12:00 AM
Other People's Riffs: Walter Isaacson Tells It Like It Is: The CNN Chief told The New York Observer, “We do very fine in the overnights. We have really good audiences.
by John Gaffney on Oct 9, 12:00 AM
ARFnotes: This year is my first trip to the Advertising Research Foundation’s conference t in NYC. I was expecting three things: numbers, numbers and numbers.
by John Gaffney on Oct 8, 12:00 AM
Catching The Red Eye: I think The Chicago Tribune’s decision to launch Red Eye is a big deal. It is potentially a watershed moment in the newspaper business, maybe on the scale of USA Today’s launch.
by John Gaffney on Oct 7, 12:00 AM
Writer’s Block: Nothing gets to me like school shootings. Anything like yesterday’s events in Maryland can absolutely own me.
by John Gaffney on Oct 6, 12:00 AM
Not Effexive:This celebrity-disguised-as-pharmaceutical-endorser trend has gone off the hook. First, Lauren Bacall hawks arthritis drugs on the Today show.