STARCOM/ZENITH SMOOSH WAS NEVER A REASON FOR THE PERRISS PUSH -- Nick Brien apparently was never in the running to be CEO of Zenith Optimedia Group. The Riff has learned that Brien, who had been president of corporate business development at Zenith's sibling media agency Starcom MediaVest Group, has already taken a job as global CEO of Arc, the below-the-line marketing services unit of Leo Burnett.

JOHN PERRISS HAS A BIRTHDAY WISH, BUT WHO WILL HOLD HIS CANDLE? - "It has long been my intention to cease full time executive employment at the age of 55 years, and I am now approaching my 56th birthday," says John Perriss, ending speculation on what his next moves might be now that he is stepping down as CEO of Zenith Optimedia. Unlike the countless former Zenith employees whom he helped cease full time employment for, Perriss presumably is making this move willfully.

DO AS WE SCHEDULE, NOT AS WE ZAP - At last the Riff finally understands what all the angst over digital video recorders is really about. And it isn't coming from some new Nielsen data, or even the deluge of consumer research studies indicating the impact DVRs are having on consumer ad-watching behavior.

AND NOW A BLIPVERT FROM OUR SPONSOR - It's been a while since the Riff made an obscure, but insightful 1980s pop culture reference, but we were reminded of one Wednesday when Fox sales honcho Jon Nesvig told a room full of national advertisers, "Our unit of sale is going to be one second." When Nesvig floated that scenario during Wednesday's ANA Television Advertising Forum, he wasn't necessarily suggesting that Madison Avenue would soon replace 30-second spots with one-second ad messages, only that deals would likely move to combinations of one-second increments based on a one-second unit rate.

GRAY LADIES WITH RED FACES -- Ordinarily, intrepid reporting is associated with the efforts that go into writing Pulitzer Prize-winning stories, not reporting on the prizes themselves. But that's just what trade mag Editor & Publisher seems to have accomplished.

IT TURNS OUT THAT MADISON AVENUE'S FAVORITE DVR FEATURE MAY BE SLOW-MOTION - "Advertisers are slow to react to change." Harsh words indeed, but they are the main reason a top Wall Street firm doesn't expect to see a significant near-term impact on TV ad spending from the rapid acceleration of digital video recorders.

HE NEVER PROMISED US A ROSE GARDEN, BUT 9/11? - We're of mixed emotions concerning today's launch of George W. Bush's multimillion dollar advertising campaign.

WHAT'S THE NEXT BIG THING? - That's the perennial question of the media planning business, so it's no surprise that it's also what Starcom has asked some top cable network executives to answer when they sat on a panel during the media shop's annual "Cable Day" summit today at its Wacker Drive headquarters in Chicago. If some chit chat the Riff had with some of those executives on Tuesday is any indication, the next big thing in the TV advertising business may just be broadband video, a marketplace the Starcom folks have been trying to cultivate as a new "television …

EXACTLY WHAT A COMMUNICATIONS ARCHITECT IS, AND IS NOT - At long last, someone has explained to the Riff just exactly what account supervisors do. And it took a communications architect to do it.