THE BIG UNEASY - What will be on the mind of top media planners, buyers and media agency managers when they meet in New Orleans this week for their annual trade show? Well, we won't know the answer to that until later this week when the American Association of Advertising Agencies releases the results of a pre-show survey leading into its annual Media Conference. But we do have the questions - nine of them: 1 - What is the first issue the new FCC director should address? Media ownership? Indecency? Enforcing the switch to digital by TV stations? Spam? …

AND THE WINNER IS… ABC -- Just when we thought the hype surrounding advertising buys on a big TV event was over, a new round of TV advertising buzz has been dumped in our laps. No, it’s not some residual ad spin from the Super Bowl that ran on Fox earlier this month, but Oscar adfest that will take place Sunday night when ABC broadcasts the Academy Awards. You know, the “Super Bowl for women,” or guys like us who’re more into silver screen flicks than gridiron blitzes. We all know Oscar ad hype, like the Super …

THE P&L BEHIND NIELSEN?S R&D ?If Nielsen needed to make a strong statement to demonstrate its commitment to its clients, and to the future of audience measurement, it certainly seems to have made one in the eight-page letter sent to clients Friday by CEO Susan Whiting. The letter appears to address most of the significant concerns surrounding recent criticisms of Nielsen, including access to ratings data, the cost of contracts to access that data, and, perhaps most importantly, how Nielsen derives the data itself. On the surface, Whiting says all the right things, we?ve heard our clients loud and clear …

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED'S SWIMSUIT-LESS EDITION -- It's been a long time since we've run down to the local newsstand on certain Mondays in mid-February to grab a copy of Sports Illustrated, the only one we read annually. It's not that we don't like the magazine, it's just that we're not into the whole sports thing, at least not the sports it features the other 51 weeks of the year.

CUPID AIN'T STUPID, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO BOOB TUBES - Everyone knows that subscribers of the popular digital video recorder brand love their TiVos, but in a genuine test of the brand's power - and the love for it - Carat Interactive today broke a radio and online ad campaign recommending that people express their fondness for loved ones on Valentine's Day by giving them one of the DVRs as a gift, instead of say greeting cards, flowers, chocolate or silky undergarments. What's more, the "I Like to Watch" campaign utilized a unique media planning approach to target lovers …

IT SEEMS EVERYONE WANTS TO MESS WITH THIS PART OF TEXAS - In media planning parlance, Houston is the seventh largest media market in the U.S.

GONE DADDY, GONE, BUT DEFINITELY NOT FORGOTTEN - The only thing better than buying a spot on the Super Bowl, is getting your ad rejected from it. The media buy only guarantees you 30-seconds (more if you're a big sport) of time in front of the nation's TV viewers.

JEWELS IN THE ROUGH - Until this week, the worst thing that had happened to our town was when our local movie theater went out of business. The movie house's name was the Community Theater and for months its marquee brandished the foreboding coming attraction: "Community For Sale.

SUPER - CALIFRAGIL - ISTICEXPI - HYPERBOWLIC - They call the NFL's championship game the "Super Bowl," but maybe it should be the "Superlatives Bowl." Or even better, the "Hyperbolic Bowl." Based on the marketing hype we've seen leading up to this year's game, we think it deserves the coining of a new word altogether: It's Super Hyper-Bowlic.