• by Jack Feuer , June 10, 2009

I almost didn't make it to the Paley Center for Media yesterday because it was drizzling. In Los Angeles, that's an extinction-level event.

But I'm glad I did, even though it meant I had to share the Beverly Hills sidewalk with potbellied Eastern European tourists, the blonde from "Planet of the Apes" (the 2001 travesty, not the original) and assorted garishly dressed reasons why Klaatu came to Earth.

Forgive the strained movie metaphors. To be true to the subject of this week's lesson, I should use unstrained TV metaphors.

I'm all about the content right now because I was in the belly of the Tinseltown beast to attend the fifth Alliance for Family Entertainment symposium. And the concave reminded me once again that on rare, exhilarating occasions, you guys get it right.

This gaggle of 40 of the nation's most influential advertisers is dedicated to finding and nurturing family content. Since it launched as the Family Friendly Programming Forum in 1998, the Association of National Advertisers group has helped develop and bring to air 20 prime-time shows, including "Gilmore Girls," "Friday Night Lights," "Chuck," "Everybody Hates Chris" and "8 Simple Rules." (It changed its name last year to reflect an expanded mission that now includes cable, digital and emerging media.)

As a track record, that does not suck.

While everybody else in media was wandering about in a daze like your cat after she tipped over the Jose Cuervo on the kitchen counter and lapped it all up (write what you know), the Alliance for Family has been funding script development, giving scholarships to promising young writers and bringing everybody in the content mix together to talk about creating smart, sophisticated family entertainment in a fragmented marketplace.

Where else can you find writers, marketers, media agency executives, a Google director, a gaming veep, students, academics and the heads of every major broadcast network in the same room? Only the Alliance can aggregate Marshall Herskovitz, Christina Meringolo, Stephen McPherson, Pat Gentile, Damon Lindelof, Bill Abbott, Dawn Ostroff, Ali LeRoi, Jason Katims, Kevin Reilly and Chris Schembri.

That's just a random sampling of the high-powered business and creative talent on the playbill. And don't even get me started on the amazing tomato and mozzarella sandwiches at lunch.

I learned interesting facts. (More than three-fourths of U.S. households still aren't satisfied with the quality of programming on television.)

I heard cool tidbits. (The "Lost" writing staff just hired a Marine.)

And I was given actual news. (The Alliance is teaming with Humanitas, the Hollywood organization that honors excellence in film and TV writing, to create a content development fund.)

Why can't the 4As put on shows like this? Why can't Advertising Week develop programs like this? And why have I never, ever, met a single person from a full-service creative shop at this thing?

The concept behind the Alliance--and the Alliance success--is not complicated. It's just well-executed common sense.

Maybe it was drizzling the day all those other guys put together their conferences.

Well, their loss. Now you'll have to excuse me. I'm calling a source at the Alliance for the recipe to those tomato and mozzarella sandwiches.