• by John Gaffney , April 16, 2003

Big Enough: As a rule, I don't like business consolidation. So when I see that WPP is combining divisions at the rate of one every five days, I get concerned. For the most part, when a business consolidates, even when a company consolidates, some voice gets silenced. Some creativity is lost. Some flexibility becomes rigid. I get this prejudice from several years of working in the home video business. As a trade magazine editor that covered the home video retailers, I watched a vital, creative business get Blockbuster-ed. Did you know that in the early 90's there were a lot of video stores that actually had separate personalities? Some specialized in independent films. Some would specialize in family films. But they all got crushed. They became yellow, blue, obsessed with new releases from Hollywood and boring. By the same token, I don't think media planning and buying should all be shoved into one method under one shop. If you're a planner/buyer you should be able to put some kind of personal or corporate mark on your work. Some shops like to use more subtle lifestyle research to place media. Some go for the harder, more return-oriented sell. But it should never become the same thing all over town. Or even in the same building.

Reality, Really: I'm not crawling too far out on a limb to say that there will be a consumer expiration date on reality TV. That date will be Labor Day 2003. At that point TV viewers will have suffered a summer that featured at least 60 percent of prime time reality TV programming. They will demand scripted shows. Reality TV won't go away. But it will go the way of prime time game shows. They will move out of prime time, and they will move off network.

At The Buzzer: I'm outta here for the next few days. Taking the kids to Hershey Park. Enjoy the holidays. Riff at you next Monday.