• by John Gaffney , December 13, 2002

One More Reason To Worry About Next Week’s Holiday Party: A press conference scheduled for Tuesday will announce a report that says teens see more ads about alcohol than jeans or gum. The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University, show that almost one quarter of alcohol advertising on cable and network television in 2001 was more likely to be seen by youth than adults. Of the 208,909 alcohol commercials on television in 2001, underage youth, ages 12 to 20, were more likely than adults of legal drinking age to have seen 51,084 commercials, or 24.5%.

What Impact Should This Have On This Year’s TV Upfront?: The Mayan Calendar, a sophisticated instrument of time and space more than two thousand years old, prophesizes that Humanity will come to an abrupt end on a date equating to the winter solstice of 2012...exactly ten years from this December 21st. Should we be worried? Author Steve Alten, whose novel, DOMAIN centers upon the 2012 event, thinks so. "A calendar, in this sense, measures how long Earth's solar year is. What's disturbing about the Mayan prophecy is that their calendar is actually more accurate than the European Calendar we base our current calendar on today -- even though it's 1,500 years older. The calendar itself is divided into five great cycles. Humanity is presently in the fifth and last cycle, the previous four all ending in cataclysms."

Reader Riff Of The Week: I just wondered last week if Playboy Magazine was being a bit too laid back in its marketing and positioning. Reader Wes Hart submitted the following response: “ OK that’s where I draw the line. Playboy magazine headed for trouble? This cannot stand. This screams for a government bailout. Thank God we have the money ear-marked for United Airlines that was subsequently not made available. I purchase Playboy for the in-depth articles and rapier wit of the interviewees revealed on their personal bio’s but I promise to pay more attention to the ads from now on!”

And By Popular Demand The Return Of The Media Desert Island Disc Club: This week’s winner comes from Tom Siebert:

Van Morrison - Into the Music
The Beatles - Abbey Road
The Blue Nile - A Walk Across the Rooftops
Rickie Lee Jones – Pirates
Warren Zevon - Warren Zevon
Frank Sinatra - Song for Swingin' Lovers
XTC - English Settlement
U2 – October
Marvin Gaye - What's Going On?
Neil Diamond - Glory Road