• by September 29, 2003

Call it the battle of the media trade acronyms, but the MPA took a few shots from the ARF last week. The Magazine Publishers of America was besmirched twice during Thursday's sessions on the Advertising Research Foundation's new media model, once for lacking credibility and another time for acting like a research Luddite where print ad responsiveness research is concerned. During one Q&A following a panel discussion on advertising attentiveness, communication and persuasion, an attendee asked the panel what they thought of the MPA's marketing mix modeling research with Hudson River Group. "I would be skeptical of anything that came from the MPA," blasted Kate Lynch, global media research director at Starcom MediaVest Group and one of the ARF panel's "discussants." Later in the session, someone asked Millward Brown Strategic Planning and Development Director Nigel Hollis why his research firm hasn't updated a benchmark study on the "wear-out" of magazine ads. Hollis said it was because the MPA complained so vociferously when the original research was released more than a decade ago. Ironically, the panelists said the study was not anti-magazine advertising, but only indicated that magazine creative needed to be changed more frequently to keep magazine ads effective. But the MPA assault has left the industry without any fresh advertising persuasiveness data at a time when the new ARF model is saying such inputs are essential to proper media planning.

No longer content simply with worldwide dominations of the television spectrum, Rupert Murdoch now has his eye on the other piece of the airwaves. No, Murdoch's not making a play for the XM or Sirius satellite radio networks - not just yet anyway - but his fledgling Fox News Radio Service is set to expand from the one-minute news updates it began feeding radio stations last spring to five-minutes in November. Normally, such a seemingly minor radio industry expansion wouldn't seem that newsworthy, but when it involves Murdoch, people tend to take notice. Especially, when you consider that with the exception of Viacom's Infinity Broadcasting unit and Clear Channel, none of the major media players are heavily vested in radio.

Pop Goes Some Weasels. We can certainly understand why Fox News Corp. is among the Weaseliest Organization nominees in Dilbert.com's 2003 Weasel Awards Poll, but we don't agree with the other top media company entrant: The New York Times. Perhaps it was the recent Jayson Blair incident, the Times reporter who was fired for allegedly making up stuff. In fact, Blair made it as his own nominee under the Weaseliest Individuals section of the poll, alongside the likes of Fox News Channel basher Al Franken, his nemesis Bill O'Reilly, George W. Bush, Tom Daschle and Sean Bennet. Well it's nice to know the Dilbertians are magnanimous, anyway.

Riff angry. Riff smash bad people who sue over illegal downloading. That's right, the Riff's seeing green - not red - over the latest piracy development, the sentencing of a New Jersey man who pleaded guilty to illegally copying and posting a digital version of "The Hulk" on the Internet. Kerry Gonzalez received a three-year probation and was ordered to serve six months confinement in his home. He also has to pay a $2,000 fine and $5,000 in compensation to "Hulk" studio Universal Pictures.