• by March 1, 2006

ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, WE'D RATHER BE IN JAMAICA - When the nation's biggest media buyers meet in Orlando this week for their annual conference, the biggest issue on their minds apparently isn't such seemingly important topics as media fragmentation, advertising clutter and increasing consumer control over media content. It's why the broadcast networks aren't showing up for their party. At least that's what you'd have to take away from a preview story Advertising Age wrote this week leading into the American Association of Advertising Agencies' 2006 Media Conference and Trade Show. The story, extracted from an interview Ad Age conducted with AAAA President O. Burtch Drake, focuses primarily on the fact that the broadcast network sales execs often skip the show.

The article noted that one exception this year is Mike Shaw, the ABC sales chief, who also happens to be participating in one of the conference's panels. It also noted that one of Fox's executives "shows up from time to time."

We could think of many reasons why network sales executives might not attend the conference, but Fox sales chief Jon Nesvig has one of the best ones: he'll be attending his daughter's wedding in Jamaica. And just to make sure Fox isn't underrepresented at the AAAA event, Nesvig is having Jean Rossi, president of integrated sales for the Fox Entertainment Group, attend in his place.

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER -- Speaking of the Nesvigs, it's been a while since we checked in to see how the family is doing since the passing of Tim Nesvig, Jon's son, who died last year after a battle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Nesvig says the family is holding up well, considering Tim's untimely death, and that he's grateful for the support friends and colleagues have shown him, especially in the support of the Tim Nesvig Fellowship, a charitable foundation promoting lymphoma research.

The fellowship already has had a number of media-industry-related fundraisers, but a new grassroots effort has a special connection to Tim, a former ESPN executive who helped launch the TV Advertising Basketball League. In his memory, the league is devoting proceeds from this season's membership fees--about $10,000--to Tim's fellowship, and has also named its MVP award in his honor.

The league, which is just wrapping up its third season, is also thriving, growing from only 12 teams its first year to about 30 this season. The MVP award will be bestowed March 9, the night of the league's championship game. At this point, it looks like MTV's team will be competing in the final game. MTV has dominated each season, and so far remains undefeated this year.

"We played them in the playoffs last year, and they took it to us," says John Keanna, CFO at Carat, and a member of its hoops squad. "They probably have three or four guys who can dunk," he added, noting that the league has about 20 players who are former Division One college basketball players.

A couple of them apparently have landed at Carat, which explains why the media shop went from a 0 wins/11 losses performance its first season, to competing with MTV in last year's playoffs.

"Andy Donchin, the head of our network buying group, hired three guys who were 6'8", 6'6" and 6'3". And we went from last place to the finals," boasts Keanna. And we hear they're pretty good media buyers too.