• by John Gaffney , October 1, 2002

Got Growth? Part I: We’ve been knocking around the ad revenue forecast for 2003 here in the idyllic setting of Westport. Without any grounding in the science of forecasting, I have to go to the basics. Any kind of ad growth next year will need to be driven by some hot product categories. If packaged goods and pharmaceuticals weren’t posting increases this year, this business would be in its second year of revenue losses. So I would like to pose the following category as a growth candidate: entertainment. First, anybody attached to a movie studio is going to be under so much pressure next year to add to the corporate bottom line (Warner, Disney, Miramax, Columbia, Paramount) that they damn well better spend money to promote their products. Second, entertainment products do well in a downturn. I encourage anybody who really believes the end of the downturn is near to email me with a compelling case for that. Third: The record business, if it wants to turn the consumer tables, will need more ad dollars behind major releases. It will discover that the best way to beat piracy is to load up new CDs with features and blast the message to the target.

Order In The Court: Now the Rosie/G&J case gets a bit boring to me. G&J sues her for $300 mill. Rosie will countersue. None of that has much to do with media anymore. The lesson to be learned here, I believe, is that planners and buyers should get a good handle on how a celebrity will interact with his/her named property before committing to it.

She Got Game: I was wrong about Anna Kournikova in yesterday’s riffs. I said she had never won a tennis tournament. She has never won one by herself, as it turns out. As a doubles player she has won 16 titles. According to the WTA: CAREER HIGHLIGHTS - DOUBLES WINNER (16): 2002 - Australian Open (w/Hingis), Shanghai (w/J. Lee); 2001 - Sydney (w/Schett), Moscow (w/Hingis); 2000 - Season-Ending Championships (w/Hingis), Gold Coast (w/Halard-Decugis), Hamburg (w/Zvereva), Filderstadt (w/Hingis), Zurich (w/Hingis), Philadelphia (w/Hingis); 1999 - Australian Open (w/Hingis), Season-Ending Championships (w/Hingis), Indian Wells (w/Hingis), Italian Open (w/Hingis), Eastbourne (w/Hingis); 1998 - Tokyo [Princess Cup] (w/Seles).