• by John Gaffney , October 2, 2002

Playing The Dozens: A dozen. That’s the number of reports the FCC put out yesterday in an information overload that is bound to short-circuit some of the real constructive debate about changes in media ownership rules. The reason it will short-circuit that debate is twofold. First, the sheer amount of data will take days if not weeks to digest. The consumer survey on media usage alone is 146 pages. This report should have hit earlier and in sections. Example: There are four radio surveys. They should have been released as group. That way at least for the time that those reports were the only ones accessible, the debate could have focused on radio. And by the way, the FCC says radio is fine. No problems with consolidation. No problems with content homogenization. In fact, they can’t find any evidence of it. Which leads me to my second point. The FCC didn’t get on the street. Didn’t get any depth with the people that actually listen to radio and watch TV. Doesn’t look they got too far beyond the beltway. These reports are heavy on vague research and even more vague conclusions. Most of those vague conclusions suggest that media ownership should be left to the media owners. Problem is, if the FCC has its way, there will be very few media owners with enough money to play this game. And that means less negotiating power for media planners and buyers.

Everybody Beats The Wiz: The Wolf Group has its hands full after winning The Wiz account. The electronics and entertainment retailer, which is closing more than half of its 43 stores has a similar problem to Kmart, and I’m not sure it’s a problem The Wolf Group an fix. That problem is inventory and customer service. TBWA has done amazing things with Kmart’s ads. But The Wiz management will need to give their agency better stores to promote if this deal is going to be successful.

Piling On Football: The sport of football is at its lowest popularity point since the 60s, says the Harris Poll. At adds up to a big “so what?” as far as I’m concerned. It is the best TV sport we have right now. It will command premium ad dollars as long as it keeps pulling men to their TV sets.