• by John Gaffney , May 7, 2002

Agency Riffs: It kills me sometimes how talent agencies want to be ad agencies. Case in point: Michael Ovitz sold his floundering talent/ad/celebrity agency, Artists Management Group, to The Firm, a music management company that counts Korn, Limp Bizkit and The Dixie Chicks among its acts. Ovitz was once deemed too powerful in Hollywood. When he ran the Creative Artists Agency during the high flying late 80’s, he set it on course to drift from brokering talent to getting a piece of the ad agency pie back in his high-flying late 80s days. CAA, in fact, recently signed K Mart as a client, to introduce the slipping retailer to potential superstar spokespeople. Hope they got cash with order. And you will hear more from The Firm, which has managed to out-Ovitz Ovitz. It’s a loosely guarded secret that The Firm owns Pony Sneakers, another 80s brand it is trying to resurrect. How do they advertise Pony Sneakers? By getting their acts to wear them, as well as Pony t-shirts and hats. I don’t see any ad agencies wanting to become talent agencies. That’s because ad agencies know how complex and skilled a company needs to be in this business. They know the value of focus I think the Hollywood talent agencies are always looking to connect to this business somehow, because they think it’s easy money. I’m sure Michael Ovitz thought it was easy. Anybody who thinks its easy these days should email me with your secrets………

Radio Riffs: Am I the only one who noticed that Clear Channel made $783 million from its radio operations in Q1? That’s actually up 2.4 percent in a marketplace that has crushed the bottom lines of most other media players……

Nostalgia Riffs: I saw Cindy Williams (the Shirley of Laverne and Shirley) on CNN the other night, talking about how the public is demanding all these anniversary/reunion shows that are dominating the airwaves. They want comfort, she said, in the wake of Sept. 11. That’s funny, because I thought this spate of nostalgia was driven more by a need to put on low-cost programming in the wake of a bad first quarter. I have seen one nostalgic look-back I like. The current Village Voice is re-examining the heyday of Greenwich Village bohemia. Come gather ‘round people……