Buy the back cover of People and you hope that you can cause the consumer to stop what he or she is doing and be impressed by your ad. Buy thirty seconds on The Osbournes<\I> and you’re doing the same thing, albeit in a much different environment. In a sense, any advertising is trying to disrupt the normal attention pattern in a consumer’s environment. At TBWA/Chiat/Day, being disruptive has become a corporate gospel. Now the agency is starting to preach it. TBWA/Chiat/Day has updated its concept of disruption and expanded it via Chairman Jean-Marie Dru’s new book, Beyond Disruption<\I>. …

While The Sopranos, Sex and the City, and Queer As Folk may have set the standard for a new level of original programming on cable, basic channels are not taking HBO and Showtime’s lead. As any perusal of recent Emmy nominees will quickly show, cable has moved from the periphery to the red-hot center of original television content. Cable’s newest shows (witness The Osbournes and Monk in spring and summer 2002) now consistently equal or better those of the nets in critical acclaim and/or buzz, and, perhaps even more importantly, in audience loyalty. Although even the most popular …