BUSTING BLOCKBUSTER - It's been a while since the Riff has seen a really good pissing match brewing among the major media conglomerates and a new assault by Walt Disney Co. on the video rental marketplace may be just enough to get new sabers rattling between the mouse house and Viacom, which for the moment, is still heavily invested in the dominant homevideo retailer, Blockbuster Video.

BUT WILL FLATTOP EVER GIVE UP HIS LAPTOP - Digital media scion Bill Gates often seems a bit like a cartoon character, but his latest media vision comes straight out of the funny pages. In fact, the kind of wristwatch communications devices Microsoft will introduce next week were being used by Dick Tracy in the early part of the last century.

YOU DON'T NEED TO BE A WEATHERMAN TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE DISNEY BOARD BLOWS -- It's been an especially chilly fall and winter for Disney chief Michael Eisner, and that may explain his penchant for meteorological metaphors during his keynote at a Smith Barney media conference on Tuesday. After describing a recent "positive" three-day tour he took of flagship Walt Disney World, Eisner pointed out that his No.

WHAT THE OTHER FOUR PERCENT WATCH - You might never guess it based on the lowbrow, downscale nature of the characters in some of its trademark programming, but the viewers of Fox's prime-time lineup turn out to be the most upscale of any broadcast network. Given the overall demographic profile of the average TV viewer, that might not seem like a whole lot, but Fox at least, appears to be keeping up with the Jones'.

If you asked the Riff, we'd tell you the biggest story impacting the advertising and media industries during 2003 was the economy in general and corporate profitability in particular. But no one asked the Riff.