Marianne Paskowski

I’m not one of those maniacs who get up early the Friday after Thanksgiving to jump-start my holiday shopping spree.

With all the bad economic barometers out there, Black Friday sales will provide another yardstick about the state of television advertising. And for now we know it doesn’t look great.

But maybe it won’t be all gloom and doom. While the three domestic auto companies have noticeably slashed their ad budgets, ads for imported cars seem to be on the rise.

And Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, which has absolutely no need to advertise its value proposition, is laying it on thick this season, with TV spots running in all dayparts.

So yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, even though we’ve seen all those surveys that predict consumers are tapped, and are capping their holiday spending budgets.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Sears can thank me later for creating its new ad jingle. Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, announced it is teaming with the retailer to promote the MSO’s digital video, cable modem and cable phone services in 400 Sears stores around the country.

What incredibly odd bedfellows they make. Comcast will train Sears’ employees to sell its bundled triple-play offering. Also in 100 of those stores, Comcast will have interactive HDTV display units set up.

I’m assuming Comcast is setting up in Sears’ consumer electronic departments, next to television sets and other gizmos.

But who on this planet would ever buy a TV set at Sears? Sure, I would buy a Craftsman screwdriver set there, if I were inclined to buy that kind of thing. But a TV set, let alone a cable package of services?

Wouldn’t it have been smarter for Comcast to team up with Best Buy, where people actually buy consumer electronic products?

I don’t like anything about this idea. New customers, and only new customers, who sign up for Comcast at Sears get a $100 mail-in rebate coupon for one product purchase, like a cable modem, or a $250 rebate for the triple bundled package.

So once again, Comcast is ignoring existing customers by not offering them the same rebate.

So much for crashing through glass ceilings is what I conclude from reading highlights of the 2008 Women in Cable Telecommunications’ PAR Initiative Survey that tracks female employment trends at both cable programming and distribution companies.

The biggest shocker was the glaring fact that top female executives at cable programming companies dropped significantly from 32.5% two years ago to 26.1% this year.

So how to explain this glaring ebb of top female talent at the cable programming nets? Consolidation is the culprit, say the survey’s analysts.

They point to the departures of leaders like Oxygen Media founder and CEO Gerry Laybourne, who sold her company to NBC Universal.

OK, that’s one person. Who else, I ask? I can’t think of one.

The study’s analysts also say women who run cable networks might be counted as middle management now that their companies are part of larger organizations.

Might? Don’t we know?

No matter how you slice it, most top-level jobs at the cable programmers are going to men, the survey concludes.

And that’s the real answer, I say, not this mumbo-jumbo about consolidation.

Sure, I know it’s a delicate line to walk for president elect Barack Obama, as he bides his time until January when he is officially sworn in as the nation’s 44th president.

And that’s a mistake. Every cable news network should be crawling all over him right now, as the economic picture worsens. And I hope we see the president elect roll up his sleeves and not stand on protocol.

So how really delicate is that president-elect fine line? Not at all, I say.

For years we’ve had a lame-duck president, who can’t do a thing now. Witness just this weekend an unproductive G20 conference in Washington, where economic leaders from all over the world just put lipstick on the global economic meltdown pig.

Of course nothing came out of that. How could it?

This past Sunday, CBS “60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Kroft scored an interview with Barack and Michelle Obama, and yes, I was among the 24.5 million viewers who tuned in to see what he had to say—mostly the economy.

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Basically, I liked what I saw, but Obama was tentative.

Today, just a day later, I hear that Obama, president elect, who has been tiptoeing around economic issues during this transition period, will play some role in this week’s plea by General Motors to secure a bailout at the Fed window.

Obama needs to be at that table. And I encourage all news gathering organizations to prod Obama to push aside protocol and not stand on formalities to jump-start our great nation.

Speakers at the CTAM Summit in Boston largely ignored the elephant in the room, the “R” word, as they put one foot in front of the other, discussing present and future trends.

And why not? Was there anyone in attendance who didn’t know how deeply entrenched this recession has become?

Day One CTAM Summit 2008

But in the closing session Tuesday, Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen said that while there is a perception that cable is recession-proof, in fact it’s actually more recession-resistant. She said cable does better than most businesses because of its strong cash flow and ability to recover more quickly during recessions, but she didn’t expect a recovery for cable until the first quarter of 2010.

Clearly cable is no General Motors, begging at the Federal Treasury window, but it is challenged. A marketing exec at a cable network said cable will get hit hardest in ad sales, as the industry is already experiencing overall weakness in the scatter market. She also told me her marketing budget is already tapped out for the year.

Trade Show Char Beales declared the year's gathering a "victory."

CTAM Summit attendance was high, about 2,222, down just slightly from last year’s event, said CTAM President Char Beales, who declared the event a “huge victory in this environment.”

And what an environment it is. One multisystem operator’s marketing head told me her company has a “recession plan” at hand, as the company is experiencing no growth from new subscribers.

Perhaps more sobering is the ongoing reduction in headcount at both cable distribution and programming companies, with Cox Cable trimming its workforce by 2%.

One executive search firm executive told me that by year’s end, cable could see a staggering 40% total loss in jobs, counting earlier streamlining moves made during the past several years, first by the programmers and later by the MSOs, with more whacking to come by Q4.

There’s change in the air, and I’m not just referring to Sen. Barack Obama winning the race to become the nation’s 44th president. His victory was sweeping, and voters were riveted to their TV sets all night as we watched history unfold as our nation elected a black man as president.

But were viewers really riveted? The answer is yes and no. They just weren’t watching TV, they were multitasking via other modes of communication that have changed our TV viewing habits forever.

While channel-surfing, I’ll bet, you also were in the e-mail batting cage, hearing from pals in other states to learn what they were seeing during their local newsbreaks, all while cradling phones as friends and neighbors called.

As we surfed the TV set with remotes at hand, our mouses were in overdrive, too, as we surfed the Internet, exchanging e-mails with friends across the nation who advised “Switch to NBC” or “Check out Fox now.”

It was probably a great night to be a TV viewer in Chicago, as the Windy City prepared for an Obama victory in Grant Park. My nephew there kept me up-to-the-minute with his descriptions of other jubilant preparations under way at local churches on the South Side, coverage that I couldn’t see here.

So today I admit I have a severe sensory overload hangover. And I bet you do, too.

Anyone know of a cure?