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‘Media Planning’ page adds insight

Jan 13, 2003  •  Post A Comment

Our new weekly department Media Planning can be found on Page 23.
Planners, this is your space. There is no other weekly department devoted to what you do in any of the publications that compete with us. As the weeks go by, we know it will become a focal point not only for planners but for anyone interested in this essential field; after all, the commercials we see on TV basically start with planners deciding where and when they should be aired.
EM’s Media Planning complements our ongoing coverage of TV advertising, including our regular advertising page, which continues to focus on marketers deals, trends and strategies, on both a local and national level.
I was in New York recently having lunch with the president of advertising sales for a major cable network. We were discussing a big ad deal, the news of which EM had broken, and he said that EM had become his No. 1 read for news in the ad business and television.
As EM’s publisher and editorial director, its not unusual to have facile comments directed my way. But I’ve known this guy for more than a decade, and we’re well beyond that. So I took his compliment as I know he really meant it: as high praise.
Most broadcasters and cablecasters are ad-supported. Since I joined EM more than two years ago, we’ve worked hard to increase our coverage of the advertising business as it relates to the TV industry. It was EM that first reported two of the biggest ad-related stories of this TV season. First, the groundbreaking billion-dollar ad deal between media agency OMD and the ABC network and its Disney-owned media siblings. Second was the startling news that Joe Abruzzese, president of ad sales for CBS, was leaving the network to join Discovery Communications.
For the past dozen years or so, I’ve been fortunate to be associated with many of these breaking stories concerning the intersection of the TV and advertising industries. As many of you know, I’ve specialized in covering media departments at broadcast and cable outlets as well as at marketers and agencies for more than10 years, first at late, lamented Inside Media and later at Advertising Age.
In the past dozen or so years, the impact and importance of Madison Avenue on the TV business has grown. And nowhere is that importance greater than in the work of agency media planners.
For years, the discipline of media planning has been, primarily, the exclusive purview of arcane academia. But media planning is too important to stay isolated in that venue. So we aim to change that. Starting today.
To an old media maven like myself, our ever-expanding coverage of Madison Avenue could not be more pleasing. I hope you agree, and I hope that you too think of EM as your choice for news about the ad business and TV.