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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (18431)	4/25/2002 11:47:36 AM
From: MeDroogies	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Advertising continues to improve dramatically, but you'll hear mixed messages in the next 2 months. Here's why: CBS and NBC are the major players now on TV. There's more than enough money for all 4 major nets, but Fox and ABC are doing abysmally in the ratings. So, 2 nets will say it's a bad market and 2 will say it's good. Fact is, it is very good, but only 2 nets are poised to take advantage. Hopefully, Fox and ABC will attune their finances to their realities. That, based on my experience with their management, is unlikely. As for AOL, their problems in advertising are quite specific to them. They have chosen to set ridiculously high rates, based on 2 factors - they don't believe that the market from 2 years ago is gone, and they believe their stuff is somehow "better" due to the merger. Reality is sinking in with them, but they are 6 months from figuring it all out. IF they were able to react properly to the market, I would have EASILY lost some very large deals to them. Instead, they trip over themselves with the greatest of unease. I have seen nice improvement in all advertising. Is it down in certain sectors? Yes. Is it up overall? Yes. Not the huge 10-20% increases that the people had expected 2 years ago, but back to the normalized 5-6% of a standard "good" year. BTW, I've done quite well this year. I've played options succesfully on all my holdings, and while the holdings themselves have stagnated, I've managed to leverage them quite well.