Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

A story like this serves only covert and dishonest purposes. We can never trust the news hacks on advertising because their effusions are one step removed from the cheerleading of the real-estate pages, plus they have that "what's good for Time Warner" attitude; worse, such stories allow big business to speak through both sides of its mealy mouth, saying it will not "offend" customers and that it is all too eager to offend them. Certainly we cannot trust any article that's full of TV Babbitts boasting of ad sales. What do the news hacks expect them to say? "Business really sucks with this show"? At least on three scores we can be certain: the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers continues to delude itself; news hacks think having movie studios and liquor companies sponsor RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!! is an achievement when clearly they'll sponsor anything; and the TWXSTER ad sales execs probably brought along a TEN-MINUTE SUPER-CLEAN demo tape or DVD to the BUYERS, who shook their heads like a little boy before teach and believed Time Warner better than they, which given their arrant stupidity is not an accomplishment.