Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!usa-post Newsgroups: usa-today.ads From: usa-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: usa-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: ads Fri, Jun 12 1992 Date: Fri, 12 Jun 92 05:19:42 EDT Message-ID: 06-12 0000 DECISIONLINE: Advertising USA TODAY Update June 12-14, 1992 Source: USA TODAY:Gannett National Information Network PUBLISHERS THREATEN BOYCOTT: Publishers of the nation's black-owned newspapers meeting in Baltimore Thursday will decide whether to ask their readers to boycott Procter & Gamble products. The National Newspaper Publishers Association says meetings last fall with P&G failed to persuade the consumer-products giant to advertise in the 205 black-owned newspapers that belong to NNPA. (For more, see special Boycott package below.) MAGAZINE AD PAGES UP 5.6%: The Publishers Information Bureau says magazine ad pages were up 5.6% in May compared to the same month last year. That's encouraging, but James Guthrie, executive vice president of the Magazine Publishers of America, notes that May 1991 was a particularly weak month. For the first five months of the year, ad pages are up just 0.4%. O'NEAL SIGNS WITH REEBOK: It didn't take long for Shaquille O'Neal to start getting endorsements. The likely No. 1 pick in the National Basketball Association draft has signed multiyear contract with Reebok. He will promote Reebok's line of basketball shoes and apparel. AD REVENUE UP AT BUSINESS WEEK: Analyst Mary Ann Winter of Brown Bros. Harriman sees positive signs for McGraw-Hill. She says things in McGraw-Hill's favor include a pickup in Business Week's ad revenue, which McGraw-Hill publishes, and the elimination of some marginal publications. NEW MAGAZINE MAKES DEBUT: A new magazine called Current Books debuts this week. It offers the busy reader an opportunity to browse while nestled at home. The new bimonthly presents a selection of good writing ranging from Jane Smiley to Louis L'Amour. Current Books "is perfect for the former liberal arts major who's now stuck reading memos and trade magazines," says founding editor Edwin S. Grosvenor. TAKE HEART CHANGES NAME: Take Heart salad dressings, a line of low-fat dressings, will undergo a name change, the Clorox Company said Thursday. The name will be changed to Hidden Valley Ranch Low Fat salad dressing. The Food And Drug Administration contended the name and ads for Take Heart communicated that the product has medicinal properties which will benefit the heart. Clorox has denied the name is misleading. GAME 6 EQUALS $7.5 MILLION: Wednesday's Game 4 victory by the Portland Trail Blazers in the National Basketball Association Finals knotted the best-of-seven series at 2-2. That assured NBC of another $7.5 million in ad sales for a Game 6 Sunday at 7 p.m. EDT in Chicago. A Game 7 would mean somewhat less than $7.5 million because those ads aren't sold until a seventh game becomes a reality. NBC PUSHING OLYMPICS: NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol shrugs off criticism of NBC's onslaught of promos for the Barcelona Olympics during the NBA Finals. "When we have more than a half-billion dollars invested in the Olympics, we'll take advantage of our programming vehicles - the NBA Finals and the Olympic Trials, which begin this weekend." CBS' BASEBALL RATINGS DOWN: CBS, which has received flak for its 16-game baseball schedule, begins a nine-week run of games Saturday at 1 p.m. EDT after a five-week absence. CBS' baseball rating of 3.8 is off from a 4.1 last year and down 24% from NBC's Game of the Week three years ago. SUNSHINE CATCHES MARLINS: The Sunshine Network, a cable station serving most of Florida, said Thursday it has signed a four-year, $20-million contract to broadcast all of the Florida Marlins games. The Major-league baseball expansion team will begin play in 1993. The Marlins will be headquartered in Miami. SPECIAL PACKAGE ON BOYCOTT: THREAT CALLED `WAKEUP CALL': Publishers of black-owned newspapers are considering organizing a boycott against Procter & Gamble products because it doesn't advertise in their papers. "This is a wakeup call," says Robert Bogle, National Newspaper Publishers Association president. "We're saying, you can no longer do business in (the black) community and deny (black newspapers) access to your marketing budget." P&G RUNS FEW NEWSPAPER ADS: P&G says it advertises in other black-owned media and has bought ads in NNPA newspapers in support of events honoring black families and black women. "We do relatively little newspaper advertising of any kind," says P&G spokeswoman Sydney McHugh. "What little we do, NNPA newspapers have benefited from." OTHERS COULD BE BOYCOTTED: Bogle says other companies have resisted calls to advertise in black newspapers. And they could become boycott targets. If the move against P&G is approved, NNPA newspapers, which claim 11 million readers, plan to publicize the boycott on their front pages with "don't-buy" coupons listing all P&G products, says Bogle. BLACK PAPERS ARE STRUGGLING: Advertising Age has ranked P&G, which spent $2.3 billion on advertising in 1990, the nation's top-spending advertiser. An assault on P&G would test the clout of the black press, which has lost readers and advertisers to mainstream publications that have targeted black audiences. Many black newspapers have struggled after more than a decade of falling circulation and ad revenue. TOBACCO ADS COULD CAUSE DEBATE: One potential threat to black newspapers is the controversy over ads by tobacco and alcohol firms in black newspapers and poor black neighborhoods. When community activists "demand that P&G advertise with us or that black consumers stop buying P&G products, that's when I'll think about not running cigarette ads," Bogle says. (End of package.) Advertising Editor: Ed Kelleher. (1-919-855-3491) Making copies of USA TODAY Update (Copyright, 1992) for further distribution violates federal law. This article is copyright 1992 Gannett News Service. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM