Friday, September 30, 2005

You'll Never Guess Who Is Buying Full Page Ads In The LA Times Now!

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2005/09/times_smooches_the_weinst.html

It's... the LA Times advertising staff!

Yes!

Ad revenues have dropped so much that the LA Times advertising staff now has to sell ads... to each other! Now I had missed this as I only read the LAT on-line (unless I pick up a copy at my gym or on the subway), so I found this on LAOSERVED:

Times smooches the Weinsteins

Since I'm back for a few minutes, what's with the house ad on pg. E-20 of today's L.A. Times Calendar section? It's a full-page kiss to Harvey and Bob Weinstein on the launch of their new post-Miramax venture, from the Times itself—complete with poor grammar. It reads: "The Los Angeles Times Motion Picture Advertising Team Congratulates The Weinstein Company on their [sic] new endeavor." Then a list of seventeen upcoming Weinstein films follows. Editorial staffers in Calendar are not too happy, and wonder if the Times plans to start congratulating in print all potential advertisers.

There is more at the end of the linked story, but after the Staples fiasco showed the dangers of mixing news and advertising... one can only wonder - what... were... they... thinking.

Kevin also mentions there was a big marketing/advertising shake-up at the LAT and he wonders if it was the new team or the old team.

I wonder... is this now the... fired team?

2 comments:

Brady Westwater said...

For those too young to recall when the LA Times covered... Los Angeles... what Tim is referring to is the LA Times map 'showing where the fires are' which is -instead - a five county map with the three cites affected semi-accurately located as... dots.

Now back in olden times, a LA Times map showing where a fire was, would be a detailed map of say... Burbank... with dotted lines showing the parts of Burbank that were burned in the fire, i.e. - actually showing where the fire was... and not showing us where... Burbank was.

The presumption was that people who wanted to know where a fire was in Burbank - might already know where Burbank... was.

Anonymous said...

Hell, these days most of the Times staff doesn't know -- or care -- where Burbank is.

If it isn't downtown or on the West Side, what's the diff?

(Of course, if someone explained to them that Disney is headquartered in Burbank, interest at Spring Street would pick up immediately).