KETCHUM BEATS H&K, F-H FOR DELOITTE

Ketchum beat out Hill and Knowlton and Fleishman-Hillard for the Deloitte Consulting account because of the "strategic and creative ideas" that it presented during the pitch, John L'Abate, DC's senior manager-global PR, told this NL.

The Omnicom unit's "professional services experience" also was a plus, L'Abate added. Ketchum/ Chicago represented the embattled Arthur Andersen auditor. Mike Hatcliffe, Chicago director, said the office provided marketing communications support for Andersen. There is no longer a need for that service, he noted, so Ketchum and Andersen split on an amicable basis. (Omnicom's Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter and Assocs. is doing crisis PR work for Andersen.)

L'Abate said DC will spend a "significant amount" for PR, but the company has not "scoped out" the extent of Ketchum's responsibilities. DC splits from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu later this year.

IMPERATO TO SUCCEED AIELLO

Donna Imperato, who heads Cohn & Wolfe/N.Y.,will succeed Steve Aiello as CEO of the WPP Group unit in the fall. Aiello, 59, steps up to the chairman slot. Kathryn Metcalfe, the 35-year-old healthcare pro, takes over for Imperato, 41, in New York.

Aiello has been at C&W for a dozen years. Prior to that, he was EVP/PA director at Burson-Marsteller, special assistant to President Carter for ethnic/urban affairs and N.Y.C. Board of Education president.

Imperato, a healthcare pro, joined C&W from B-M in 1997. Metcalfe was at Sciens Worldwide PR before signing on at C&W in 1999. She began her PR career at Noonan/Russo.

C&W also named Doug Buemi, 52, vice chairman. He was CEO/Western Operations. Martin Ellis, 43, director of int'l development, is now president Europe/Middle East/Africa and Asia Pacific.

WEBER SHANDWICK 'REDISCOVERS' CANADA

Weber Shandwick has beat out three other firms to promote Canada's "rediscovery" as a "close and accessible" travel destination from the U.S., Rene Mack, president of WS' North American travel unit, told this NL. He said that the firm will provide "good old fashioned media relations" along with TV and events work for the Canadian Tourism Commission. The firm's Rogers and Cowan unit will play up Canada on TV shows in the U.S. and promote the country through movies which are shot there.

PNI's COPITHORNE GOES HOME

David Copithorne has stepped down as CEO of Omnicom's Porter Novelli International unit after a six-month stint. The co-founder of Copithorne & Bellows high-tech firm, acquired by PNI in 1995, wants to go home to Boston to spend more time with his wife and two children.

Helen Ostrowski, PNI's Americas chief, takes over for Copithorne. Gary Stockman, COO, assumes Ostrowski's duties.

Tom Harrison, CEO of Omnicom's Diversified Agency Services group, said Copithorne's exit marks the "next chapter in a story" that began with the 1999 folding of C&B into PNI. Copithorne, who says he will consult for PNI while pursuing other activities, was the last of the four founding members of C&B at PNI. Bill Bellows left in 1998, while Richard Moore and Mel Webster departed in 2000. Stockman joined C&B in 1995 and managed the Hewlett-Packard account, which is PNI's biggest piece of business.

OMNICOM EXPECTED TO CUT ANDERSEN

Omnicom is reviewing "four global accounting firms" to take the place of auditor Arthur Andersen, which has been tainted by the Enron scandal. An Omnicom spokesperson said that Andersen is not included in the bunch of firms competing for the business. A decision is expected by mid-June.

Omnicom paid Andersen $17.6 million in fees last year, of which $7 million was for its audit. The firm paid another $5.6 million for "audit-related fees." Those outlays were for "audits of acquired companies, employee benefits plan audits, financial due diligence of potential acquisitions, accounting consultation, registration statements and comfort letters for underwriters relating to securities offerings, according to its proxy statement. The firm spent another $5 million mainly for tax compliance.

WPP Group CEO Martin Sorrell announced last week that he will replace Andersen with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. That move is subject to shareholder approval.

Fred Muir, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Los Angeles Times editor, has joined Fleishman-Hillard's PA practice as a senior VP. He covered water issues, entertainment and city hall in 17 years at the Times. He was most recently entertainment editor for the paper's business section.

QC DENIES SAUDIS BACK SUICIDE BOMBERS

Qorvis Communications CEO Michael Petruzzello says it's "complete and utter nonsense" that his $200K-a-month Saudi Arabia client is giving money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

That's the line that Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Prince Bandar made after Israel released a trove of documents it seized during the invasion of the West Bank purporting a link between Saudi cash and the families of bombers.

Those allegations are a "smokescreen" intended to divert the peace process, said Bandar. "The people of Saudi Arabia are providing money to restock hospitals that have no medicines, to rebuild schools, to restore electricity and telephones and to put food on the tables of thousands of starving families," the Prince said earlier this month.

The Qorvis chief said the Saudis are providing $120 million a year to "international organizations such as the U.N., Red Cross and the Red Crescent Society for distribution [in the occupied territories.] The U.S. is using the same channels. So you can't say the Saudis are giving money to suicide bombers any more than the U.S. is doing," he told the May 19 Insight, which is the magazine of the Washington Times.

A Congressional analyst, however, told Insight that almost without exception, U.S. aid has been disbursed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which closely monitors the funds provided to local contractors.

BG&R DROPS CRUSADER

Barbour Griffith & Rogers dropped the Crusader account two days after agreeing to lobby on behalf of the $11 billion artillery system, according to Doug Coffey, a spokesperson at maker United Defense.

The White House adamantly opposes funding for Crusader, believing the 40-ton weapon was designed to fight the Soviet Union in Europe. It wants lighter and more flexible weapons. The Army and Congress are among Crusader supporters.

BG&R had a verbal agreement to lobby for the Crusader, and its staffers attended a strategy session at UD's Arlington, Va., headquarters on May 14. The firm then decided to drop the client.

White House Contacts BG&R

The White House contacted BG&R when it heard that the firm was going to represent the Crusader. That contact resulted in BG&R dropping the account. BG&R CEO Haley Barbour is former Republican National Committee chair, and headed the Bush for President Washington, D.C., Advisory Committee. He may also run for governor in his home state of Mississippi in 2003.

Ed Rogers, BG&R vice chairman, declined comment on the Crusader. Powell Tate, another Interpublic unit, is lobbying for the weapon. UD is owned by Carlyle Group.

SYNYGY LINKS PR PAY TO PERFORMANCE

Synygy, which makes incentive-based pay software, has replaced The Garfield Group with Brodeur Worldwide to handle its PR after considering a number of agencies, Synygy PR staffer Oliver Picher told this NL.

Brodeur will be paid a monthly retainer plus possible additional fees on a "pay-for-performance basis" when major communications goals, beyond those agreed to in the core program, are reached. Picher noted some firms balked at the pay-for-performance fee schedule Synygy requires. The firm also liked Brodeur's experience and creativity in the tech field, Picher added.

EDELMAN WINS BEST OF BIG APPLE

Edelman PR Worldwide's o.b.u (aka "oh be you") was awarded the Best of the Big Apple Award for the best PR program launched in 2001.

The award was presented May 23 at the 15th annual Big Apple Award Luncheon, which was attended by more than 300 chapter members and guests.

PRSA/New York president Michael Rinaldo, Fleishman-Hillard, also presented 33 first place awards and 14 honorable mentions. The presentations were made by Annika Pergament and Elizabeth Gerst, NY 1 reporters.

Emmanuel Tchividjian, president-elect of the chapter, who is VP of Ruder Finn, said this year's contest drew 137 entries. The entries were judged by a panel of 60 judges, overseen by Liz Beck of Cohn & Wolfe.

Top honors featured campaigns including, "Latte and a Loan?" for the launch of the ING Direct Cafe by Star/Rosen PR for the best marketing communications program in support of new services.

Manning, Selvage & Lee won in the best marketing program supporting existing services for "Oral Cancer Early Detection."

Ketchum received recognition for the best crisis communication program, "Extricating Exanta: AstraZeneca Battles to Protect Pipeline Medication."

The best marketing communications program supporting a new consumer product went to F-H for the "Welcome to the Velocity Girl's World" program.

Other companies winning Big Apple Awards included Burson-Marsteller, LVM Group, M Booth & Assocs. and Weber Shandwick Worldwide.

PN ADDS $3.6M ANTI-SMOKING PACT

Porter Novelli's Washington, D.C., office has picked up a $3.6-million pact to promote a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation campaign to reduce the number of pregnant women who smoke.

Forty-six organizations are taking part in the Foundation's North Carolina-based National Partnership to Help Pregnant Smokers Quit. The group has set a 2010 goal to drastically reduce smoking by pregnant women by boosting access to a counseling program.

Kathryn Vose is a senior VP and worldwide director of PN's anti-tobacco practice, which also handles Florida's "Truth" campaign.

'FLASH NEWS' BREAKS POP CULTURE NEWS

Have you ever wondered where Jay Leno gets all those weird stories he mentions in his monologue? Or where Howard Stern finds his bizarre guests?

Here's the answer: Wireless Flash News Service.

For more than 20 years, WFNS, commonly known as "FlashNews," has scanned the globe to find wild and wacky stories. The pop culture wire, which is known to insiders as "The AP of the Unusual," provides a daily feed of exclusive stories to more than 800 media subscribers.

High Profile Clients

FlashNews' client roster includes "The Tonight Show," "The Howard Stern Show," "The Late Show With David Letterman," among others.

Major print subscribers include Time, Maxim, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Glamour, which likes to use items in a column spotlighting celebrities, sex and health.

Radio stations use FlashNews as a contact source for on-air interviews, while newspapers and magazines use it as a tip sheet or run the stories in their entirety. TV show producers use FlashNews for booking unusual guests.

"Our subscribers are like good magicians-they never reveal their tricks. But FlashNews is their secret weapon," said managing editor Patrick Glynn, who has been at the helm of the San Diego-based news service since 1980.

Publicists Use It

A spokeswoman for FlashNews said 20% of the news content is provided by publicists and 80% is found through investigative methods.

PR people often pitch their trendsetting clients and breaking news to FlashNews before other media outlets. For example, Weber Shandwick Worldwide publicized the 65th birthday of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese in February with a story that was intentionally withheld so FlashNews could break it first.

There is no cost to get a story used by FlashNews, which is financed entirely by its subscribing radio, TV, newspaper and electronic media outlets.

Publicists can't "buy" a story placement anymore than they can buy a story on AP or Reuters.

Subscribers to the wire also get the Wireless Flash celebrity/kicker news datebook-an offbeat almanac filled with celebrity birthdays, "on this day in history" tidbits and trivia that has been verified by FlashNews editors.

Glynn's staff consists of David Moye, senior associate editor, and Elaine Camuso, associate editor. 619/220-7191.

PITTS IS 'JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR'

Byron Pitts of CBS News was named Journalist of the Year by the National Assn. of Black Journalists for his coverage of the events of Sept. 11 and the war in Afghanistan.

PLACEMENT TIPS

The Los Angeles Times will roll out over the next few months several weekly themed sections that will focus on food, homes and outdoor life.

The paper is also overhauling several sections, including entertainment news, "Calendar," and it is phasing out the Southern California "Living" section.

The Medical Letter, in New Rochelle, N.Y., has started a new website, www.medicalletter.org, which offers medical professionals and consumers electronic access to comprehensive drug evaluations.

The new site also provides live links for all references cited in articles published in 2002.

Access to the website is free for individual subscribers to the print version.

Gianna Zuccotti, M.D., is deputy editor of The Medical Letter, which can be reached at 800/211-2769.

Business 2.0's new editor Josh Quittner said his plans for the monthly high-tech magazine, which Time Inc. acquired a year ago and merged with eCompany, is to make news, not follow it.

"This is the place to chronicle the boom that will follow the bubble," Quittner told Ned Desmond, who started the magazine from scratch four years ago with former managing editor Jim Aley. Aley has returned to writing as an editor-at-large for Fortune.

Desmond will continue as president.

Quittner was Time magazine's first personal technology columnist, as well as founding editor of On magazine, a Time spinoff about personal technology.

Quittner is based in San Francisco: 415/293-4800.

The Washington Post is combining its two technology news sites, Newsbytes.com and Washtech.com,under a new name: TechNews.com, as of June 3.

TechNews will focus on the news that matters most to technology, business and government decision-makers," said washingtonpost.com CEO/publisher Christopher Schroeder.

The new site will contain nearly all of the content that has been offered by Washtech.com and will add reporting from several Newsbytes reporters.

In addition to covering the major technology stories of the day, TechNews will offer expanded coverage of technology policy, including such issues as regulation and legislation, privacy, antitrust, and technology standards.

While Newsbytes will no longer exist as a separate website, the company will continue syndicating technology news under the Newsbytes name. Wash-tech will exist as a section of the TechNews.com site, containing technology coverage important to the D.C. area.

The Ft. Worth (Tex.) Star-Telegram and TV station KXAS, an NBC affiliate, have begun a two-year relationship in which the organizations will share news content.

(Media news continued on next page)

MISSING TRAVEL WRITER DECLARED DEAD

Travel writer, Claudia Kirschhoch, an assistant editor for Frommer's travel guides, who was last seen on May 27, 2000 in Negril, Jamaica, has been declared dead by a New Jersey judge.

Judge Reginald Stanton of Superior Court in Morristown ruled (May 20) Kirschhoch had died as a result of foul play.

The ruling allows her parents to file a lawsuit against Sandals Resorts, which owns the resort where Kirschhoch was staying. Her parents, who hired a private investigator, have made several trips to Jamaica, where they have posted a $50,000 reward, and set up a phone line and a website seeking information.

Kirschhoch was a member of a press trip organized by Patrice Tanaka & Co., a New York-based PR firm. Some of the writers were planning a visit to Cuba.

One of the last persons to see Kirschhoch was Tania Grossinger, a freelance travel writer. The two writers had breakfast together on the day Kirschhoch disappeared.

RAGAZA NAMED VIBE'S EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Angelo Ragaza was named executive editor of Vibe, a leading music and urban culture magazine based in New York.

Emil Wilbekin, editor-in-chief of Vibe, said Ragaza will work with him to conceptualize issues and special projects, plan future issues, oversee the editing of all stories, major features and the layout of the magazine.

Ragaza had been deputy editor of HIV issues magazine POZ, and was editor-in-chief of A Magazine, which targets the Asian American community. He has also written for Vibe, Vogue, W, Newsweek and Forbes.com.

NETWORK TV NEWS SKEWS WHITE AND GOP

A study of ABC "World News Tonight," CBS "Evening News" and NBC "Nightly News" in the year 2001 shows 92% of all U.S. sources interviewed were white, 85% were male and where party affiliation was identifiable, 75% were Republican.

Conducted for FAIR by the media analysis firm Media Tenor, the study shows the three nightly news shows rely heavily on society's most powerful groups when they report the news of the day.

More than one in four sources were politicians -President George W. Bush alone made up 9% of all sources-versus 3% for all non-governmental advocacy groups.

The findings show corporate representatives appeared about 35 times more frequently than did union representatives, accounting for 7% of sources vs. labor's 0.2%.

STUDY: NEWS REPORTS MOVE STOCK PRICES

A study by two professors found news reports by CNBC's business news reporter/anchor Maria Bartiromo make stock prices go up.

T. Clifton Green and Jeffrey Busse, who are assistant professors of finance at Emory University's business school in Atlanta, videotaped Bartiromo and CNBC colleague Consuelo Mack for 20 weeks in 2000.

They also tracked the price performance and trading volume of each stock before and after they were mentioned.

The study, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Financial Economics, suggests some day traders can profit a little by continuously following news services such as CNBC and trading quickly on the news.

Executing a buy order within the first five seconds yielded a profit of about $300 for trades that averaged $80,000, they found. Buying within 15 seconds netted $123. Beyond 15 seconds, the average returns were no longer statistically significant, after transaction costs were factored in.

The study found Bartiromo's reports carried more weight with investors than Mack's. On average, prices rose 10 times more.

The study also found prices often rose in advance of Bartiromo's reports.

FORBES COLUMNIST PITCHES SUBSCRIBERS

"My name is Ken Fisher. I write the 'Portfolio Strategy' column for Forbes magazine and serve as chairman and chief investment officer of Fisher Investments," starts a letter that was sent recently to subscribers of the magazine.

Fisher, whose investment firm is located in Woodside, Calif., offers "a kit of useful insights you can't get anywhere else free and without obligation."

He says the kit "normally is given only to our clients. Each one typically has at least $500,000 in our care."

"I've found educating high-net-worth investors is good for our investment management business, whether any individual becomes a client or not," says Fisher, whose May 27 column was written on board the Crystal Symphony, which is hosting the fourth Forbes Cruise for investors as it sails the Pacific south from Acapulco.

SMART BUSINESS TO FOLD

Ziff Davis Media is shutting down Ziff Davis Smart Business, formerly called PC Computing.

The last issue of SB will appear in June.

The publisher plans to bring back the title in September as a newsletter, and will maintain its Smart Business website.

ABC is cancelling Bill Maher's talk show, "Politically Incorrect," which has aired on the network since 1997.

IPG, OMC BAR PRESS QUESTIONS

Interpublic and Omnicom, which together own PR firms with net fees of $1.24 billion, held their annual stockholder meetings May 20 and 21 but barred any press interviews either before or after the meetings.

IPG said its directors had to go directly into a board meeting following the 27-minute stockholders' session in New York. A request for an interview had been placed with VP-PR Phillip Krakowsky two weeks before the meeting.

IPG allowed photos to be taken of the annual meeting but OMC barred photos. OMC CEO John Wren, in reply to a question, said he would not rule out an interview with him, CFO Randall Weisenburger, and writers for this NL.

Wren directed that a request for an interview be placed with Pat Sloan, PR contact for OMC and former New York editor of Advertising Age. She was asked to arrange a one-hour session.

The only reporters at both meetings were Jack O'Dwyer, editor-in-chief of the O'Dwyer Co., and Kevin McCauley, editor of this NL and the O'Dwyer website, www.odwyerpr.com.

IPG 'On Course'

Interpublic is "on course" to provide an increase in earnings-per-share for the year even if the second half is flat in terms of revenues, CEO John Dooner told the meeting at the Equitable Center, Seventh ave. and 52nd st.

OMC displayed several slides showing financial figures and ratios. Prepared addresses were given by Wren and Weisenburger.

Sloan said copies of the speeches and slides were not available to the press.

OMC's debt, which was $1.5 billion at the end of 2001, was $2.81B as of March 31, according to a filing with the SEC May 15, the last possible day for such a filing (45 days after the close of the quarter).

Analysts said ad agency debt usually goes up in the first quarter because of ad spending patterns.

As of March 31, OMC had $205 million in bank loans; $895M in long term debt, and $1.75B in convertible debt.

OMC spent $844M in 2001 buying 39 firms or making payments on previous acquisitions. SEC rules do not require that the firms be identified. OMC takes the position that the acquisitions are not "material" and don't need to be identified.

The Credit Monitor unit of KMV Moody's shows OMC's credit rating has fallen to high "B" levels as of March 31 from "A" levels in 1997-98.

Weisenburger pointed out that Fitch, Moody's and Standard & Poor's all give OMC an "A" rating.
However, an analyst said the three services are very slow in changing their ratings and that the Credit Monitor's ratings can be considered more current since stock prices are taken into consideration. OMC, now trading in the late $80's, hit $107 almost two and a half years ago (January, 2000).

Questions Given to IPG

Having failed to obtain an interview with the IPG executives, the NL presented a list of 14 questions to Krakowsky. Some of the questions follow:

Two IPG PR firms are paying dues of $50,000 each yearly to the Council of PR Firms: (Weber Shandwick and Golin/Harris Int'l).

Since IPG is running a tight ship, laying off 6,800 employees through this summer, what is the justification for this cost? What do you feel the Council of PR Firms will accomplish?

Omnicom is paying $150,000 (Fleishman-Hillard, Ketchum and Porter Novelli); WPP Group is paying $150,000 (Hill and Knowlton, Ogilvy and Burson-Marsteller), and Bcom3 Group (Manning, Selvage & Lee) is paying $50,000.

IPG has acquired at least 200 companies in the past four years, almost all of them unidentified except in financial terms.

Not even the industry they are in is identified in many cases. There are descriptions of 13 more acquisitions or partial acquisitions in the latest 10Q without any identifications. There were more than 30 such acquisitions in 2001. Can we have a complete list of these acquisitions. How can we judge the quality of what is being acquired?

Publicis in its Form 20-F issued in May 2002 identifies 18 acquisitions by name.

Why was PR removed as a separate financial category in the IPG financial reports starting with the first quarter of 2002? (combining it with direct marketing, sales promotion, event marketing, healthcare, branding and interactive, a huge category making up 26% of IPG's revenues). OMC and WPP continue to break out PR.

IPG now has to decide, with its accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, whether there has been any impairment in the goodwill carried for its purchases, goodwill totaling as of 3/31/02 $3.084B plus other intangible assets of $107.9M. What are these "other intangible assets?" How many of the 6,800 employees laid off are PR people?

Grant's says IPG's accounting for its pension plan investment returns made up a third of its year-to-year per share earnings gain in 2000; accounting for employee options and stock grants help boost EPS in 2000. Do you agree with that?

As for the state of PR and IR, Ted Pincus, who for decades headed the Financial Relations Board, which IPG now owns, said in April that IR and PR people, as well as lawyers, accountants and investment bankers, must stop being "lapdogs" for companies like Enron. The professions must overcome the "yellow streak of spinelessness," he said, and PR/IR must once again take up its role as "corporate conscience." Do you agree with his assessment of PR/IR?

Do you ever revisit the "net new business" claims of sometimes a billion or more you made for past quarters, stating whether these proposed budgets have been revised downward because of the decrease in ad spending? How much of these proposed new business budgets ever materialized?

Pitney Bowes, which used to supply us with a mailing machine and postage meter, is making a determined bid to win us back, promising possible "free postage" and six other major benefits.

We left PB in 1997 for Ascom Hasler, Swiss-made machine that turned out to be cheaper and just as good or better than PB.

Yearly meter charges had reached $1,000 at PB plus $500 for maintenance. AH meter fees are $672 annually no matter how much postage is used. There is no maintenance charge. In five years there has been one repair bill-$132 for a new sealer.

The seal provided by the smaller, quieter AH is iron tight. Plain water is all that is needed (not the blue liquid that PB still recommends for a good seal). Postage is added via phone at no cost. The AH had cost about $2,000 less than the comparable PB 5600 model. We figured we paid $14,000 over 25 years for a meter that cost PB $800 to make.

Checking with PB, we found that yearly meter charges are now $1,328 and that maintenance on the base is $650. Blue sealing liquid is still sold. The PB meter rental fees are based on amount of postage used although we can't get any logical explanation for this. PB charges $9.50 for adding postage.

Investors have lost a lot of confidence in security analysts, especially those connected with brokerage houses and investment bankers. The analysts are now the object of both federal and state investigations. The most damaging statistic is that only 3% of recommendations are currently for "sell" vs. 18% in 1992.

Merrill Lynch last week agreed to pay $100 million to settle claims of New York state. It still faces claims that could add up to $5 billion from people wh said they bought stock based on advice from ML that was supposedly independent but was linked with investment banking fees.

A group of 54 analysts formed Investrend to provide independent stock analysis under contract from companies. The analysts are not connected with any banks or brokerage houses.

The group was started because many companies have no analyst coverage. About three-quarters of investors say they are "most influenced" by an analyst report. For $12,000 and up, an Investrend partner will provide such an analysis (www.investrend.com).

The Interpublic and Omnicom annual meetings are an example of the "zero-sum" or "scorched earth" PR that is popular these days: no texts of presentations; no copies of statistical slides; no interviews for the press; no pictures allowed (by OMC), and refusal of PR aides to answer any questions.

This NL was the only press at the meeting. Press attendance has not been cultivated or encouraged.

IPG and OMC are what are called "roll-ups" on Wall Street. They "buy their top of the lines," meaning they buy through acquisitions much of their annual gains in sales and earnings.

OMC in 2001 added $735 million in revenues with a little over half (about $440M) coming from acquisitions, for which it paid $844M, or almost $2 for every $1 of revenue added. The 39 acquisitions were purchased with $818M in cash to avoid increasing the stock float.

The identity of almost all of these acquisitions is not known. "Most" of the acquisitions have been "relatively small transactions," says an OMC filing withthe SEC.

In the previous year, OMC added revenues of $1.02 billion with nearly half coming from acquisitions, most of them also not identified.

Some security analysts simply say, "We don't know what OMC is." The major ad/PR units are known but the quality of the firms being acquired at a cost of nearly $1 billlion a year is not known.

To pay for all these acquisitions to keep OMC's record of growth intact (43 quarters in a row of gains), debt soared to $2.81 billion as of March 31. The Credit Monitor unit of KMV Moody's shows OMC has been in the high "B's" since late 1999. The CM measurement, which also considers stock price, is much more meaningful than credit ratings by Fitch, S&P and Moody's, which give "A's" to OMC but which can lag the market by months.

OMC has been highly active in the credit markets, issuing $45.3 billion in commercial paper in 2001 and redeeming $45.9B. In the previous year, it issued $13.4B and redeemed $12.5B.

The "scorched earth" or "in-your-face" PR school of IPG and OMC is popular today but there are still PR firms and some corporate PR departments whose goal is to communicate via the editorial portions of print and broadcast media, supplying media the necessary details and setting up interviews with principals of clients.

An interesting list, from a client's point of view, would be PRfirms that are 100% dedicated to working with the media. Firms could also describe themselves as being 90% dedicated to media and 10% dedicated to marketing/graphics/strategy/advertising, etc.

Using a sliding scale, they could rank themselves all the way to the opposite end-100% dedicated to marketing, etc., and no percent dedicated to media.

Firms that wish to take part in such rankings should e-mail Jack O'Dwyer at [email protected].This is a measuring tool that would help clients to retain the kind of PR firm they want.
--Jack O'Dwyer