Best columns: Business

The winner so far in the 2008 election

Jon Fine

BusinessWeek

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The best dramatic series on television this year won’t even qualify for an Emmy, said Jon Fine in BusinessWeek. It’s Election ’08, and as drama, it has everything. “There’s dynasty, gender, race, and war,” to say nothing of generational combat and “a prominent spouse” with “a well-documented wandering eye.” To the surprise of many Internet evangelists, myself included, this gripping drama is unfolding on TV, not the Web. Sure, the Internet is playing an important role in this year’s campaign, but it’s not “driving the narrative.” In fact, for the purposes of the campaign, the Web isn’t a medium at all. It’s a “utility” for raising money—money that will be spent on TV advertising. That’s because TV is still the best way to reach a mass audience and the undecided voters who are part of that audience. The result is an “arms race” in political advertising, as campaigns buy more and more ads, if only to respond to their opponent’s last attack ad. Political pros sometimes refer to this dynamic as “mutually assured destruction.” Television execs have a different term: profit.

When everyone is merging, it’s probably too late

Andrew Ross Sorkin

The New York Times

When it comes to pulling off a successful merger, timing is everything, said Andrew Ross Sorkin in The New York Times. According to a new study in the Academy of Management Journal, when an industry is consolidating, the companies that merge first are the winners. “The duds come later, when copycats jump on the bandwagon.” In other words, just as in the technology biz, “in the merger game, there’s a first-mover advantage.” The problem is, “most CEOs don’t have the guts” to move first. The best buying opportunities come when markets are turbulent. But that’s just when CEOs tend to “hunker down and focus on putting their houses in order.” They get the urge to merge only when they see their competitors embarking on shopping sprees of their own. “CEOs should stop being such scaredy-cats. While everyone else is battening down the hatches, go make a deal.”