The Media Credit Association (MCA), a little-known annex of the Magazine Publishers of America that provides credit information and services to magazine publishers to help them collect payments due from ad agencies, has been spun off from the magazine trade group and is aggressively pursuing a broader agenda that would make it a clearinghouse for advertising accounts receivable data--including the media payment, delinquency, and default histories of ad agencies--for all the major media.

Analysts predict that political advertising in 2004 could total $1.3 billion. But will any of those ads find their way into AAN papers? Alt-weeklies should work now to identify candidates "who will be in close races that will require heavy spending right up to Election Day," John Morrison writes in AdRap, published by the Alternative Weekly Network. Advocacy groups can be good prospects for print, he writes, pointing to News & Review CEO/President Jeff vonKaenel's success in selling ads to the Sierra Club and American Civil Liberties Union.

MediaDailyNews' index of newspaper ad revenues rose to $1.28 billion last month, compared with $1.24 billion a year ago. Ad revenue growth was led by Pulitzer Inc., which rose 8 percent to $28.1 million; McClatchy, up 5 percent to $79.7 million; and Gannett, up 6 percent to $373.6 million. The rest of the sector saw slight increases with the exception of Journal Communications Inc., the publisher of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and other newspapers, whose ad revenue fell 2 percent last month compared to January 2003.

With an ad in Parade magazine on Sunday, the American Heart Association will begin its first-ever paid advertising campaign, a $36 million, three-year effort to raise awareness of heart disease and stroke. The group hopes that writing checks will help deliver its message more effectively compared with donated advertising, which often translates into "far from prime time."

With gains across all major media, U.S. ad spending grew 5.1% in 2003 versus 2002, according to a report released Thursday by Nielsen Monitor-Plus. Local magazines had by far the strongest growth, followed by local newspapers and national magazines. Jeff King, managing director of the Nielsen Media Research unit, said the ad climate grew "steadily each quarter throughout 2003." He said that while the last year's growth rate may be difficult to sustain, Nielsen expects healthy ad revenue to continue this year on the strength of political advertising and Summer Olympics ads. First-quarter 2003 started with a slight 1.5% gain. That more than doubled in the second quarter to 3.6% and had jumped to 7.4% by the fourth quarter.

Echo Boomers like to be in control, don't trust advertising in any media, and are hip to hype, according to new findings by market research firm Yankelovich. The children of the Baby Boom generation, ages 12 to 24, present a unique opportunity for marketers and media agencies if they strive to understand the development of their mindset.