Advertising

A plan to create a regional force to take over policing in the city of Camden - slowed by uncertainty over its feasibility and bitterly opposed by police unions - seemed to advance Tuesday as Camden County officials ran a newspaper advertisement urging potential applicants to send in their qualifications. The ad, placed by the county freeholders in The Inquirer and the Camden Courier-Post, asks those interested in joining the proposed new force to "submit a letter of interest.

Though the advertising boycott of Rush Limbaugh is significant for its size and scope, it will ultimately prove ineffectual in dislodging him from his commanding perch above the talk-radio world. That kind of movement would require a different type of acquiescence, namely on the part of program directors, not advertisers. And though there is a strong case to be made for such a course correction, there are no guarantees those who determine content will stray from their current business model.

WASHINGTON - Radio host Rush Limbaugh said his apology to the Georgetown law student whom he called a "slut" was sincere but also joked that he, too, got a busy signal Monday when he called the show to join the growing roster of advertisers abandoning it. The student, Sandra Fluke, said that Limbaugh's apology did nothing to change the corrosive tone of the debate over health-care coverage and that Americans had to decide whether they wanted to...

Following a poll that showed a growing majority of Philadelphians concerned about the city's high tax burden, Mayor Nutter pledged Tuesday not to seek any new taxes in the coming budget, though some recent increases billed as temporary may become permanent. "The mayor has no intention of requesting a tax increase," his spokesman, Mark McDonald, said. City residents have endured four years of tax increases, including two "temporary" property tax increases, as the city has scrambled to make up for revenue lost from the recession.

When it comes to the realities of life in journalism, no one prepared me more while I was an undergrad at Virginia Commonwealth University than Bill Turpin. He was No. 2 in the department of mass communications when I arrived in the fall of 1979 after three years in the Army. In a previous life, he had been a small-town newspaper publisher. And in that small Southern town, he saw the impact he had on his community every day. If readers didn't like something in his paper, he heard about it. If they didn't get their paper on time, they let him know.

James J. Brennan, 67, of South Philadelphia, a longtime advertising salesman for The Inquirer, died Friday, Feb. 3, at home of complications from Alzheimer's disease. Mr. Brennan was a Mummer, a traveler, and a Civil War buff, but above all, he was a skilled salesman and devoted family man. "He could sell ice to Eskimos," said his wife, the former Jacqueline Bonanno. "He was the love of my life. " "The sun really did rise and set in my father's eyes," said his daughter, Jennifer Brennan Matteo.

Raising new dough is on City Council's to-do list, and members see dollar signs on school buses. Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown introduced legislation Thursday that would allow advertising on the city's 1,250 school buses. That would yield roughly $1 million to help the school district, which recently said that it must cut another $61 million from its budget. "Some might argue that's a drop in the bucket, but when school boards have to figure out the difference between an art and music teacher or new textbooks or fewer costs, let's explore how we can fund those needed items," Reynolds Brown said.

INDIANAPOLIS - Super Bowl spots are still the hottest ticket in advertising. Comcast Corp.-owned NBC has sold all the commercial airtime for the Feb. 5 game in Indianapolis and even has a waiting list of advertisers. The average cost for a 30-second spot this year was $3.5 million, with some time slots costing as much as $4 million. Seth Winter, senior vice president of NBC Sports group sales and marketing, said in a recent interview that the last time slot was sold just after Thanksgiving.

Got your Stompeez yet? If not, it's too late. The rainbow-colored children's slippers, shaped like puppies, unicorns, or alligators, with mouths or eyes that open and close, are sold out. That's a fact that Sherri Hope Culver, a Temple University scholar who studies the impact of advertising, regards with a certain professional admiration. The endless holiday rotation of Stompeez TV commercials apparently did its job, enticing kids to crave an odd, previously unknown sort of footwear and parents to plunk down $19.95, plus postage and handling.

On a day when City Council wrapped up years of work on several major bills and bid adieu to six colleagues with more than a century of combined experience, Councilman Darrell L. Clarke was looking to the future. Clarke, who is slated to become Council president Jan. 2, introduced two bills Thursday at the final meeting of the term, perhaps offering a preview of his leadership. Both bills seek ways to generate money for the city without raising taxes - something the Nutter administration has been forced to do three years in a row. "I think it's time for us to come up with another strategy," Clarke said.