I like television. I like it alot.

I like watching The Soup, and reruns of the Sopranos, and Brett Michael’s Bus of Love, and Gordon Ramsay. I like crazy infomercials, with bizarre products. I like Fox News and Bill O’Reilly. I like watching the Dallas Cowboys and college football with my dad and brother. I am hooked on Bridezillas and Wife Swap (Did you see the one where they swapped the mother who tatooed her kids with the mom who wouldn’t let her kids wear makeup?) Nothing beats the Simpsons…ever.

So it was with great delight when I recently read in AdAge that television is NOT DEAD…YET! People actually like watching television!

Here’s another kicker than just came out: In a recent study, Tivo/Interscope  discovered that if a commercial starts out with low engagement, then it’s likely consumers will NOT watch the entire commercial.

Bottom line: Research shows that people like television and commercials that aren’t boring.

Why didn’t they call me? I could have told them that and saved somebody a lot of money.

Stop the presses!

Alex Bogusky of Crispen-Porter + Bogusky wrote a very nice article about small agencies in AdAge yesterday. He likes us. He really, really likes us!

Nice story, very well written.

Well, Alex, I like small agencies, too.  I am now a partner in JimBob_Dallas, a small agency here in Dallas. I like it. And,  I was once president/chief creative officer at Young and Rubicam, the largest agency in New York City at the time. I wasn’t crazy about working in an agency bigger than my hometown.

Ever been to a huge family reunion. The kind that would last an entire weekend? I have. Growing up, I remember going every summer to the Ferguson family reunion at the park in Glen Rose. I knew I was related to the old man sleeping in the hammock, and the group of guys playing dominoes looked familar, and ya kinda recognize the bald guy in the bad shorts standing in line for another helping of everything on the buffet table. It was my family all right, but who the heck were they? Uncles? Aunts? Cousins? Beats me.

That’s what it’s like working in a big shop. You’re know you work together…but that’s about it. Many a time, was I introduced to the “team” only minutes before walking into new business meeting.

Rick Fizdale, the former CEO of Leo Burnett, told me once that he went to the offices at 35 W. Wacker at 6 a.m. and left at 8 p.m. Not because he was a workaholic. He told me that’s when no one was on the elevator and he didn’t have to talk with total strangers. He was embarrassed that he didn’t know the names of the people that worked under him.

So he hid. I know the feeling. I’d duck under the nearest picnic table from my cousins Wayne and Dale at the family reunions, whenever I saw them heading my way. Not because I didn’t know them, but because I did!

There’s no hiding at JimBob_Dallas. We know each other, work together, and try like the Sunday dickens to produce the best product around.

Pass the pecan pie…