The Macon Telegraph from Macon, Georgia • 31

The Telegraph wwwmacontelegraphcom Coca Cola looks to freshen up resca Wednesday September 5 200 1 7C station which last month laid off four workers includ ing one news employee Eox 24 is owned by GoCom Communications been wanting to do this for quite a long time'' he said By Cattileen Egan Dow Jones News ATLANTA There have been appearances on even in the Oscar winning film There have been sightings in chi chi New York City spots and in retro Atlanta restaurants olks in Denver and Mexico are big fans All this hoopla is for a fig ure that granted is well known but moves around the nation without a bodyguard and publicist It does not even live and breathe though its followers would fervently argue it has a life of its own resca the low calorie citrus grapefruit carbonated concoction that has a US market share of less than 1 percent is making a come back Some call it the mixer of the moment With a push expected from parent Coca Cola Co Americans are bound to see more of the bitter 35 year old beverage within MERGER Continued from 8C Blackmore rounding out the leadership team Rumors of a HP Compaq merger have circulated on Wall Street for months Both companies which have long and proud histories in the computer business have struggled in recent years to find new strategies to thrive amid increasing competition The deal competi tive pressure off Compaq and IIP It really puts pressure on said Lou Mazzucchelli a partner with Ridgewood Capital Management in Ridge wood NJ The deal also makes HP into a powerhouse in com puter services an area that iorina has emphasized dur ing her tenure No 1 reason for an HP to buy Compaq is for their service organization and for the economies of said Tim Bajarian president of Creative Strategies a high tech consulting firm in San Jose But the deal raises the pos sibility of a major culture clash between the companies While HP has long been known for its conservative corporate culture Compaq is regarded aS more of a the next year Coke has not funded any marketing behind resca since 1998 according to Tay lor Nelson Sofrcs' CMR an ad spending tracking firm But the Atlanta company recently retained Campbell Mithun an Interpublic Group agency to research among other things who drinks resca and why Coke also hired design firm Pederscn Gesk to work on new packaging graphics is interest in doing things with says Steve Hutcherson group director of marketing for Coke's adult brands and a former resca brand manag er without elaborating seems there is latent equity with this Among most valu able attributes Hutcherson says: An unplanned grass roots movement that seems to be building behind the brand the cult like following of loyal subjects who say they would just about die if Coke ever maverick As a young com pany in the early 1980s Com paq challenged IBM by creat ing PC clones and proclaiming that the market didn't have to follow IBM do you integrate these two companies that have incredibly different approaches to the market as well as Bajar ian said Houston based Compaq which started as a PC maker had a hard time digesting its 1998 acquisition of: Digital Equipment Corp And iorina has come under fire from many HP employees for her attempts to modernize staid culture in particular by toughening the worker friendly pioneered by founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard Mazzucchelli questioned how iorina would be able to manage such a huge merger of two very different companies manage HP Can she manage both of he said Late last year iorina tried to take HP in a different direc tion one that emphasized ser vices by proposing to buy the consulting operations of PricewaterhouseCoopers for as much as $18 billion But that plan fell apart as stock price declined decided to discontinue pro duction and its nostalgic appeal Consumers by the droves are returning to retro With resca observers say Coke has a brand originally made for the 1960s generation that appeals to people who so des perately long for the days of yore Indeed with its light tex ture and fruity yet sour taste resca a diet drink that proclaim its dietness is an unordinary offering Moreover with the bever age world filling up on juices teas colas sports drinks and waters some may say resca which in 1992 was actually the fastest growing soft drink in the US is in the right place at the right time now flavored brands are growing and diet brands arc says John Sich er publisher of Beverage Digest an industry publica tion resca brand inter sects both of those Dan Niles an analyst with Lehman Brothers said the premium HP is paying for Compaq is fairly low but he noted that this is a tough envi ronment for computer makers Wall Street and industry analysts have said in recent months that the PC industry was ripe for further consolida tion as companies have lost money and laid off thousands of workers Dell for example announced the first layoffs in its history a few months ago And Gateway recently announced it would focus only on the US market exiting most of its international businesses Dell said it feel threatened by a HP Compaq combination consolida tion of this industry has been going forward for several said TR Reid a Dell spokesman consolida tion has been driven by pretty clear customer preferences and quite often that has been for industry standard technol ogy from Dell and we see that Reid continued the last several quarters we have been growing product ship ments and revenue at multi ples of the industry rate and at least the last couple of quar ters we have accounted for all the OX Continued from 8C The changes which mir ror trends at other ox sta tions in major markets take effect Sept 17 Weekend newscasts will continue to air from 10 pm to 10:30 pm on Saturdays and Sundays he said Miller said the expanded 10 pm weeknight broadcasts will offer more in depth reporting from the news staff which includes 10 on air employees just want to focus all our resources on one block of time The viewer will be bet ter served by putting every thing all together at one he said Miller said the program ming changes are unrelated to recent restructuring at the APPLICANTS Continued from 8C concerns that have come with managed care and she said not as friendly an environment as it used to The decline appears to be leveling off it was 6 percent in 1999 The applicant pool last year totaled 37092 It included 17274 women a 09 percent drop from 1999 the report found The number of minorities climbed 2 percent to 4266 Despite the drop in appli cants are still more than twice as many appli cants as there are for them said Dr Jordan Cohen president of the Association of American Medical Colleges The report published in Journal of the Ameri can Medical Association also found that the number of patients available to partici pate in clinical teaching dur ing 2000 01 decreased in almost half the 125 medical schools Some experts say man aged care is partly to blame Insurance companies may be WGXA TV is one of three Macon stations that offer local news programming WMAZ TV a CBS affiliate on Channel 13 broadcasts news shows at 6 pm and 11 pm In April WPGA TV the local ABC affiliate on Chan nel 58 began airing a half hour weeknight news show at 6:30 pm WMGT TV the local NBC affiliate at Channel 41 docs not broadcast a local news program Channel 13's historically has been the top rated news show in Middle Georgia In a Nielsen steering patients away from teaching hospitals because the care there can be more expensive Barzansky said The shortage may help explain the results of two other new studies in the same journal that suggest that some medical schools may not be adequately preparing students to deal with com mon problems and procedures One study by Massachu setts General Hospital researchers and based on a 1998 survey of 2626 students completing their residency assignments nationwide found that more than one in 10 felt unprepared to handle certain treatments and proce dures Medical school typi cally lasts four years fol lowed by three to seven years of residency Training in handling such as those with AIDS drug abuse and chronic pain was cited as particularly deficient hospitals and medical schools need to pro vide residents with quality training that reflects the diversity of the patients they will one day said Dr David Blumenthal the study report released in ebruary the station's 6 pm broadcast drew an average weekday rating of 25 and a 49 share During the same Nielsen period ox 5:30 pm broadcast earned a 2 rating and a 5 share The rating is the percent age of all television house holds in the market tuned to a particular program while the share is the percentage of all TV households using tele vision tuned to a particular program Nielsen Media Research measures ratings four months per year in the Macon market which covers a 22 county area with more than 220000 television households author The other study found a serious inability to perform an abdominal exam among first year residents in inter nal medicine and pediatrics at two New York medical institutions The study involved 148 graduates of US medical schools and 35 from foreign schools and measured how many of 13 procedures each student performed in an exam on a young adult patient Well over half the foreign students did all the proce dures which included expos ing the abdomen inspecting it and squeezing it to feel the liver kidneys and spleen ewer than 10 percent of the US grads performed nine of the 13 procedures according to researchers at Albert Ein stein College of Medicine and Downstate Medi cal Center Barzansky said her report found that 58 percent of the schools are undergoing major curriculum changes with many trying to focus more on small group learn ing and hands on work in the community instead of tradi tional lectures Congratulations having twins! limitlire In The Amazing Classified Section 7444234 To contact Cindy Sams call 714 1229 or mail csamsto macontelcom GIVING Continued from 80 see a slowdown now since many of the budgets were set two years ago The changes may come in the next year to 18 she said Kiser noted that already fewer companies are attend ing training seminars spon sored by the Center for Corpo rate Citizenship Large organizations with strong corporate ties are more insulated from drastic changes in contributions charities say United Way of Metropolitan Dallas for instance raised its goal for 2001 by 11 percent over last year to $55 million the smaller groups that may struggle to collect what they have in past years Cor porations are more likely to avoid occasional sponsorships with groups they have little interaction with Kiser said But Robert Goodwin president of the Points of Light oundation said concerned that perceptions about the worsening economy might negatively affect volun teer work are hearing about industrywide downturns thus causing them to be anxious when that downturn is going to affect them general angst could cause mainline employees to worry if volunteering can be justified when in fact they may be under impression that all their time may be neces sary to fulfill bottom line he said Businesses have already bought into the benefits of volunteerism A Points of Light ounda tion survey found in 1998 that 81 percent of companies inten tionally linked employee involvement in volunteer pro grams to their overall busi ness strategies compared with only 31 percent in 1992 to the survey unanimously agreed that cor porate volunteering helps cre ate healthier communities and improves a public image 97 percent say these programs improve employee accord ing to a summary of the study 8 a 1 MACOM PHONE NUMBER PRICE RANGE 0 Il IS I II ASHTON LANDING 988 0917 $476 545 23 12 XX AVALON GARDENS 742 8777 $320 $435 123 6 PB $50 BACONSIELD APTS 743 6440 $440 $625 123 712 PB A BRIARWOOD APARTMENTS 742 8777 $295 $360 12 6 $50 CHERRY TREE HILL 745 9138 12 612 XX ST HOLIDAY COVE 994 4505 $450 12 612 PB XX KINGSTOWNE WEST 475 9948 $485 $550 23 6912 CP OVERLOOK GARDENS 743 0577 $450 up 123 6912 PB XX RIDGEWOOD APARTMENTS $515 $655 TG 23 6912 PB A TARA APARTMENTS 475 9948 $360 1 6912 VINEVILLE GARDENS 745 4477 $360 1 6912 WEST CLUB 476 3500 $449 up 12 3 4 11 A XX WESLEYAN GARDENS 745 4477 $360 $435 12 6912 CP WINDY HILL 475 9948 $485 2 6912 5 WINSHIP NORTH 405 8848 $540 $710 TG 23 6912 PB A WYNIELD APARTMENTS 405 5552 $535 $715 123 6912 PB A.