Stuart Elliott in America.(Forecasts slow fourth-quarter for advertising industry)(Brief Article)(Column)

As those who toil on Madison Avenue are turning the pages of their calendars (or poking their handheld organisers with those tiny sticks), they're noticing the arrival of a week that usually brings big smiles all around.

Not this week.

This past Monday was the Labour Day holiday, which traditionally marks the end of summer, typically the slowest period for advertising in this country (apart from the hyperbolic pitching for Hollywood's silly summer movies).

After summer comes fall, the busiest season for advertisers and, therefore, the most productive, and lucrative, for agencies. Fall means back to work and back to school. (Some of a certain age can still sing a jingle from radio commercials for a chain of discount clothing stores that began: "School bells ring and children sing, it's back to Robert Hall again.")

Fall brings the start of the new primetime and syndicated TV seasons for national networks and local stations. Fall marks the start of the new automotive model year. Fall inaugurates the new season of football, America's biggest and most popular sport.

And, perhaps most importantly, fall augurs the arrival of the hugely important fourth quarter on the retail calendar, when shopping for Christmas gifts swells sales volumes.

All that autumnal activity generates a sense of anticipation not unlike that felt when you're very young and eagerly await the first day of school. This time around, however, agencies are looking forward to fall with all the enthusiasm that dental patients muster when told they require a series of root canals. Rather than elated, they're, well, crestfallen.