ED AND DICK: WE CAN'T ALL BE WINNERS

A funny thing about those sweepstakes that lead you to believe you are on the verge of becoming a millionaire: While there are enough complaints -- finally -- to motivate several states to file lawsuits, the pitch apparently works for the publishers that get hundreds of thousands of magazine subscriptions.

Nearly everyone, it seems, received a letter in the latest American Family Publishers sweepstakes that said something like this: You are one of two people with the winning number for the $11 million prize. But you have to respond to be able to collect.

While there were plenty of responses, there was a great deal of confusion too. Some recipients of the letter didn't read carefully and thought they already had won. Others were able to see that responses that included magazine purchases went to a different address than those that passed up the subscriptions but laid claim to the $11 million.

Several states, including Missouri and Illinois, have filed lawsuits claiming these mailing are illegally deceptive. Thousands of so-called finalists have scratched their heads and wondered how they advanced so far in the contest, because they never responded to any of the earlier levels of hype.

What's sad about all this is that a company as big as Time Warner Inc., which partially owns American Family Publishing and publishes quite a number of prestigious magazines, would find it necessary to stoop to such shennanigans to sell subscriptions.

Ed McMahon and Dick Clark are the pitchmen for all this. Is it possible that their faces are just a little red? Probably not. Their take of all the sweepstakes income surely pays for more than groceries.