I’ve been listening to the podcast of The Media Report from Australia and I’m struck at all the similarities in the issues facing media there: shrinking audiences for mainstream media, cutbacks at newspapers, fights over cross-ownership regulation, concerns about media’s role in influencing breaking news events, opportunities to have people download and distribute content…. The internet and its pressures are universal.
In San Diego we have a new online only non-profit news site (Voiceofsandiego.org) which has had a series of articles on the housing bubble. The Union Tribune has a ton of ads, many of them for Real Estate agents and mortgage services. Their articles tend to tow the NAR line of continued, if slower, appreciation.
Of course it’d be nearly impossible to prove but I wonder if the slowdown in advertising from all sources but housing has put pressure on ad supported papers to under report the potential of a housing collapse as happened in Japan and now China.
If there is a housing collapse as many are predicting and newspaper readers begin to wonder why they had no idea it was even a possibility the non-ad-supported newspaper may become the only sources of news people trust.
“It Tolls for thee”
Surprisingly, the first nail in the coffin was hammered in on Thursday. CBS and Google’s announcement was the first in a long line of chimes sounding the end of distribution of content as we know it. The partnership is synonomous with the fact that consumers have taken control.
What is really interesting is the fact that CBS did not retain Howard Stern’s services. He had the content to help usher in a new wave of distribution for the radio division. Think about the missed opportunity; cell phones, behind the scenes, internet as well as satcasting on demand. Although I would not base my business, as SIRI did, on Mr Stern and his content, I would have retained him. Even at break even, he could have pushed the envelope to consumer adaption of various emerging distribution methods.
My prediction is that 2006 is going to be a tipping point for consumers of media. The empowerment is going to grow. I also am bullish on mass media and it’s reach to the 35+ demographic. If only Madison Avenue and Media realizes this; Mass Media is irrelivent to those born after 1978 but very much alive to those born prior.