Black Friday at Clear Channel

[Anyacat]

I would have been bitterly disappointed if Old Gringo had not checked in to defend poor misunderstood consolidated radio and its good effect on the news. Yes, Old Gringo, we know that consolidation has been very very good to you and maybe made you wealthier than you ever imagined, but that does not mean that consolidation is good nor does it mean that a few big companies have the right to determine what we will read, see and hear based not on the community's right to fair and free information but rather on what sells ads. I do not expect you to understand this.

Web sites such as Craigslist.com siphon off millions of dollars in classified ad revenue and the number of readers has decreased in 40 years from 81 percent to 52 percent. But I wouldn't hold the funeral just yet because although there are fewer newspapers today (and the afternoon papers died because people were getting their evening news from television), the newspaper continues and advertising revenue might even be on the increase. Of course, the problem confronting newspapers is that most of their regular readers are aging--and, as is the case in radio--it's not that older people don't drink beer, it's that they don't drink enough beer. Younger people tend to get their news from the Internet, which is why major dailies have Internet sites. But for my money, the best journalism is still in print.

The loss of a free press, as we saw in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, is a serious attack on our democracy. You might want to think about that when you weight the importance of the free exchange of information against a revenue-driven bottom line. Yes, you need money to run a newspaper, but what kind of newspaper do you have if ad revenue outweighs the commitment to news.

 

[OldGringo]

I would have been bitterly disappointed if Old Gringo had not checked in to defend poor misunderstood consolidated radio and its good effect on the news. Yes, Old Gringo, we know that consolidation has been very very good to you and maybe made you wealthier than you ever imagined, but that does not mean that consolidation is good nor does it mean that a few big companies have the right to determine what we will read, see and hear based not on the community's right to fair and free information but rather on what sells ads. I do not expect you to understand this.

The complexity of the economy, globalism, the rate of change of technology are all some of the factors that affect radio (directly, or indirectly via ad allpocations) and which were making a slow growth sector very different than what it was 30 or 40 years ago. Radio "used" to be a significant choice where the options were radio, TV and newspaper. Today, newspapers are in rapid decline, TV has fragged into all kinds of niches, and radio is only 8% of ad budgets... Internet and Outdoor are larger by volume.

Web sites such as Craigslist.com siphon off millions of dollars in classified ad revenue and the number of readers has decreased in 40 years from 81 percent to 52 percent. But I wouldn't hold the funeral just yet because although there are fewer newspapers today (and the afternoon papers died because people were getting their evening news from television), the newspaper continues and advertising revenue might even be on the increase. Of course, the problem confronting newspapers is that most of their regular readers are aging--and, as is the case in radio--it's not that older people don't drink beer, it's that they don't drink enough beer. Younger people tend to get their news from the Internet, which is why major dailies have Internet sites. But for my money, the best journalism is still in print.

Unprofitable media is media that can't do good or even bad news coverage. Look at the LA Times issues... their revenues are off so much, they had to reduce the news coverage... to whiich the editor and publisher took excpetion, and both were fired. Recent reports show newspapers to be nearly 15% off in circulation in the last year, and revenues are off by more in some cases. Compare that to radio where 18-54 cume is only off about 2% in the last 10 years, and TSL is only off about 12% in a decade (and revenues are considerably up, even indexed for inflation)

The biggest problem is the reduction in circulation and a huge decrease in page views due to reduced read time for newspapers.

The loss of a free press, as we saw in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, is a serious attack on our democracy. You might want to think about that when you weight the importance of the free exchange of information against a revenue-driven bottom line. Yes, you need money to run a newspaper, but what kind of newspaper do you have if ad revenue outweighs the commitment to news.

The free press will always exist, but it just won't be printed newspapers. Beyond that, I stay away from mixing the subjects of politics and journalism ever since the guys with rifles came to take me away for what I said on the air; that is not economics, it is opinion.