By Jeremy Ambers

Over the past year, our nation has watched as the financial infrastructure has pretty much devoured itself.  Investment banks wish they had a “do-over,” while the “Big 3” have crawled on hands and knees (well, actually, flown in private jets) to the steps of the Capital, begging for some salvation from the government.  Pretty much everyone I know (from close friends, to large corporations) have begun to cut spending and save in preparation for the impending storm.  Gone are the days of careless investing and blindfolded development.  Which leaves one question for the Media Industry:  What about us?

“I can’t help but wonder why financial institutions and the automotive industry are considered so vital to our economic stability, yet media and communications are perceived as having so little relevance,” writes Jack Myers, a media insider. 

Sure, much of the Media and Advertising revenue depends on the auto industry.  Just watch an hour of television on any station and count how many car commercials and product placements you see if you don’t believe me (Jack Bauer, I’m looking at you and your shiny new Ford Expedition!).  But while the media is reporting all of the financial devastation in our country, it fails to reflect upon itself. 

I just read this morning that NBC has announced it will launch Jay Leno’s new show at 10 pm, five nights a week.  Great news for revenue as his viewership will undoubtedly grow in an earlier timeslot.  Bad news for anyone in the industry who was hoping to develop new content for the three hour primetime block, which is now reduced to two. “Can we continue to program 22 hours of prime time? Three of our competitors don’t,” NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker said Monday at an industry conference, according to a published report.

NBC Universal also recently cut 500 jobs in an effort to cut their budget for 2009.  In fact, since 2002, the entire media industry has cut nearly 10% of its workforce.  Over 100,000 jobs have disappeared, with speculation that another 100,000 could fall by the wayside as early as next year.

Since the government likes to stick their hands into the media industry involving everything from defining “appropriate content” to forcing TV stations to invest billions of dollars into the digital conversion, why do they turn a blind eye when it comes to the slow death of mass media?

I’m not saying any bailout is wrong or right.  Only time will tell.  But who decides which industry is salvageable, and how?

By Jeremy Ambers

I recently came across this interesting article while I was perusing the internet.  I’ve often wondered how the current business model of the Newspaper Industry can withstand the tidal wave of immediate access to information that we’ve seen over the past decade.  After all, what use is a daily newspaper (with yesterday’s news developments) sitting in your driveway, when you can simply roll over to your night-stand and access the internet on your blackberry, or turn on any number of 24 hour news stations to hear what the ‘talking heads’ have to say?

Every morning, I ride the train to work, and I pick up a paper from one of the modern newsies.  Often times, I find that half of the paper is ‘old news’ I’ve already heard about through other means.  Still, it passes the time on my 20 minute ride.  With the constant bombardment of newer, shinier stimuli, newspapers don’t stand a chance.  Casually looking around the train car, I notice the number of people reading newspapers has significantly dropped over the past five years.  Now all I see are i-pods and blackberries. 

Sure, news media have started to embrace the concept of instant gratification.  Every daily newspaper has an accompanying website complete with everything you could ask for; the articles featured in every issue, as well as additional, web-only content that is used to draw more traffic.  What if these media conglomerates opted to end their print publication all together and focused their attention on web-based content?  Perhaps they could apply the costs of printing and distributing the daily paper to hiring new and original writers and reporters.  This would create more ‘voices’ who report the news rather than relying on the Associated Press for most of their articles.  In theory, more voices equal a more ‘fair and balanced’ news media.

Still, there’s something to be said about sitting with a cup of coffee and a morning paper.  Even that has been targeted by new technology.  Amazon.com recently released the Kindle.  Basically, the Kindle is an electronic book that weighs less than a typical paperback and allows you to download up to 200 titles at a time, as well as many of the top U.S. newspapers and magazines.  You don’t even need a computer or WIFI hotspot to download content.  If you are in an area with cell phone reception, you can download content right to your Kindle!  AND, without a discount (which there are many of), it costs only a little more than an annual subscription to The New York Times (which is available for download)!

From 2000 to 2006, newsprint demand in North America fell by 25%.  I don’t see that number going up anytime soon.  This is yet another example of a challenge that has been set forth by new media.  Unless the Newspaper Industry can grow and adapt to this change, the future does not look bright.