Media Death Watch
December 9th, 2008
If you’re a consumer of media, participant in media, watcher of media, lover of media or employed by media, these are pretty grim days.
The Tribune Company files for bankruptcy. The New York Times mortgages its New York city headquarters. NBC Universal is restructuring. The Miami Herald joins a long list of newspapers up for sale. The Rocky Mountain News is folding. The Seattle Times is struggling mightily. And that’s just this week. And it’s only Tuesday.
In yet another indication of how bad things are, New York Magazine has created its own Media Death Watch — your one-stop shop for depressing news about the news.
December 9th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Bottom line, adapt or die. Cruel I know, but true. Other than banner ad’s it’s pretty hard to monetize a newspaper’s online business. However, I did hear a great story today about the NY Times and how they finally made the connection between online/offline.
Seems the day, Elliot Spitzer’s little foray into prostitution made headlines there was a huge spike in online visits. Then the bulb went off in some analysts head, (when they didn’t produce enough printed newspapers to meet the demand that day, that there is a correlation between online visits and newspaper circulation.
From that point on, online and offline were integrated. This story came as part of a presentation at NCDM (the National Center for Database Marketing conference).
Regards,
JIm Gilbert