Advertising Age Magazine

Eric Kallgren    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 9:38pm on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

An unreliable critic of questionable character if ever there was one, Henry Blodgett still scores some points in arguing that the TV business is toast. From the article "Sorry, There's No Way to Save the TV Business" published in Advertising Age on June 15, 2009:

"The traditional TV industry -- cable companies, networks and broadcasters -- is where the newspaper industry was about five years ago: in denial.

There are murmurings on the edges about how longstanding business models will come under pressure as internet distribution takes over. But so far, the revenue and profits are hanging in there, so the big TV companies don't really care.

Specifically, the TV industry's attitude is the same as the newspaper industry's attitude was circa 2002 to 2003: Stop calling us dinosaurs. We get digital; we're growing our digital businesses; we're investing in digital platforms; people still recall ads even when they fast-forward through them on DVRs; there's no substitute for TV ads. And traditional TV isn't going away: Just look at our revenue and profits!

After saying all this same stuff for years, the newspaper industry figured out the hard way that, eventually, reality intrudes. You can't stuff the genie back in the bottle. And in the next five to 10 years, the TV industry will figure this out, too."

The full story:
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=137304

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 1:49pm on Sunday, May 24th, 2009

Some newspapers are booking local ads online with the help of Yahoo, Nat Ives of Advertising Age reported on May 21, 2009:

"There's no Manhattan Project out there, micropayments and e-readers included, that can win newspapers their old glory back. But there are fronts where newspapers are holding their ground or even advancing a bit, like the push to wring more money out of print readers. Now newspapers are reporting success with another intriguing industry effort: chasing local advertising with technology and ad inventory from Yahoo. The Yahoo newspaper consortium has sold nearly $50 million in Yahoo inventory so far, according to estimates."

The full story:
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=136810

Eric Kallgren    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 3:22pm on Monday, January 26th, 2009

On January 26, 2009, Simon Dumenco of Advertising Age magazine predicted that the media will maul President Barack Obama:

"Given last week's media-fueled Obama mania, I've been thinking about the stages of, well, media euphoria. Generally there are only two such stages: on and off. It's been conventional wisdom for at least a year now that the media is "in the tank for Obama" (in fact, start typing "in the tank" into Google's home-page search box, and it will automatically complete the phrase with "for Obama" -- and point you to endless stories about the media's love affair with O).

But all political infatuations must come to an end -- and already you can begin to see the media straining mightily to assert its "objectivity" regarding our new POTUS. For instance, the Los Angeles Times editorial board got big notice on Jim Romenesko's media blog last week when it rather hilariously declared, "We pledge to watch Obama, to hold him to his work, and to report back." (As one commenter wrote at latimes.com, "Why the sudden commitment to 'journalism'? During the campaign, the LAT was all but running advertorials for Obama.")"