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The Dying Old Media

Zion, IL
By A.B. Dada
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Yahoo News has an article about an event that hasn’t happened in many years: the old media television networks are having to refund advertisers. NBC is refunding their large advertisers to the tune of an average of $500,000 a piece. The article doesn’t dig into how many advertisers are getting some cash back, but it does offer details on why it’s happening:

Fourth-ranked broadcaster NBC has quietly begun reimbursing advertisers an average of $500,000 each for failing to reach guaranteed ratings levels, the first time a network has taken such a step in years, media buyers said.

It seems to be a given reality that the mainstream networks are hurting. There’s a plethora of channels to watch, the advertising is very one-way, with advertisers not really knowing who is watching their ads, or if they’re even watching them at all. My own home media center automatically removes ads before I even watch a show or newscast. There’s software that will do it almost in realtime (just start watching the show 15 minutes after it starts taping, and the ads are gone).

Online advertising is a different story, though. I’ve seen my own numbers grow significantly in the past 12 months, even with the traffic way down from the lack of updates. I know quite a few people who are earing $20 cpm numbers, meaning they’re taking in $20 for every 1000 visitors to their site. Considering some medium sized sites generate 50,000+ visitors a day, this could mean that a strong blogger could be taking in almost $1000 a day in income. It’s relatively unheard of today, but I’ve seen the checks to prove the value.

Even Google News is now syndicating links to new media sites, such as Slashdot and LewRockwell.com, as news instead of a blog. It amazes me that many of these organizations can exist, with a healthy infrastructure and staff, and compete head-on with the bloated, inefficient, and dying old media structure.

Some people point to the writer’s strike as the reason that the old media is refunding these big figures, but I disagree. It is evident that their model is failing, just as the radio and CD models are failing. We stopped using the Yellow Pages years ago (thanks to Google Mobile being much faster and current). We stopped listening to the radio years ago, thanks to Podcasts and the iPod for music. We’re even leaving the newscasts and catching the updates on YouTube.

The good news is the growth in variety of opinions that are out there. Personally, I love the blogosphere, but I’ve made steps to modify my reading experience: if a blog doesn’t allow comments, they’re gone from my RSS feedreader. If they censor comments, they’re also gone. I’m even taking steps here to try to reduce my ratio of old media links to new media links, as I’m finding individuals who report on the news with a more accurate angle, even if they may be more biased. At least I know who is paying them, and it’s generally Yahoo or Google advertisers.

2008 will be a wonderful year for the web-focused writers. The Kindle may increase the readership of the popular blogs and new media sites. I’ve made this site compatible with some phone browsers, and I’m seeing more people with iPhones browsing the web for news and opinions. Too bad for the old media, though. They held on to spending millions a year lobbying Congress for more control, when in reality the People have decided against them.

If you haven’t started your own personal blog, I highly recommend doing so today. I’ll be starting a short series of rules, definitions, and directions on getting involved in getting your opinion, views and thoughts out into the rest of the world — and maybe making a few bucks a day to offset the time spent.