THINKing

MSM Ain’t What It Used To Be

The mainstream media (MSM) continues to suffer through bad times. And it is not just the print media that is in a freefall. TV News also is having it’s problems, according to David Zeeck of the Tacoma News Tribune. His contention is that newspapers aren’t dying. Here I disagree with Mr. Zeeck. Newspapers are dying, but they are doing slightly better than TV news is.

In his column, Zeeck responded to a comment by Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News that  “Internet and changing reader habits are killing the old newspaper business. Circulation is declining almost 1 percent every passing month.”

Says Zeeck,

Nationwide, daily newspaper circulation was down 4.6 percent for the six-month period ending in September, compared with the same period a year ago, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. That’s less than half the rate at which Brian said it was shrinking.

Between 2006 and 2007, when daily newspaper circulation dropped about 2.5 percent nationwide, ratings for the national TV network news dropped 6 percent (though share remained steady).

Over a 10-year period, from 1997 to 2007, ratings for network news dropped 34 percent and share 33 percent, November to November, according to Nielsen data. In the same period daily newspaper readership declined a relatively modest 16.9 percent, according to Simmons Market Research Bureau and Scarborough Research.

I’ll tell you this, if my business dropped 16.9 percent I wouldn’t call it modest.  Sounds to me like both media are on life support. Newspapers haven’t figured out how to monetize their internet content, and TV hasn’t figured out much of anything. What’s your take?

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