Ten years ago, television news was an insatiable beast with an unlimited amount of money to spend, as it devoured the news landscape. In those halcyon days, advertisers flocked to network news, and the most profitable television segments of all were local news. Like newspapers, the money just kept rolling in.

Less than 18 months ago, most newspapers were still making over 20 percent profit, more profit than any other industry save drug trafficking. However, within a few months, the picture started to change for both print and broadcast. The audience began to shrink dramatically, and advertisers found more creative ways to spend their money on the World Wide Web. All of this happened BEFORE the current economic crisis hit.

As the depth of the current recession revealed itself, the really big ticket sources of revenue dried up. Detroit stopped making multimillion-dollar advertising buys. Huge local department stores, which poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into media, were gone almost overnight.

Announcements about changes in the world of newspapers and in television news come so fast now it is nearly impossible to keep track of them.

“Gannett’s D.C. station replaces news crews with one-person multimedia journalists,” announced a headline in the Washington Post last month. KUSA-TV reporters will have to shoot and edit their own stories, and former camera people will be doing on-air reporting. Everyone concerned would be paid 30 to 50 percent less for their efforts.

Six months ago we reported on The Chicago Tribune Company, owner of the Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun, the Orlando Sentinel and 10 other newspapers, the Chicago Cubs and 23 television stations, was running out of money fast. Before Christmas, the company filed for bankruptcy, with $13 billion in debt.

Other newspaper giants, Cox, McClatchy, Gannett, and even The New York Times Company, are facing what may be an imminent reduction of their print product. The Times has been forced to mortgage its new building on 8th Avenue.

The Detroit Free Press announced in December they would stop home delivery on its Monday through Wednesday editions, and simply sell abbreviated versions at newsstands. You will see many newspapers implementing the same strategy in the months ahead, on their way to abandoning the print editions.

Newsweek has just announced it is cutting its print run in half, to just over a million copies a week. Industry observers see that magazine folding its tent by the fourth quarter of 2009.

Television faces its own challenges. Revenue the industry took for granted, the upfront advertising buys for major events such as the Super Bowl, are suddenly in doubt. The New York Times reported recently that car companies such as Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler, which picked up the multimillion dollar tabs for the NASCAR races, are not showing up for 2009.

NBC dropped a bombshell in prime-time programming by announcing that Jay Leno will start a nightly one-hour show starting at 10 p.m. EST next year. This show will replace scripted entertainment in prime time, saving the network millions each week.

Happy New Year New Media!

Make your own version HERE. This is one of the best uses of synergy with video / marketing the music that I have seen yet, and it definitely beats out all the fan made video stuff that has been offered up so far in its simplicity and style. Bounce Le Gros!

The return of horrorcore??

This is a spanish language excerpt of a great movie directed by Victor Erice about Antonio Lopez Garcia. I was looking at it for inspiration for my current project; unfortunately Antonio Lopez had a big retrospective show at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston last year that I missed by a day when it closed at the end of the spring, but hopefully that show will re-appear somewhere.

More work by Antonio Lopez HERE.

BEST. VIDEO. EVER. Directed by Eric Wareheim.

PRE-PRE AUTOTUNE.

Truth speaking.

Star studded! Great looking ad…

Kaoss pad? J care to weigh in on this one?