State of the Media 2011

The gigantic State of the Media 2011 report is available, for those who love reading page after page about the, er, state of the media.  The last few years have qualified for the Bram Stoker Awards (odd factoid -- I was actually recommended for a Stoker once, for a short story.  I didn't win). It's been that bad, the state of the media.  Horror story, actually.  For example, below you can see the percentage gains (online only) and losses (everyone else) in audience share. 

So the reports of late have made for horrific reading.  And yet, and yet.  On the sorta good news front, adverting revenues have bounced back for nearly everyone except newspapers (which produce over three-fourths of the actual news out there).

I've yet to digest the entire report.  That's what Spring Break is for (um, instead of going to the beach, go figure).  If I'm surprised by anything that ties specifically to what people know, I'll blog about it -- such as the fact the number of news/talk radio stations continues to rise (there were about 1200 in 1998 and now there are about 3,500).  Important caveat on that last one, the data don't seem to separate political talk from sports talk, and ESPN has been very aggressive in planting sports talk stations around the country.

Seven Important Stats

The incredible annual look at the media is out, but if you don't want to wade through it all, here's a nice summation of the seven important takeaway statistics from the report in a CJR column.  Worth the read.  The entire report is worth the read if the news media are your gig, but for real live people, the summary will do nicely.

State of the Media 2009

I've just started reading this long, bleak report. Here's a bit of the overview:

Journalism, deluded by its profitability and fearful of technology, let others outside the industry steal chance after chance online. By 2008, the industry had finally begun to get serious. Now the global recession has made that harder.

This is the sixth edition of our annual report on the State of the News Media in the United States.

It is also the bleakest.

Don't even get me started on how the people who run journalism companies are to blame for this mess. They are. Forget doing awful things to AIG guys who got bonuses, do 'em to the schmucks who run newspaper companies instead. They put us here, sucking every little dollar out of a system and running up, somehow, huge debt at the same time.

This is not a fun report to read. And yet it's vital.

Only the Internet and Cable grew as news sources. The Net grew because, well, it's the Net. Cable grew thanks to the U.S. presidential election and those gains will disappear soon. It's ugly ugly ugly.

More later, as I digest the report.

State of the Media, 2009

ALERT:

The latest State of the Media report is out. Always an important read if you are even barely associated with the news media. I'll probably blog about this report for the rest of the week (unless, of course, Pew comes out with another neat study that knocks the report down a notch or two).