Anyone presently employed within this giant glob of microchips, paper, ink and transistor tubes commonly referred to as “the media” knows just how drastic the implications of the recession have become.
Snark blogs are aglow with schadenfreude that revels in the desperation spilling forth from the tweets of recent media redundancies. Network television, magazines and newspapers are all under threat because the credit crisis has shaken loose the lynchpin that keeps commercial media afloat: advertising.
Penny-pinching, cheeseburger-wolfing consumers are spending less and are enjoying more free online content. That much we all know. As a result, corporate ad budgets have been slashed, setting off a line of collapsing dominoes that is triggering the implosion of mass media.
Soup kitchen lines are filling up with copywriters and journalists alike, and everybody is searching for an answer: a monetary messiah to deliver them from this catastrophe. Amid all the clamor, infighting and vitriol, the following opinion was voiced:
“Advertising is failure.”
