28 ms·

L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

282 points by spking 7y ago

DenisM 7y ago
In related news I have noticed that most things I search on Google don't show any ads at all. I went hunting for it and found that common household items are showing ads, but other things don't. And most certainly there is no obnoxiousness like an entire page of ads before the content.
- xhkkffbf 7y ago
  I think Google and Facebook are going to deliver a very surprising result.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    Well, ad revenue is gonna be off a cliff in the next quarterly earnings, but I don't think that's going to be a surprise. Good thing they have so much cash saved up.
    - xhkkffbf 7y ago
      Amazon is going to have big profits. IT's clear, though, that GOOG and FB are losing major ad clients. The entire travel industry is not advertising and they spent bank trying to convince you to try some new hotel chain.
  - dx034 7y ago
    For a few quarters. They'll survive and be back where they are now when the economy bounces back (whenever that may be). They could take a 100% cut for several quarters without cutting expenses. Small ad companies are the ones that will really suffer. They don't have Google's deep pockets and diversification.
    - frockington1 7y ago
      Facebook will be in a great position with people having more and more phone time due to the quarantine. Might be a short term hit but a big boost down the road
      - AznHisoka 7y ago
        Maybe I am missing something, but how will it be a big boost? Most users who use Messenger, Instagram and FB already are familiar with the platform. Them using it more during the lockdown is not introducing them to new features or new content. It is unlike a product like Netflix, where you delve more into their content (ie international stuff u may have not ventured in) or Zoom, which some ppl may not have known about previously.
      - dx034 7y ago
        Facebook doesn't live off views, they live off ad spend. Unless people continue to use it more when they have to go back to work, I don't believe FB will profit here.
      - CydeWeys 7y ago
        Big tech companies like Google and Facebook are seeing record usage (i.e. increased costs) at exactly the same time that advertising revenue is plunging. YouTube watches are at record highs while pays per view might be at record lows. This just means that the expenses go up even as revenue falls. It's not a good thing for profitability.
        nostrademons 7y ago
        That's why they've stockpiled $105B and $55B in cash respectively, though. Facebook could run the company for 1.5 years if their revenue went to zero; Google could run it for 2 years. They know how the business works and position themselves to weather and profit from downturns. Some weaker shareholders may sell if they're only interested in quarterly numbers, but in the long term their revenues go back up to what their userbase justifies.
    - 7y ago
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    Wait until the political ads start to pick up the slack. Cheap ad space and a serious need to own the libs? You better believe we'll be seeing the propaganda machine roll out in the next ~6 months.
    - magsnus 7y ago
      aren't "the libs" outspending trump atleast 2:1?
- labster 7y ago
  uBlock Origin and DuckDuckGo user here, not noticing any change at all in website ads.
  - kccqzy 7y ago
    You know that, through your choice of software, your observation is not at all meaningful in this discussion?
    - imron 7y ago
      That's the joke!
      - CydeWeys 7y ago
        It's not funny, it's just tired and repetitious, and HN discourages joking around anyway because it leads to low quality conversations and contests over who can be funnier instead of who can contribute the most meaningfully to a conversation.
        randallsquared 7y ago
        I think it was more of a humorously-worded suggestion.
        pbourke 7y ago
        Let’s not let any humor distract from the pedants, bores and scolds doing yeoman’s work.
        serf 7y ago
        If you think a comment is inappropriate, flag it. Don't complain about it -- the guidelines ask you not to. Just flag it. I found that guideline when looking for the 'discourage joking' guideline. I never found the joking one, though. I don't think that it exists. I sort of get what you mean that it's discouraged, but I don't think it's something as broad as 'joking', more like "Jokes require substance and relatability to the topic, class, and cleverness". HN has quite a few funny people.
HenryBemis 7y ago
We did have a similar Artie and discussion yesterday about how people making videos for/on Google see the viewing skyrocketing and ad-revenue collapsing. Nobody is selling this nobody advertised, plus the (thank you - I haven't thought of this) when crises hit, the ad budget is the first one to get slashed.
- HenryBemis 7y ago
  and this is what happens when you respond in the early AMs.. you write Artie instead of Article and don't even notice it...
nerdbaggy 7y ago
This is an interesting time for ads since people can’t buy most of the things.
- NikolaeVarius 7y ago
  Most people have been using the internet to buy things for a while now.
  - dmoy 7y ago
    Less than one eighth of commerce (in the United States) is online. And even if it was majority online, not all fullfilment can be done when many places are closed.
    - irrational 7y ago
      You mean, less than 1/8th WAS online.
- colmvp 7y ago
  And also not a lot of companies want to be associated with Covid-19 content.
  - makomk 7y ago
    Yeah, the Guardian and some of the other British papers have been complaining about how advertisers are refusing to run ads on Covid-19 related articles and how terrible it is that they're not funding journalism: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/01/newspapers-to-lose-50m-in-online-ads-as-firms-use-coronavirus-blacklist https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/01/newspapers-to-...
    - dx034 7y ago
      Not sure if that isn't just an easy way for companies to save money. Not all companies want to go around telling others they're struggling. Cutting ad budgets online or with newspapers due to Covid can be an easy way to cut expenses without getting public attention.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ghaff 7y ago
We've already been seeing this to some degree with harder and harder paywalls--which mostly don't work besides lucrative niche and global brands. But I suspect we're increasingly headed towards a case where quality content is only available to those willing and able to pay for it.
- OatMilkLatte 7y ago
  Which is how it worked before the internet.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    Yep. Maybe we move to a model where low quality/#FakeNews is free but quality costs and, presumably, you then move to a point where pooled subscriptions are a thing under that model. And it costs a substantial amount of money or you get it through a library. There's a lot less accessibility under that model, especially for those that don't really have disposable income. There's also the question of whether enough will really pay for the quality. But it's certainly a scenario. e.g. you pay $100/month for an all-pubs subscription which is not all that out of line for people who pay for newspapers or DirectTV.
    - makomk 7y ago
      About the only US publication that seems to be making decent money from subscriptions is the New York Times, and I suspect they're at least partly trading on their name. The quality of their reporting... well, let's just say that I didn't expect to see the day when Snopes ended up debunking a conspiracy theory about the US president started by the NYT: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-profit-hydroxychloroquine/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-profit-hydroxychloro...
      - slg 7y ago
        That isn't a debunking of the NYT's story. It is a debunking of an interpretation of the story that many made due to either news illiteracy or malicious intent. That line got shared all over the place out of context. In context it was not the focus of the piece and was instead buried in the details as a disclaimer regarding the larger issue of who profits from this drug. Snopes isn't disputing anything actually reported by the NYT.
phkahler 7y ago
Not in CA, but our governor is deciding what must close, and even what items stores can sell. I suspect any news outlet (sans politics) would be desired to stay open. But you can't legislate everything.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > Not in CA, but our governor is deciding what must close, and even what items stores can sell. I suspect any news outlet (sans politics) would be desired to stay open. But you can't legislate everything. What are you referring to with 'Not in CA'? This is in California. I think you're confused about what's going on here, which is why you're being down-voted. This isn't about whether the LA Times is allowed to stay open or any Government direction on what businesses should be open. They are still open. It's about their sharply declining revenue from advertising.
  - egypturnash 7y ago
    I think the "Not in CA" sentence fragment is intended to be expanded to "I am not in California".
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
ColonelSanders 7y ago
Idea: Whenever there are furloughs or layoff, any payouts or profits for the C-Suite and managers that are higher the average employee, is put into an annuity for the laid off employees. So if a CEO makes 30,000,000, and the average worker is paid 125,000. A 29,875,000 fund will be made to deposit a monthly check into the bank of the fired employees. This includes any profits made from selling stocks. To avoid loopholes and ensure enforcement, CEO's waive personal financial privacy, giving regulators full access into international finance accounts and to withdraw from those account debt due to workers. The lookback/forward time can be tweaked to go up to 36 months to ensure it's not worked around. This will retain employees - while simultaneously keep businesses operating profitably. Additionally, if there are any dividends by the company, any employees who worked a certain time (even if fired) are entitled to payout, since they're part of the collective. This shows appreciation for the employees which boosts performance - they know a successful quarter will have their success kept - not given only to investors.
- jdminhbg 7y ago
  Even if the scale of the difference divided by the number of employees were enough to be useful (it's not), all this would do is incentivize executives to run inefficient businesses into the ground.
  - ColonelSanders 7y ago
    > all this would do is incentivize executives to run inefficient businesses into the ground. What incentive would an executive have to run a business into the ground? It's a business - the motive to gain profit and ambition won't leave because profit is shared. Regardless - my point is - what's wrong with being generous to workers? Why not share a bit of that with people who work so the motivation and incentives are spread out? Why don't we try some ideas, test some regulations and see how they work, so we know what incentivizes and what doesn't? Have an administrative body view it on a case by case basis and come up with a novel payment plan, in a case where a CEO gets a golden parachute and employees are left unemployed, that payment would be suspended and apportioned fairly. Maybe it will even go back to investors. For a look a generous labor systems in powerful economies, I'd like to bring up Germany: http://www.siegwart-law.com/Sgal-en/lawyer-german-employment-law-germany.html http://www.siegwart-law.com/Sgal-en/lawyer-german-employment...
ivankirigin 7y ago
How might Google and Facebook revenue move? Facebook earnings per share consensus is $1.78. In two weeks, we'll see how it stacks up. https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/fb/earnings https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/fb/earnings
- daxorid 7y ago
  Not really relevant. Equities are completely divorced from reality at the moment. FB and GOOG could guide down 2020 revenue by 50% and the stocks would pop AH because $6T new money has to find returns somewhere.
  - ttul 7y ago
    And in any case, a temporary gap in revenue at Google or Facebook doesn’t change the fact that they have virtual monopolies on audience.
rock8y 7y ago
Things are much worse at Gannett, parent company of usatoday. Personally, being laid off on March 31! Almost every employee is effected at this time, either furloughed for few hours a week, pay cut or let go !!
- tootie 7y ago
  I'm surprised. I'd think online news would be one of the industries benefitting from this crisis. Is the revenue tied to lack of conversions on online ads?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - apl002 7y ago
    maybe the advertisers are hurting and pulling their money? idk probably not but just a guess
    - blaser-waffle 7y ago
      Entirely possible. They're predicting that half (1/2) of the businesses in my city will fail by the end of summer. If you're still holding on then you're cutting expenses to the bone... with the 2nd and 3rd order effects being that ad revenue, ether via click, or just in a "Eat At Joe's" ad in a local paper, is gone.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    It's tied to lack of ad spending. This is global across the entire advertising industry. Companies are spending less because of the pending recession and in particular they're spending a lot less on advertising, because people are not buying much right now (they often aren't even going anywhere for days at a time).
    - Loughla 7y ago
      This, 100%. My institution advertises with local news agencies and newspapers. The local television CEO contacted our President to thank him personally for keeping up with the ad buys. They've had a 90% drop in ads being purchased. Apparently it's us (community college), the state, and grocery stores still buying ads.
tempsy 7y ago
I’m definitely in the camp that “the cure cannot be worse than the disease” itself. Sitting in California where there are so few cases makes me wonder if the economic toll is totally worth it. Seems like we’ve used a tsunami to put out a campfire.
- nightstaywalki 7y ago
  > I’m definitely in the camp that “the cure cannot be worse than the disease” itself. It seems to be forbidden to debate this unfortunately.
  - jwilber 7y ago
    There are responses above now. Looking forward to your debates.
  - eropple 7y ago
    It’s not “forbidden” for y’all freethinkers or autodidacts or whatever the term today is to debate such things and to make the claim is dishonest. You’d have to find somebody to debate with, however, and most people are not particularly interested in “hang your Grandma for my stocks”. That is not a restriction of debate, it’s the social dumpstering of people beyond either statistics or empathy and that’s a feature and not a bug.
    - volak 7y ago
      Framing the debate as "your grandma or your 401k" is precisely the gas lighting that prevents rational discussion on this topic
      - eropple 7y ago
        I submit that you don't know what gaslighting is. Further, I submit that you're attempting to coopt the language of marginalized groups to buttress a weak and selfish viewpoint. I shall not buy what you are selling.
annoyingnoob 7y ago
I think what is even worse is what recovery looks like. Seems like we are going to be recovering for a very long time. We don't even know how deep the wounds are yet.
irrational 7y ago
How many businesses are not going to recover at all after this is all over?
- robjan 7y ago
  New businesses will be established to fill the void
ninetyfurr 7y ago
I wonder why nobody pays for newspapers, yet podcasts and talk radio shows pull in millions of dollars annually.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  Podcasts and talk radio are mostly emotional porn.
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    I was in a hurry and forgot to say that they differ from real news reporting in the way that porn differs from a real relationship. Of course, the op-ed/opinion columns in traditional news media are also mostly emotional porn; but the point is that opionating is cheap and while doing it well and entertainingly does require some research and planning each day, when you get down to it it's just a performance rather than painstaking and often slow production of factual data.
  - morsch 7y ago
    That's a rotting whale carcass of a metaphor.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  This is not based in fact. Newspapers in fact pull in much, much more total revenue than podcasts and talk radio.
renewiltord 7y ago
This doesn't matter. Low quality news sources are a dime a dozen, and the good news costs money. You have to be sophisticated enough to be able to differentiate news sources. For instance, as a WSJ subscriber, I'm not going to read the editorials. They're complete garbage in terms of factual content. The business page is gold. And this is very good. All the freeloaders who block ads and only use low-quality news will get poorer information and they will be out-competed. That's a good thing. Humanity will move forward. So block your ads on your ad-supported sources, grumble about "inequity of information", and exclaim in horror that you can't access good information because of a paywall. This is it. The future is here: ads are disappearing (temporarily, I think) and you're seeing what happens when your desired world comes to be. There's no schadenfreude here. Many of you were just sawing on a branch you sat on, with the natural consequence. The LA Times railed against targeted advertising. Well, they got what they wanted. And now they're subject to the razor's edge that is the market.
- egypturnash 7y ago
  All the freeloaders who block ads and only use low-quality news will get poorer information and they will be out-competed And they will go vote for the candidates who is best at grabbing them by their poorly-informed emotions.
  - renewiltord 7y ago
    Other people's predictability is opportunity. This is not an undesirable outcome.
- fibers 7y ago
  You should lobby your government to ban ads then.
  - renewiltord 7y ago
    That sounds like a foolish use of my time when I can simply watch other people do it for me. And I want a greater difference between me and them. I want them to be wrong and for me to be right. This only helps.
rgovostes 7y ago
The LA Times's investigation into Purdue Pharma in 2016 revealed internal Purdue documents demonstrating the company's culpability in fueling the opioid crisis. > The documents provide a detailed picture of the development and marketing of OxyContin, how Purdue executives responded to complaints that its effects wear off early, and their fears about the financial impact of any departure from 12-hour dosing. I don't have many recurring subscriptions, and I don't live in LA, but I signed up for the Times the day the reporting came out. So rare is quality investigative journalism these days. Fast forward 3 years, and "Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family were in negotiations to settle the claims for a payment of $10-$12 billion" (Wikipedia). As far as I know the settlement was never finalized. And I don't want to make it seem that the Times was the only organization looking into Purdue. But I wish a fraction of that settlement could be re-invested into investigative journalism. https://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/ https://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/
- easytiger 7y ago
  At the end of the day, if a doctor is prescribing medication against clinical guidelines, surely the doctor is at fault? If a pharma warehouse is burgled then it's on the burglars. Am I missing something regarding this case? Did they mislead doctors? Edit: Downvotes to -4 with no engagement for asking a question. This place has gone downhill rapidly
  - smitty1110 7y ago
    First, they I mislead doctors. They insisted very enthusiastically that’d OxyContin relieved pain for 8 hours, when 4-6 was much more common for most patients. Secondly, I don’t remember the laws and requirements exactly, but there are reporting requirements for abnormal behaviors that indicate drug abuse. One of the long form articles over the past few years saw a memo where Perdue deliberately decided not to report large orders in certain areas. Of course, I haven’t had coffee yet, so caveat lector.
  - mehrdadn 7y ago
    > At the end of the day, if a doctor is prescribing medication against clinical guidelines, surely the doctor is at fault? Even if you assume that's the case, there's no reason a doctor being at fault would mean nobody else can be at fault.
donohoe 7y ago
Dear HN, Support journalism. Subscribe for a month and see how it works for you. https://www.latimes.com/subscriptions/land-subscribe-evergreen/flyout.html https://www.latimes.com/subscriptions/land-subscribe-evergre...
- Justin_K 7y ago
  Why does your paper have to be so one sided though? I live in LA and won't subscribe because your paper has always followed an agenda.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - donohoe 7y ago
    My paper? I live in NYC. One sided? There is a quote (forget who) "Facts Have a Well-Known Liberal Bias". I'll leave it at that.
    - kortilla 7y ago
      A quote by a liberal (Krugman) writing an opinion piece for the nytimes is hardly an argument. He even had to follow it up to specify that they had a center-left bias.
    - jsjddbbwj 7y ago
      Yes, you better leave it at that.
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      That formulation comes from a Paul Krugman opinion piece from 2017: "Facts Have a Well-Known Liberal Bias" https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/08/opinion/facts-have-a-well-known-liberal-bias.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/08/opinion/facts-have-a-well... Krugman used the similar "The Facts Have A Well-Known Center-Left Bias" in 2016: https://web.archive.org/web/20160509144531/https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/05/09/the-facts-have-a-well-known-center-left-bias/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160509144531/https://krugman.b... Stephen Colbert's 2006 Press Correspondents' Dinner roast used the line "reality has a well-known liberal bias" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_at_the_2006_White_House_Correspondents%27_Dinner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_at_the_2006_Wh... https://invidio.us/watch?v=2X93u3anTco https://invidio.us/watch?v=2X93u3anTco Rob Corddry in 2004 gave the similar "facts themselves are biased" and "facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda" on Jon Stewert's Daily Show: Corddry: How does one report the facts in an unbiased way when the facts themselves are biased? Stewart: I'm sorry, Rob, did you say the facts are biased? Corddry: That's right Jon. From the names of our fallen soldiers to the gradual withdrawal of our allies to the growing insurgency, it's become all too clear that facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda. http://www.slapnose.com/archives/2004/05/04/the_liberal_bias_of_facts/ http://www.slapnose.com/archives/2004/05/04/the_liberal_bias...
WalterBright 7y ago
I've noticed the decline in advertising in my (physical) mailbox - it's bereft of junk mail for the last month.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  USPS are also being hammered: https://www.npr.org/2020/04/08/828949609/youve-got-less-mail-the-postal-service-is-suffering-amid-the-coronavirus https://www.npr.org/2020/04/08/828949609/youve-got-less-mail...
TekMol 7y ago
I run a website that is monetized via Adsense and I do not see a negative impact of the Corona pandemic. What makes the situation so much different for the L.A. Times then for a website?
- generalpass 7y ago
  Could the LA Times run on your Adsense revenue?
  - TekMol 7y ago
    This must be a misunderstanding. Let me rephrase my question: Why did the LA Times revenue get "nearly eliminated" while I don't see a change at all? The ads I see on my website seem to advertise all kinds of random stuff, so it is not like I am targeting a specific niche. Maybe some other HN users with websites that feature ads can chime in and tell their experience?
    - chvid 7y ago
      There was an earlier discussion here of youtubers seeing traffic growth but total revenue drop hinting at lower advertisement through Google as well. But "nearly eliminated" sounds like a lot.
      - TekMol 7y ago
        Hmm... I cannot find it. Do you have the link?
        csa 7y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22856324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22856324
    - maxerickson 7y ago
      How likely is it that there is a tranche of higher paying ads that you were already not seeing?
devit 7y ago
Wow, so it turns out that most of the products that were advertised were not so necessary after all?
jsjddbbwj 7y ago
As they said to coal workers who were getting out of jobs, they should learn to code.
GnarfGnarf 7y ago
Why has no one developed a news subscription service yet? I want to be able to pay 50¢ here or $1 there for an interesting article from NYT, WSJ, WaPo, Bloomberg, The Guardian, The New Yorker etc., without paying for a subscription. I can't afford to subscribe to all of them. There are not enough hours in the day for getting a return on my investment. New York Times $50/yr Wall Street Journal $100 Bloomberg $420 LA Times $98 The Guardian £119 Washington Post ~$80 I don't want to subscribe to just one paper. There are so many good articles in all the papers. A news combiner or aggregator would charge me for every article I select. At the end of the month, he charges my account credit card for the sum of all the articles. He gathers up the money that all readers have paid for reading NYT articles, and remits it. The newspapers don't have to manage micro-payments, journalism is saved, everyone is happy. Blendle looks like they are trying to do this, but they've been in Beta since 2016.
- ericmay 7y ago
  > Why has no one developed a news subscription service yet? Isn't that what products like Apple News are?
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    Apple News+ isn't exactly the same thing. It's more targeted at magazines, and doesn't have most of the relevant newspapers on board. But there are other issues: 1. It's run by Apple, which takes a hefty cut, and is thus oriented towards whatever is in Apple's best interests. It should be run by a consortium of newspapers instead and work in their best interest. 2. It's only available on Apple devices, which I don't have. 3. It has an app-based model. That's not what I want. What I want is an SSO passport login that lets me into all of the publisher's pre-existing sites. I don't want an app or a new site or anything, I just want a login that works on the existing newspaper sites.
- tguedes 7y ago
  The issue is you're looking at the value from journalism wrong. If you were to actually pay the cost of producing 1 article, it would be significantly more than you would be willing to pay to read it. What you are paying for when you pay for journalism is not the value you perceive from reading the individual articles, but of supporting the entire organization's on-going production of journalism. You are a patron more than a customer. Pick the one you want to subscribe to and stick with it. I would recommend subscribing to your local newspaper if you're only going to pick one.
ipunchghosts 7y ago
Is there a good news site worth paying for today that actually has ALL news. It infuriates me that when I go to CNN.com's "news" site, there are ads at the bottom with things like "Before you review Amazon Prime, read this" and "America's #1 Stock Picker: 'Must buy now'" How can anyone be okay with this? This is like picking up an astronomy journal that has ads in the back for psychics.
- goatherders 7y ago
  CNN used to be my preferred news site but its turned into garbage as you mentioned. I tried to read a lost this morning about antibody tests and gave up when I faced 2 ads, 2 stock pictures, and an image of the author before I had made it to the 4th sentence. Would gladly pay a reasonable amount of money for a news site.
  - rr60 7y ago
    You might enjoy http://lite.cnn.com http://lite.cnn.com Gets rid of all the cruft on the site and just shows you article text.
- zo1 7y ago
  Its not just CNN, all of them are doing it. Another really bad one: EBay! At this point we need to realize that websites are just placeholders for virtual billboards that they then sell to advertisers. It's a really bad incentive for them to add to their website, as it fundamentally changes their revenue model. It's no longer about (as an example) making sure you find the right product (and lots of it) so that they can make a large cut out of the sale. Instead, they prioritize "eyeballs" and ridiculous page after page views of exactly the same products because they get more ad-views that way.
kediz 7y ago
Just curious if Google has suffered similar level of revenue damage. If so it would be really bad since they got a hundred thousand people on paycheck.
rsweeney21 7y ago
There is no point in advertising if no one can buy your product right now. Retailers, dine-in restaurants, movies, hotels, travel, pro sports, big clothing brands, concerts, events, tourism. The list goes on and it is massive. All these industries are huge spenders on advertising. Then there are all the products and services that _could_ be bought, but consumers and companies have pulled back on because of uncertainty. Why waste money on ads for TVs, new phones, SaaS software, hiring, etc? We left our ads running even though conversion rates dropped by 75% because Google offered something like $!00M in ad credits for small businesses. We applied for the program but haven't heard anything. It might be time for us (marketplace for quality contract work) to stop spending on ads too.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  Since ads are a supply-demand market, supply must equal demand. There is nobody who can store ad slots in a warehouse and sell them later. Since publishers are unlikely in the short term to take down their websites just because revenue falls, that has led to prices dropping to near zero on the open market. The only real revenues now are from advertisers who have fixed price per impression or per click contracts, or who aren't smart enough to see they could drop their bids 90% and still win the same spots.
  - ramblerman 7y ago
    Perhaps I'm just not clever enough, but this reads like a homework assignment saying the same thing OP did much more eloquently: "There is no point in advertising if no one can buy your product right now"
    - londons_explore 7y ago
      The element I was trying to add but not wording well is that even if some people are still paying for ads, and still have things to sell, they price they pay will be dropping dramatically. Theres a reason Netflix has been advertising so heavily lately - with cheap ad spots, they might as well collect as many customers as possible now.
eric_b 7y ago
I understand modern media is slinging fear and outrage because that's what gets clicks, but their whole business model is anachronistic. I've watched previously reasonable publications go from honest fact-based reporting to pure narrative/agenda based drivel. Like wow, Washington Post, what happened bro? If most media organizations went out of business from the impending COVID economic catastrophe, I think that would be karmic justice. They did their part to cause it after all. The stress they've induced, the fear they've sown; they've earned every bad thing that befalls them. It's time for a new paradigm. Long form journalism as we knew it is gone. But there are other formats ascending. Podcasts, Youtube series, etc are all possibilities to fill the void of in depth reporting. Time will tell if someone can figure it out, but our current media is a problem, not an answer.
mcculley 7y ago
Are newspapers going to start selling subscriptions without advertisements and trackers? I would love to pay for one. I recently canceled my subscription to my local paper over the unnecessary tracking: https://twitter.com/mcculley/status/1247247733133660160 https://twitter.com/mcculley/status/1247247733133660160

282 points by spking 7y ago

In related news I have noticed that most things I search on Google don't show any ads at all. I went hunting for it and found that common household items are showing ads, but other things don't. And most certainly there is no obnoxiousness like an entire page of ads before the content.

xhkkffbf 7y ago
I think Google and Facebook are going to deliver a very surprising result.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  Well, ad revenue is gonna be off a cliff in the next quarterly earnings, but I don't think that's going to be a surprise. Good thing they have so much cash saved up.
  - xhkkffbf 7y ago
    Amazon is going to have big profits. IT's clear, though, that GOOG and FB are losing major ad clients. The entire travel industry is not advertising and they spent bank trying to convince you to try some new hotel chain.
- dx034 7y ago
  For a few quarters. They'll survive and be back where they are now when the economy bounces back (whenever that may be). They could take a 100% cut for several quarters without cutting expenses. Small ad companies are the ones that will really suffer. They don't have Google's deep pockets and diversification.
  - frockington1 7y ago
    Facebook will be in a great position with people having more and more phone time due to the quarantine. Might be a short term hit but a big boost down the road
    - AznHisoka 7y ago
      Maybe I am missing something, but how will it be a big boost? Most users who use Messenger, Instagram and FB already are familiar with the platform. Them using it more during the lockdown is not introducing them to new features or new content. It is unlike a product like Netflix, where you delve more into their content (ie international stuff u may have not ventured in) or Zoom, which some ppl may not have known about previously.
    - dx034 7y ago
      Facebook doesn't live off views, they live off ad spend. Unless people continue to use it more when they have to go back to work, I don't believe FB will profit here.
    - CydeWeys 7y ago
      Big tech companies like Google and Facebook are seeing record usage (i.e. increased costs) at exactly the same time that advertising revenue is plunging. YouTube watches are at record highs while pays per view might be at record lows. This just means that the expenses go up even as revenue falls. It's not a good thing for profitability.
      - nostrademons 7y ago
        That's why they've stockpiled $105B and $55B in cash respectively, though. Facebook could run the company for 1.5 years if their revenue went to zero; Google could run it for 2 years. They know how the business works and position themselves to weather and profit from downturns. Some weaker shareholders may sell if they're only interested in quarterly numbers, but in the long term their revenues go back up to what their userbase justifies.
  - 7y ago
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  Wait until the political ads start to pick up the slack. Cheap ad space and a serious need to own the libs? You better believe we'll be seeing the propaganda machine roll out in the next ~6 months.
  - magsnus 7y ago
    aren't "the libs" outspending trump atleast 2:1?
labster 7y ago
uBlock Origin and DuckDuckGo user here, not noticing any change at all in website ads.
- kccqzy 7y ago
  You know that, through your choice of software, your observation is not at all meaningful in this discussion?
  - imron 7y ago
    That's the joke!
    - CydeWeys 7y ago
      It's not funny, it's just tired and repetitious, and HN discourages joking around anyway because it leads to low quality conversations and contests over who can be funnier instead of who can contribute the most meaningfully to a conversation.
      - randallsquared 7y ago
        I think it was more of a humorously-worded suggestion.
      - pbourke 7y ago
        Let’s not let any humor distract from the pedants, bores and scolds doing yeoman’s work.
      - serf 7y ago
        If you think a comment is inappropriate, flag it. Don't complain about it -- the guidelines ask you not to. Just flag it. I found that guideline when looking for the 'discourage joking' guideline. I never found the joking one, though. I don't think that it exists. I sort of get what you mean that it's discouraged, but I don't think it's something as broad as 'joking', more like "Jokes require substance and relatability to the topic, class, and cleverness". HN has quite a few funny people.

HenryBemis 7y ago

We did have a similar Artie and discussion yesterday about how people making videos for/on Google see the viewing skyrocketing and ad-revenue collapsing. Nobody is selling this nobody advertised, plus the (thank you - I haven't thought of this) when crises hit, the ad budget is the first one to get slashed.

HenryBemis 7y ago
and this is what happens when you respond in the early AMs.. you write Artie instead of Article and don't even notice it...

nerdbaggy 7y ago

This is an interesting time for ads since people can’t buy most of the things.

NikolaeVarius 7y ago
Most people have been using the internet to buy things for a while now.
- dmoy 7y ago
  Less than one eighth of commerce (in the United States) is online. And even if it was majority online, not all fullfilment can be done when many places are closed.
  - irrational 7y ago
    You mean, less than 1/8th WAS online.
colmvp 7y ago
And also not a lot of companies want to be associated with Covid-19 content.
- makomk 7y ago
  Yeah, the Guardian and some of the other British papers have been complaining about how advertisers are refusing to run ads on Covid-19 related articles and how terrible it is that they're not funding journalism: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/01/newspapers-to-lose-50m-in-online-ads-as-firms-use-coronavirus-blacklist https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/01/newspapers-to-...
  - dx034 7y ago
    Not sure if that isn't just an easy way for companies to save money. Not all companies want to go around telling others they're struggling. Cutting ad budgets online or with newspapers due to Covid can be an easy way to cut expenses without getting public attention.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

ghaff 7y ago

We've already been seeing this to some degree with harder and harder paywalls--which mostly don't work besides lucrative niche and global brands. But I suspect we're increasingly headed towards a case where quality content is only available to those willing and able to pay for it.

OatMilkLatte 7y ago
Which is how it worked before the internet.
- ghaff 7y ago
  Yep. Maybe we move to a model where low quality/#FakeNews is free but quality costs and, presumably, you then move to a point where pooled subscriptions are a thing under that model. And it costs a substantial amount of money or you get it through a library. There's a lot less accessibility under that model, especially for those that don't really have disposable income. There's also the question of whether enough will really pay for the quality. But it's certainly a scenario. e.g. you pay $100/month for an all-pubs subscription which is not all that out of line for people who pay for newspapers or DirectTV.
  - makomk 7y ago
    About the only US publication that seems to be making decent money from subscriptions is the New York Times, and I suspect they're at least partly trading on their name. The quality of their reporting... well, let's just say that I didn't expect to see the day when Snopes ended up debunking a conspiracy theory about the US president started by the NYT: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-profit-hydroxychloroquine/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-profit-hydroxychloro...
    - slg 7y ago
      That isn't a debunking of the NYT's story. It is a debunking of an interpretation of the story that many made due to either news illiteracy or malicious intent. That line got shared all over the place out of context. In context it was not the focus of the piece and was instead buried in the details as a disclaimer regarding the larger issue of who profits from this drug. Snopes isn't disputing anything actually reported by the NYT.

phkahler 7y ago

Not in CA, but our governor is deciding what must close, and even what items stores can sell. I suspect any news outlet (sans politics) would be desired to stay open. But you can't legislate everything.

chrisseaton 7y ago
> Not in CA, but our governor is deciding what must close, and even what items stores can sell. I suspect any news outlet (sans politics) would be desired to stay open. But you can't legislate everything. What are you referring to with 'Not in CA'? This is in California. I think you're confused about what's going on here, which is why you're being down-voted. This isn't about whether the LA Times is allowed to stay open or any Government direction on what businesses should be open. They are still open. It's about their sharply declining revenue from advertising.
- egypturnash 7y ago
  I think the "Not in CA" sentence fragment is intended to be expanded to "I am not in California".
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

ColonelSanders 7y ago

Idea: Whenever there are furloughs or layoff, any payouts or profits for the C-Suite and managers that are higher the average employee, is put into an annuity for the laid off employees. So if a CEO makes 30,000,000, and the average worker is paid 125,000. A 29,875,000 fund will be made to deposit a monthly check into the bank of the fired employees. This includes any profits made from selling stocks. To avoid loopholes and ensure enforcement, CEO's waive personal financial privacy, giving regulators full access into international finance accounts and to withdraw from those account debt due to workers. The lookback/forward time can be tweaked to go up to 36 months to ensure it's not worked around. This will retain employees - while simultaneously keep businesses operating profitably. Additionally, if there are any dividends by the company, any employees who worked a certain time (even if fired) are entitled to payout, since they're part of the collective. This shows appreciation for the employees which boosts performance - they know a successful quarter will have their success kept - not given only to investors.

jdminhbg 7y ago
Even if the scale of the difference divided by the number of employees were enough to be useful (it's not), all this would do is incentivize executives to run inefficient businesses into the ground.
- ColonelSanders 7y ago
  > all this would do is incentivize executives to run inefficient businesses into the ground. What incentive would an executive have to run a business into the ground? It's a business - the motive to gain profit and ambition won't leave because profit is shared. Regardless - my point is - what's wrong with being generous to workers? Why not share a bit of that with people who work so the motivation and incentives are spread out? Why don't we try some ideas, test some regulations and see how they work, so we know what incentivizes and what doesn't? Have an administrative body view it on a case by case basis and come up with a novel payment plan, in a case where a CEO gets a golden parachute and employees are left unemployed, that payment would be suspended and apportioned fairly. Maybe it will even go back to investors. For a look a generous labor systems in powerful economies, I'd like to bring up Germany: http://www.siegwart-law.com/Sgal-en/lawyer-german-employment-law-germany.html http://www.siegwart-law.com/Sgal-en/lawyer-german-employment...

ivankirigin 7y ago

How might Google and Facebook revenue move? Facebook earnings per share consensus is $1.78. In two weeks, we'll see how it stacks up. https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/fb/earnings https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/fb/earnings

daxorid 7y ago
Not really relevant. Equities are completely divorced from reality at the moment. FB and GOOG could guide down 2020 revenue by 50% and the stocks would pop AH because $6T new money has to find returns somewhere.
- ttul 7y ago
  And in any case, a temporary gap in revenue at Google or Facebook doesn’t change the fact that they have virtual monopolies on audience.

rock8y 7y ago

Things are much worse at Gannett, parent company of usatoday. Personally, being laid off on March 31! Almost every employee is effected at this time, either furloughed for few hours a week, pay cut or let go !!

tootie 7y ago
I'm surprised. I'd think online news would be one of the industries benefitting from this crisis. Is the revenue tied to lack of conversions on online ads?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- apl002 7y ago
  maybe the advertisers are hurting and pulling their money? idk probably not but just a guess
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    Entirely possible. They're predicting that half (1/2) of the businesses in my city will fail by the end of summer. If you're still holding on then you're cutting expenses to the bone... with the 2nd and 3rd order effects being that ad revenue, ether via click, or just in a "Eat At Joe's" ad in a local paper, is gone.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  It's tied to lack of ad spending. This is global across the entire advertising industry. Companies are spending less because of the pending recession and in particular they're spending a lot less on advertising, because people are not buying much right now (they often aren't even going anywhere for days at a time).
  - Loughla 7y ago
    This, 100%. My institution advertises with local news agencies and newspapers. The local television CEO contacted our President to thank him personally for keeping up with the ad buys. They've had a 90% drop in ads being purchased. Apparently it's us (community college), the state, and grocery stores still buying ads.

tempsy 7y ago

I’m definitely in the camp that “the cure cannot be worse than the disease” itself. Sitting in California where there are so few cases makes me wonder if the economic toll is totally worth it. Seems like we’ve used a tsunami to put out a campfire.

nightstaywalki 7y ago
> I’m definitely in the camp that “the cure cannot be worse than the disease” itself. It seems to be forbidden to debate this unfortunately.
- jwilber 7y ago
  There are responses above now. Looking forward to your debates.
- eropple 7y ago
  It’s not “forbidden” for y’all freethinkers or autodidacts or whatever the term today is to debate such things and to make the claim is dishonest. You’d have to find somebody to debate with, however, and most people are not particularly interested in “hang your Grandma for my stocks”. That is not a restriction of debate, it’s the social dumpstering of people beyond either statistics or empathy and that’s a feature and not a bug.
  - volak 7y ago
    Framing the debate as "your grandma or your 401k" is precisely the gas lighting that prevents rational discussion on this topic
    - eropple 7y ago
      I submit that you don't know what gaslighting is. Further, I submit that you're attempting to coopt the language of marginalized groups to buttress a weak and selfish viewpoint. I shall not buy what you are selling.

annoyingnoob 7y ago

I think what is even worse is what recovery looks like. Seems like we are going to be recovering for a very long time. We don't even know how deep the wounds are yet.

irrational 7y ago

How many businesses are not going to recover at all after this is all over?

robjan 7y ago
New businesses will be established to fill the void

ninetyfurr 7y ago

I wonder why nobody pays for newspapers, yet podcasts and talk radio shows pull in millions of dollars annually.

anigbrowl 7y ago
Podcasts and talk radio are mostly emotional porn.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  I was in a hurry and forgot to say that they differ from real news reporting in the way that porn differs from a real relationship. Of course, the op-ed/opinion columns in traditional news media are also mostly emotional porn; but the point is that opionating is cheap and while doing it well and entertainingly does require some research and planning each day, when you get down to it it's just a performance rather than painstaking and often slow production of factual data.
- morsch 7y ago
  That's a rotting whale carcass of a metaphor.
CydeWeys 7y ago
This is not based in fact. Newspapers in fact pull in much, much more total revenue than podcasts and talk radio.

renewiltord 7y ago

This doesn't matter. Low quality news sources are a dime a dozen, and the good news costs money. You have to be sophisticated enough to be able to differentiate news sources. For instance, as a WSJ subscriber, I'm not going to read the editorials. They're complete garbage in terms of factual content. The business page is gold. And this is very good. All the freeloaders who block ads and only use low-quality news will get poorer information and they will be out-competed. That's a good thing. Humanity will move forward. So block your ads on your ad-supported sources, grumble about "inequity of information", and exclaim in horror that you can't access good information because of a paywall. This is it. The future is here: ads are disappearing (temporarily, I think) and you're seeing what happens when your desired world comes to be. There's no schadenfreude here. Many of you were just sawing on a branch you sat on, with the natural consequence. The LA Times railed against targeted advertising. Well, they got what they wanted. And now they're subject to the razor's edge that is the market.

egypturnash 7y ago
All the freeloaders who block ads and only use low-quality news will get poorer information and they will be out-competed And they will go vote for the candidates who is best at grabbing them by their poorly-informed emotions.
- renewiltord 7y ago
  Other people's predictability is opportunity. This is not an undesirable outcome.
fibers 7y ago
You should lobby your government to ban ads then.
- renewiltord 7y ago
  That sounds like a foolish use of my time when I can simply watch other people do it for me. And I want a greater difference between me and them. I want them to be wrong and for me to be right. This only helps.

rgovostes 7y ago

The LA Times's investigation into Purdue Pharma in 2016 revealed internal Purdue documents demonstrating the company's culpability in fueling the opioid crisis. > The documents provide a detailed picture of the development and marketing of OxyContin, how Purdue executives responded to complaints that its effects wear off early, and their fears about the financial impact of any departure from 12-hour dosing. I don't have many recurring subscriptions, and I don't live in LA, but I signed up for the Times the day the reporting came out. So rare is quality investigative journalism these days. Fast forward 3 years, and "Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family were in negotiations to settle the claims for a payment of $10-$12 billion" (Wikipedia). As far as I know the settlement was never finalized. And I don't want to make it seem that the Times was the only organization looking into Purdue. But I wish a fraction of that settlement could be re-invested into investigative journalism. https://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/ https://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/

easytiger 7y ago
At the end of the day, if a doctor is prescribing medication against clinical guidelines, surely the doctor is at fault? If a pharma warehouse is burgled then it's on the burglars. Am I missing something regarding this case? Did they mislead doctors? Edit: Downvotes to -4 with no engagement for asking a question. This place has gone downhill rapidly
- smitty1110 7y ago
  First, they I mislead doctors. They insisted very enthusiastically that’d OxyContin relieved pain for 8 hours, when 4-6 was much more common for most patients. Secondly, I don’t remember the laws and requirements exactly, but there are reporting requirements for abnormal behaviors that indicate drug abuse. One of the long form articles over the past few years saw a memo where Perdue deliberately decided not to report large orders in certain areas. Of course, I haven’t had coffee yet, so caveat lector.
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  > At the end of the day, if a doctor is prescribing medication against clinical guidelines, surely the doctor is at fault? Even if you assume that's the case, there's no reason a doctor being at fault would mean nobody else can be at fault.

donohoe 7y ago

Dear HN, Support journalism. Subscribe for a month and see how it works for you. https://www.latimes.com/subscriptions/land-subscribe-evergreen/flyout.html https://www.latimes.com/subscriptions/land-subscribe-evergre...

Justin_K 7y ago
Why does your paper have to be so one sided though? I live in LA and won't subscribe because your paper has always followed an agenda.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- donohoe 7y ago
  My paper? I live in NYC. One sided? There is a quote (forget who) "Facts Have a Well-Known Liberal Bias". I'll leave it at that.
  - kortilla 7y ago
    A quote by a liberal (Krugman) writing an opinion piece for the nytimes is hardly an argument. He even had to follow it up to specify that they had a center-left bias.
  - jsjddbbwj 7y ago
    Yes, you better leave it at that.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    That formulation comes from a Paul Krugman opinion piece from 2017: "Facts Have a Well-Known Liberal Bias" https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/08/opinion/facts-have-a-well-known-liberal-bias.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/08/opinion/facts-have-a-well... Krugman used the similar "The Facts Have A Well-Known Center-Left Bias" in 2016: https://web.archive.org/web/20160509144531/https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/05/09/the-facts-have-a-well-known-center-left-bias/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160509144531/https://krugman.b... Stephen Colbert's 2006 Press Correspondents' Dinner roast used the line "reality has a well-known liberal bias" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_at_the_2006_White_House_Correspondents%27_Dinner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_at_the_2006_Wh... https://invidio.us/watch?v=2X93u3anTco https://invidio.us/watch?v=2X93u3anTco Rob Corddry in 2004 gave the similar "facts themselves are biased" and "facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda" on Jon Stewert's Daily Show: Corddry: How does one report the facts in an unbiased way when the facts themselves are biased? Stewart: I'm sorry, Rob, did you say the facts are biased? Corddry: That's right Jon. From the names of our fallen soldiers to the gradual withdrawal of our allies to the growing insurgency, it's become all too clear that facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda. http://www.slapnose.com/archives/2004/05/04/the_liberal_bias_of_facts/ http://www.slapnose.com/archives/2004/05/04/the_liberal_bias...

WalterBright 7y ago

I've noticed the decline in advertising in my (physical) mailbox - it's bereft of junk mail for the last month.

dredmorbius 7y ago
USPS are also being hammered: https://www.npr.org/2020/04/08/828949609/youve-got-less-mail-the-postal-service-is-suffering-amid-the-coronavirus https://www.npr.org/2020/04/08/828949609/youve-got-less-mail...

TekMol 7y ago

I run a website that is monetized via Adsense and I do not see a negative impact of the Corona pandemic. What makes the situation so much different for the L.A. Times then for a website?

generalpass 7y ago
Could the LA Times run on your Adsense revenue?
- TekMol 7y ago
  This must be a misunderstanding. Let me rephrase my question: Why did the LA Times revenue get "nearly eliminated" while I don't see a change at all? The ads I see on my website seem to advertise all kinds of random stuff, so it is not like I am targeting a specific niche. Maybe some other HN users with websites that feature ads can chime in and tell their experience?
  - chvid 7y ago
    There was an earlier discussion here of youtubers seeing traffic growth but total revenue drop hinting at lower advertisement through Google as well. But "nearly eliminated" sounds like a lot.
    - TekMol 7y ago
      Hmm... I cannot find it. Do you have the link?
      - csa 7y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22856324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22856324
  - maxerickson 7y ago
    How likely is it that there is a tranche of higher paying ads that you were already not seeing?

devit 7y ago

Wow, so it turns out that most of the products that were advertised were not so necessary after all?

jsjddbbwj 7y ago

As they said to coal workers who were getting out of jobs, they should learn to code.

GnarfGnarf 7y ago

Why has no one developed a news subscription service yet? I want to be able to pay 50¢ here or $1 there for an interesting article from NYT, WSJ, WaPo, Bloomberg, The Guardian, The New Yorker etc., without paying for a subscription. I can't afford to subscribe to all of them. There are not enough hours in the day for getting a return on my investment. New York Times $50/yr Wall Street Journal $100 Bloomberg $420 LA Times $98 The Guardian £119 Washington Post ~$80 I don't want to subscribe to just one paper. There are so many good articles in all the papers. A news combiner or aggregator would charge me for every article I select. At the end of the month, he charges my account credit card for the sum of all the articles. He gathers up the money that all readers have paid for reading NYT articles, and remits it. The newspapers don't have to manage micro-payments, journalism is saved, everyone is happy. Blendle looks like they are trying to do this, but they've been in Beta since 2016.

ericmay 7y ago
> Why has no one developed a news subscription service yet? Isn't that what products like Apple News are?
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  Apple News+ isn't exactly the same thing. It's more targeted at magazines, and doesn't have most of the relevant newspapers on board. But there are other issues: 1. It's run by Apple, which takes a hefty cut, and is thus oriented towards whatever is in Apple's best interests. It should be run by a consortium of newspapers instead and work in their best interest. 2. It's only available on Apple devices, which I don't have. 3. It has an app-based model. That's not what I want. What I want is an SSO passport login that lets me into all of the publisher's pre-existing sites. I don't want an app or a new site or anything, I just want a login that works on the existing newspaper sites.
tguedes 7y ago
The issue is you're looking at the value from journalism wrong. If you were to actually pay the cost of producing 1 article, it would be significantly more than you would be willing to pay to read it. What you are paying for when you pay for journalism is not the value you perceive from reading the individual articles, but of supporting the entire organization's on-going production of journalism. You are a patron more than a customer. Pick the one you want to subscribe to and stick with it. I would recommend subscribing to your local newspaper if you're only going to pick one.

ipunchghosts 7y ago

Is there a good news site worth paying for today that actually has ALL news. It infuriates me that when I go to CNN.com's "news" site, there are ads at the bottom with things like "Before you review Amazon Prime, read this" and "America's #1 Stock Picker: 'Must buy now'" How can anyone be okay with this? This is like picking up an astronomy journal that has ads in the back for psychics.

goatherders 7y ago
CNN used to be my preferred news site but its turned into garbage as you mentioned. I tried to read a lost this morning about antibody tests and gave up when I faced 2 ads, 2 stock pictures, and an image of the author before I had made it to the 4th sentence. Would gladly pay a reasonable amount of money for a news site.
- rr60 7y ago
  You might enjoy http://lite.cnn.com http://lite.cnn.com Gets rid of all the cruft on the site and just shows you article text.
zo1 7y ago
Its not just CNN, all of them are doing it. Another really bad one: EBay! At this point we need to realize that websites are just placeholders for virtual billboards that they then sell to advertisers. It's a really bad incentive for them to add to their website, as it fundamentally changes their revenue model. It's no longer about (as an example) making sure you find the right product (and lots of it) so that they can make a large cut out of the sale. Instead, they prioritize "eyeballs" and ridiculous page after page views of exactly the same products because they get more ad-views that way.

kediz 7y ago

Just curious if Google has suffered similar level of revenue damage. If so it would be really bad since they got a hundred thousand people on paycheck.

rsweeney21 7y ago

There is no point in advertising if no one can buy your product right now. Retailers, dine-in restaurants, movies, hotels, travel, pro sports, big clothing brands, concerts, events, tourism. The list goes on and it is massive. All these industries are huge spenders on advertising. Then there are all the products and services that _could_ be bought, but consumers and companies have pulled back on because of uncertainty. Why waste money on ads for TVs, new phones, SaaS software, hiring, etc? We left our ads running even though conversion rates dropped by 75% because Google offered something like $!00M in ad credits for small businesses. We applied for the program but haven't heard anything. It might be time for us (marketplace for quality contract work) to stop spending on ads too.

londons_explore 7y ago
Since ads are a supply-demand market, supply must equal demand. There is nobody who can store ad slots in a warehouse and sell them later. Since publishers are unlikely in the short term to take down their websites just because revenue falls, that has led to prices dropping to near zero on the open market. The only real revenues now are from advertisers who have fixed price per impression or per click contracts, or who aren't smart enough to see they could drop their bids 90% and still win the same spots.
- ramblerman 7y ago
  Perhaps I'm just not clever enough, but this reads like a homework assignment saying the same thing OP did much more eloquently: "There is no point in advertising if no one can buy your product right now"
  - londons_explore 7y ago
    The element I was trying to add but not wording well is that even if some people are still paying for ads, and still have things to sell, they price they pay will be dropping dramatically. Theres a reason Netflix has been advertising so heavily lately - with cheap ad spots, they might as well collect as many customers as possible now.

eric_b 7y ago

I understand modern media is slinging fear and outrage because that's what gets clicks, but their whole business model is anachronistic. I've watched previously reasonable publications go from honest fact-based reporting to pure narrative/agenda based drivel. Like wow, Washington Post, what happened bro? If most media organizations went out of business from the impending COVID economic catastrophe, I think that would be karmic justice. They did their part to cause it after all. The stress they've induced, the fear they've sown; they've earned every bad thing that befalls them. It's time for a new paradigm. Long form journalism as we knew it is gone. But there are other formats ascending. Podcasts, Youtube series, etc are all possibilities to fill the void of in depth reporting. Time will tell if someone can figure it out, but our current media is a problem, not an answer.

mcculley 7y ago

Are newspapers going to start selling subscriptions without advertisements and trackers? I would love to pay for one. I recently canceled my subscription to my local paper over the unnecessary tracking: https://twitter.com/mcculley/status/1247247733133660160 https://twitter.com/mcculley/status/1247247733133660160