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In 1980 newspapers were where >50% of advertising dollars were spent, now it's going to nothing - and - they have to fight for every little click using click ba
by jariel 6y ago
In 1980 newspapers were where >50% of advertising dollars were spent, now it's going to nothing - and - they have to fight for every little click using click bait.
You can see the natural progression towards hyper bifurcated viewpoints.
- iguy 6y agoIf they were just smaller that would be one thing, but the change in what they get paid for is bigger, I think. A paper supported by the big department store's ads is incentivised to be broad, because the store wants to sell to everyone. Likewise a paper supported classified and by sunday realtor adds -- nobody wants to sell their house exclusively to members of some fringe, they want the widest distribution. But a paper supported by its most outraged subscribers will cater to them, and importantly, to keeping them outraged.
- jariel 6y agoUnfortunately not, as the numbers are already on the table. People don't need to pay for news, so they generally won't. The smaller publications are all getting wiped out, NYT and a few others will remain paywalled in a smaller state of affairs, and that's it.
- orzig 6y agoAs long as we're talking about objective facts, I'll add that "Going to nothing" means going from $25B/y down to $5B/y, which is a huge drop - but also $5B/y. It's continuing to trend downward, so "going to nothing" is not a clearly false summary, but we might as well be specific Source: https://www.statista.com/chart/20244/estimated-print-advertising-revenue-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/chart/20244/estimated-print-adverti...
- jariel 6y agoYour chart literally shows a line over a decade 'going very quickly towards $0'.