19 Comments Add your own

• 1. Joe  |  April 25th, 2008 at 4:07 pm

  Things are looking pretty bleak, but I’ll still believe it when I see it. I think we’re more likely to see an ownership shakeout first, with the big corporate owners sell their stations to local groups and investment houses.

• 2. Dude  |  April 25th, 2008 at 4:15 pm

  I got this very same article in my inbox from a colleague this AM. It certainly peaked my interest. This speaks to the prediction that TV will see the same issues that newspapers have struggled through. It also suggests the digital conversion will play a critical role in this process going forward.

• 3. Bill G  |  April 25th, 2008 at 4:31 pm

  Advertising CPMs are going to converge and that will cause the business models of newspapers and TV stations to change radically.

  There’s no fundamental reason that web/TV/print advertising CPMs should be terribly different for the same audience delivery.

  Simple inertia will make it a very slow process, but it is inevitable.

• 4. tdc  |  April 25th, 2008 at 5:00 pm

  confining layoffs to those off-camera is really smart… you can lay off 10 of them and save what it costs to keep 1 anchor.

• 5. Jason  |  April 25th, 2008 at 6:37 pm

  Maybe I’m wrong… but I’ve always wondered how long local TV could get away with serving up essentially the same program with different personalities on several different channels.

  Chicago is served by 2 big newspapers and a couple suburban ones. It’s served by 5 English language local TV operations. Plus a 24-hr cable channel.

  I’m in Minneapolis: we have 4 local TV stations and 2 newspapers. Would the audience be poorly served to lose one of those TV stations? Probably not.

• 6. Don Moore  |  April 25th, 2008 at 8:25 pm

  Don’t forget about the recent report regarding the effectiveness of television advertising for car dealers - REAL BUMMER for TV folks. Look for Auto Advertising to take a dive as well. Broadcasters won the battle for cable compensation; but will lose the war as cable/satellite delivers the content.

• 7. Anonymous  |  April 25th, 2008 at 8:47 pm

  This very blog actually pointed out not too long ago that no WSJ article is subscription-only. Just go to Google News and search for the headline.

• 8. Terry Heaton  |  April 26th, 2008 at 8:28 am

  I assume, Joe, that by “I’ll believe it when I see it,” you mean when you’re out on the street looking for work. Even the ownership shakeout you predict won’t change the fundamentals of public media companies. But even bigger than that is the slowly rising temperature in the waterpot called the World Wide Web.

• 9. tdc  |  April 26th, 2008 at 9:11 am

  just ask dean singleton.

• 10. tdc  |  April 26th, 2008 at 9:12 am

  or sam zell.

• 11. DW  |  April 26th, 2008 at 9:33 am

  In the words of the famed basketball sage Michael Ray Richardson … “the ship be sinking”. Start working on your exit plan, before the exit plan works on you. Maybe you could start a VJ school.

• 12. Anon  |  April 26th, 2008 at 7:37 pm

  We haven’t used the terms much in the last few years, but the trend argues to use it once again:: “old media.” TV’s demos and business attraction are aging rapidly. Companies that are in the business of “old media” and resisting Web-centric e-initiatives (”new media”) will simply fail. Anchor-centric Web enterprises are doomed to simply go down with the old media they ruefully seek to keep afloat, because they are one and the same.

• 13. discreet_chaos  |  April 27th, 2008 at 4:49 am

  I agree with Joe. Perhaps a decline in revenue won’t be acceptable to Wall Street and some of the conglomerates will look to offload some of their weaker performers, but there will most likely be some folks on Main Street ready to jump into the game.

  Most broadcast stations are conduits for network programming. Maybe the MyNetworks might have problems and perhaps the CW hasn’t found a lot of buzz, but once you get beyond those two “lesser” networks, I’m not seeing a lot of purely “independent” stations. Here in Albuquerque, there’s a couple of affiliates for the Spanish networks, a couple of Home Shopping channels and maybe a half dozen religious broadcasters. The spanish stations are both parts of a larger network and all of the others have alternative funding sources.

  I won’t say that there will not be a race to find another money source and maybe some creative solutions might be required, but once you get beyond the networks, you’re generally not looking at a news operation or anything high dollar. Pretty much any of them could be run at minimal expense, computerized and without a lot of manpower. So, yeah, maybe the big boys aren’t going to want a non-affiliate UHF station, but they really don’t have that many to start and I’m sure there will be somebody else willing to buy.

  The whole economy is in a downturn and the segments cited in the article as having reduced their ad-buys aren’t any different. If people aren’t buying houses, then furniture sales are down and if they’re having credit problems, then they’re probably not buying a car. Practically everyone’s business is taking a hit, so why would television be any different? Not to mention that the writer’s strike wiped-out most network programming, so people weren’t watching in as large of numbers, so in addition to the general economic pressures, the viewer situation (perceived or real) over the first quarter probably also added to the downward pressure on station revenues. I mean, why would anyone rush to pay top-dollar for the 15th re-airing of a procedural?

• 14. TR  |  April 27th, 2008 at 2:30 pm

  If you’re in a neighborhood not already served by a community news website, and you’re not afraid of hard work, start one. I can’t tell you how many people from around our region and other places in the country contact us weekly to say “I wish MY neighborhood had something like your site …” Our ad revenue isn’t making us rich but it continues to rise and I hope to be in a position to hire help before the year’s out.

• 15. Hussman  |  April 28th, 2008 at 6:31 am

  I think TR is right from a certain perspective. It’s all Location, Location, Location. Not all markets are wailing and gnashing their teeth.

  We’re holding our own where we are at, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t tight. We just need to be careful, that’s all, because yes, the economy is readjusting.

  Company-wide, we may be struggling a bit, but thank God our bosses know what the hell they are doing and we are moving in the right direction.

• 16. Rocker  |  April 28th, 2008 at 6:46 am

  discreet… I think Borrell is predicting the demise of some of the “big” stations, not just wobbly little indies. No market is ultimately going to need 4 or 5 traditional linear newscast-producing stations.

  Hussman: “…thank god our bosses know what the hell they are doing”. Ha ha! Very funny!

• 17. discreet_chaos  |  April 28th, 2008 at 8:06 am

  Rocker - I understand your point, but how many markets have 5 newcast-producing stations? I’d venture (without any study) that the overwhelming majority of markets have three producers, with one of them doing a “fourth broadcast” at 9 or 10, depending on the timezone. Perhaps the largest markets have 4 or 5 newsproduct producers, but I’d guess that once you get down beyond the tenth largest those with more than three sources get further and further, between.

  And in places like Maine, Montana, New Mexico and other small population markets, I believe most have at least one statewide network with almost all of their product originating from one city and a lot of times, these stations tend to serve certain niches.

• 18. wtf TV people?  |  April 28th, 2008 at 8:49 am

  Just keep putting that head in the sand that:

  this is just cyclical and will eventually come back…
  that it’s the network’s fault for our prime numbers and thus our late news…
  that we just need a new set…
  that we just need the new Doppler 32000…
  that it’s the recession…
  that we just need more staff…
  that consultants will come in and give you some special magic potion to revive your newscast… (like new makeup!)
  that it’ll eventually pick up for us because we’re doing ‘good things’…
  that …

• 19. linky  |  April 28th, 2008 at 3:51 pm

  the sky will fall someday … just not tomorrow The advertising model the internet uses is almost a self-fufiling demise. Someday savvy users, will go directly to branded sites (trusted sites.. more than we have now) almost automatically, Links won’t (and don’t already) will drive them there per capita. Right now, if you want ur re runs of ‘Friends’ in the background, without thinking about it, you are going to be subjected to commercial content, audio and video.
  This will change, but gradually with some adaptability. It must be fun to predict the demise. It may come, but not real soon

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