Dianne Mermigas is one of the smartest, most pragmatic media columnists I’ve ever read. She never resorts to hyperbole. So it gets your attention when she predicts that “advertisers will spend even less than the worst-case decline forecast” for 2009. She continues:

“Major advertisers such as automotive, financial services, retail and real estate will not return any time soon; they will be diminished and different when they rebound a year from now. That is a disaster for local media, which could easily see more than half their ad revenue base wiped out in 2009.”

Half?!! And there’s this:

“Many individual and group TV and newspaper properties will collapse under the weight of an advertising recession and legacy costs. Their online and other digital revenues will fail to offset double-digit ad losses. Loan covenants and debt payments will be missed. Some will shut down; a few will sell off in a dismal deal market.”

Yikes. 2009 is not cyclical, folks. It’s game-changing.