Worst Ahead for Media

No one working in the media industry will ever have seen a year as bad as 2009 will be. The sharp slide in advertising began in 2008, and, based on the worsening economy, there is no reason to think that advertising will improve. Most Wall St. analysts have predicted a harsh year for the ad business. If the downturn deepens and unemployment rises above 10% most predictions about media, no matter how negative, will have been unexpectedly optimistic. The most endangered of the media sectors is the newspaper industry. Scores of papers, large and small, will fold this year. Newspaper expert Alan Mutter recently wrote that any paper in a major city with two dailies is in tremendous trouble. The magazine industry is not in much better shape although its very sharp downturn did not begin until last year. A year ago, most analysts expected that the online marketing business would be largely recession-proof. It is now clear that this is not true. Gawker owner Nick Denton expects online ad revenue to drop by double digits.