Ad Collapse in Television, Radio and Magazines is Permanent

A new study from private equity fund Catalyst Investors says mainstream media's advertising meltdown is the "new normal" for the ad business. Plummeting consumer spending and the Web's ability to eat away at the pricing power of traditional media has driven the declines. In the magazine sector, for example, the drop in ad dollars is fueled in part by the move to "just-in-time spot ads vs. advance ad purchasing." The Internet's unlimited content and ability to measure ad impact broke "the oligopolistic pricing power that traditional media enjoyed in the 1980s and 1990s." A further dip in ad spending as a percent of GDP will occur over the next two to three years, predicts Catalyst.