Thirty Five: Newspapers

Is it finally happening? Are newspapers gasping their last breaths? It sure looks that way. The New York Times has been running the same television ads for the past three years, trying to convince young, hip people that in order to be really cool you have to subscribe to the weekend Times editions, and then you will be popular, good-looking, and successful. McClatchie is hemoraging. Thomson has been shedding local newspapers for years.

And it doesn't end with newspapers. Publishers of trade magazines are following the newspapers into the swamp. The problem is that they are all chasing a smaller and smaller amount of dollars being spent on traditional print media, while the larger chunk of the ad budget goes into electronic media, most notably the web.

Advertising dollars have always been, and probably always will be, fickle. Who really knows how effective advertising is? Since the answer to this question is "no one," it is really easy to cut back on advertising budgets when time are tough.

One thing is certain: people don't read as much as they used to. Information dissemination is more and more accomplished via viusal and audio methods.