We all know the folks in the print business are being squeezed by digital. At the New York Times total revenue fell 1% while Gannett Co. reported revenues down almost 9%. And remember, those declines take into account any growth in digital. But this note from MediaPost is particularly telling: It’s worth noting that [circulation] revenues now make up 59.7% of NYTCO’s total, up from 41.3% in the third quarter of 2010. The proportion derived from advertising has fallen from 51.

If there’s any medium more cluttered with commercials than radio, that medium would be TV. Or is it? Some signs suggest that the powers-that-be in TV-land sense a turning point. Witness these words from Kevin Reilly, president of the TBS and TNT cable nets last week at the TCA winter press tour: We have overstuffed the bird. We need to create a better viewing experience. A “better viewing experience”? How about a “better listening experience,” radio broadcasters?How about a b

Apple says the future of TV is apps – but is it? And… Why is Verizon launching a video service nobody is asking for? It’s episode 27 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramsey. Plus, rants and raves for the ubiquity of all things “artisanal,” the 23rd Annual Sports Fan Loyalty Index, MTV’s gangbuster ratings performance for the VMA’s – on Snapchat, and the delightful inappropriateness of Nicki Minaj’s wax figure at Madame Tussauds.

Recently, Howard Stern interviewed MSNBC host and one-time Air America anchor Rachel Maddow, and the conversation eventually drifted to radio and what makes it different from TV. Compared to TV, “radio is an intimate medium,” Rachel said. And of course, she’s right. While we lump radio with television when we think of “broadcasting,” TV is certainly more one-to-many while radio is really much more one-to-one…. Among many. That’s not just a voice in your ear, after all. It’s

The title of the piece in USA Today says it all:  “YouTube spends $100 million to redefine TV.” Beginning this month, YouTube is gambling $100 million that by seeding professional production firms such as Young Hollywood — whose slate of YouTube-only programming premieres Monday — it will draw more eyeballs for longer viewing sessions. YouTube is a massive distribution channel, but not a creator of content.  So what to do?  How about invest in content creation!  And so they a

If there is no “radio,” there is only media.  If there is no “television,” there is only media.  And what drives each media brand is the idea at its core.  All thanks to the Internet and its panoply of digital doodads and the ubiquitous opportunity for any and every tribe to find a home and each other in the presence of the sandbox called their passions. Case and point:  Glenn Beck.  Since last month Glenn has been reinventing the future of television – and doing it online. L

“Facebook is now the web’s content discovery portal,” writes social TV blog Lost Remote. “The average user spends 6 hours and 36 minutes a month on Facebook, and 50% of Facebook users return daily.” Consider this alongside the idea that most of what TV produces will be available on the web, too, in short order.  That means, quoting Lost Remote, that “everything TV stations produce and distribute now goes head-to-head with everything else.” Isn’t this also largely true of radi

Is the Internet TV’s “secret sauce?”  And how can it be the same for radio? From MediaPost: Even with the boom in social media, TV is apparently roaring. One reason: a certain synergy has developed, where TV brand-building is driving Internet deep-diving. The dynamic has an element of direct response to it, with advertisers eager to drive people to the Web to make a purchase, get more information about a product, watch an added video, or become a Facebook friend and, if excee

A local media company. That’s what broadcast groups are thinking of themselves as nowadays, thanks to lots of folks like me (even if too many of them remain radio or TV groups with tangential digital assets, but that’s another story). If you’re a local media company, part of your job is to maximize the success of your client partners on their terms, whatever those are:  Foot traffic, awareness, the ring of the cash register, etc.  It’s not simply to stock more items in more c

Yes, I get it.  We’re addicted to ratings. But treating our digital assets as proverbial red-headed step-children does them – and us – no favors. Take a page from our friends in television.  Look at what can happen when you actually commit (from Broadcasting & Cable): NBC Local Media said Tuesday that its city Web sites are delivering double-digit audience growth versus one year ago. Comparing August 2010 to August 2009, monthly page views have increased 32% to 112 million, m