edithhopegardenjournal

Many observers tend to conceive any changes in media businesses as trends that are irreversible or to combine them with other changes to make sweeping generalizations about industry conditions. The results are often wrong and distract observers from asking deeper more appropriate questions about longer-term developments and how media companies use the resources they have. To understand changes one needs to consider developments separately to determine their origin and expected duration. This allows one to determine what are the result of external trends and what are the result of company choices. Only then can one begin combining them with other observations. Thus, one needs to consider whether the ratings increase for AMC is due to people spending more watching cable channels or an effect of the AMC's investments in quality programming and the popularity of programs such as Mad Men? If it is the former, one can enjoy benefits with little effort or extra investment; if it is the la...

Voices in and around the newspaper industry would have us believe the industry is falling apart and taking its last gaps. Investors are fleeing newspaper companies, publishers are decrying the lack of newspaper advertising growth, debt challenges are plaguing many companies, and there are layoffs and buyouts everywhere. If one rationally looks at the industry, however, one sees that it is fundamentally sound, but that a unique, financially golden period in its history is ending. It is that change which is creating the bulk of the turmoil in the industry, but the biggest problem is that those working in the industry have short memories about the newspaper business and don't remember it any other way. The generation leading newspapers and newspaper companies today has only experienced a period in which extraordinary growth of advertising increased newspaper revenue across the nation. That growth, combined with the development of local monopolies, created a period that enriched papers...

The privatization of Clear Channel Communications ends a 2-year effort to buyout the leading radio and outdoor advertising firm. The $17.9 billion buyout by Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners allows the new owners the opportunity to pursue strategies with less influence from unpredictable investors pursuing short-term interests. The sale comes amid heavy competition in terrestrial and satellite radio, but provides the new owners more flexibility in deciding how to best operate the 900 radio stations, radio programming services, and subsidy that owns one million outdoor ad locations. The sale is just one more in a growing trend for private equity purchases of media firms. Their interest in media companies stems from the fact that the market value of many does not reflect the underlying cash flows and asset values or the mid- to long-term prospects of the firms. The valuation challenge of media occurs in good part because advertising expenditures are not evenly distributed throughou...

Sometimes companies forget what businesses they are in and Comcast seems to be the latest media and communication company to do so. The problem evidenced in the dispute between the FCC and Comcast over its traffic management policies blocking or slowing BitTorret and other files in violation of FCC network neutrality rules requiring open access. Without addressing whether regulators or Comcast are right in the dispute, it is clear from the company’s response that it has lost sight of it core business. Comcast argues it was engaging in reasonable business practices by limiting the flow of BitTorrent files (often used to download large video, audio, and text files) because they push up the flow of traffic and slow the system. In Comcast’s view, the system and its integrity are its raison d’etre and represent the business it is in. It is easy to understand why the company and its executives might think so. Comcast spends the majority of its effort and personnel creating and maintaining it...

The announcement of the finalists for the 2008 Emmy drama nominations shows how weak major television networks have become and the feeble program strategies they are now employing. AMC’s “Mad Men” and FX’s “Damages” became the first series ever produced by basic tier cable channels to become finalists for best series and they were joined in the 6 nominee list by Showtime for “Dexter”. The results were even worse for networks in the major acting categories: Only 1 of the five Emmy nominees for lead actor and 2 of the five for lead actress went to network programs. Overall, 24 cable network programs received nominations and 7 cable channels received 10 or more nominations. HBO received 85 nominations—beating out all the broadcast networks, Showtime received 20 nominations, and AMC received 20 nominations. Drama is a bellwether of the health of television programming and networks continue to fair poorly. It is a particularly important genre, socially and culturally, because it allows expl...

Fundamental social and technological changes are altering the functions of news media for audiences and advertisers and significantly altering the situations of specific forms of news media. Most of us recognize that form and function are linked together, with the form of objects influenced by their use, economics, and technology (Something architects and designers have recognized for more than a century). Contemporary technology has broken the connection between the traditional forms and functions of news providers and made it possible to serve the functions of legacy news organizations and news distribution in many different forms. This development is undermining the consumer and financial bases of long-established news media. Because they have been in place for so many decades, it is easy to forget that established news media developed their forms within specific economic and technological environments. The form of newspapers and radio and television newscasts developed when new tec...

Five decisive trends are driving changes in the media environment and forcing media companies to change their thinking and operations: media abundance, audience fragmentation and polarization, product portfolio development, the eroding strength of media companies, and a overall power shift in the communications process. Abundance is seen in the dramatic rise in media types and units of media. The growth of media supply is far exceeding the growth of consumption in both temporal and monetary terms. The average number of pages in newspapers tripled in the twentieth century; the number of over-the-air television channels quadrupled since 1960s--supplemented by an average of about fifty-six cable channels in the average home; there are four times as many magazines available as in 1970s; 1.5 million new web pages are created daily, and created and stored knowledge (as measured by information scientists) is growing at a rate of 30 percent a year. We used to think of competition among newspap...