April 2, 2009

MSM calls Hollywood pot black

HDFilmtools and Chris Meyer noted the troubles in the LA in Mainstream Media Calling Hollywood on its Obsolete Business Model and Circling Around the Drain, while AdAge puts it in the larger context of troubles in most all media segments. See Future May Be Brighter, but It's Apocalypse Now, which starts off with a bang:

'Chicken Little, don your hardhat. Nudged by recession, doom has arrived. The toll will be so vast -- and the institutions of media and marketing are so central to our economy, our culture, our democracy and our very selves -- that it's easy to fantasize about some miraculous preserver of "reach" dangling just out of reach. We need "mass," so mass, therefore, must survive. Alas, economies are unsentimental and denial unproductive. The post-advertising age is under way. This isn't about the end of commerce or the end of marketing or news or entertainment. All of the above are finding new expressions online, and in time will flourish thanks to the very digital revolution that is now ravaging them. The future is bright. But the present is apocalyptic. Any hope for a seamless transition -- or any transition at all -- from mass media and marketing to micro media and marketing are absurd. The sky is falling, the frog in the pot has come to a boil and, oh yeah, we are, most of us, exquisitely, irretrievably f*#$ed [bleep].'

Ad Age seems surprised even though the writing on the wall could be seen for quite awhile. The news business has led the way down; see how it's faring at these websites: Mediashift, News Videographer, Andy Dickinson, Advancing the Story, Ricochet by Chrys Wu, Poynter Institute. And Recovering Journalist recommends a recent Clay Shirky essay and articles in Editor & Publisher that write critically about the newspaper industry's titans and the various alternative business models now proposed.

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