New at Reason

David Weigel | August 29, 2006

Still feeling the wrath of a hurricane, bombers make Turkey feel the pain, and searching for Al Gore's brain... in the new Reason Express.

Comments

|8.29.06 @ 3:34AM|#

What was the point of the Al Gore item? To call him Marxist using the most hysterically strained rhetoric possible? "Counter-factual" indeed.

Media companies cretainly are consolidating more and more; TV and radio have died as a result, and movies are on their way out, too. If anything, he stated something that is obvious to everyone, Marxist or not.

|8.29.06 @ 6:23AM|#

In Reason's defense, they weren't calling Gore a Marxist, they were merely comparing what passes for his logic.

|8.29.06 @ 6:31AM|#

Question: Did Gore get any $$$ for his inconvenient movie or is he giving all the proceeds to enviromental groups?

|8.29.06 @ 8:47AM|#

WhoWroteThat typed Media companies cretainly are consolidating more and more; TV and radio have died as a result, and movies are on their way out, too.

Quite the opposite...TV and Radio are dying precisely because media is no longer confined to a few networks with sit-and-soak content...think outside the airwaves...I'm spending time interacting on silly blog sites (um, this one not being silly of course)...as an example.

|8.29.06 @ 9:22AM|#

WhoWroteThat just proved Jeff Taylor's point.

|8.29.06 @ 10:25AM|#

"keep doing everything you normally do, expect with 150 mph winds"

I assume that should read "except" rather than "expect".

|8.29.06 @ 12:34PM|#

Way to steal the Express name from the WaPo. I like it.

|8.29.06 @ 4:14PM|#

I just proved the author's point? I asked what the point was!

Quite the opposite...TV and Radio are dying precisely because media is no longer confined to a few networks with sit-and-soak content...think outside the airwaves...

Yes, obviously companies like YouTube, Google, Movable Type, Apple, etc. are spurring the development of new media and forms of content distribution. However, the entire reason this is so is because media corporations have stagnated with conglomeration, becoming reactionary defenders of IP created a hundred years ago instead of innovators. Their shortsightedness (particularly the focus on short-term profit gain and spurious digital copyrights) has prevented fully utilizing the Internet as a distribution method, which is the obvious future.

|8.29.06 @ 7:42PM|#

Consolidation
Boy, they need to find a new schtick:

Media Firms Piece Together New Strategies
Voracious Acquirers of the '90s Shifting Focus to Core Business
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55379-2005Mar21.html

http://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/2005/03/exploding_radio.html

http://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/2005/03/exploding_radio_1.html

http://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/2005/04/media_meltdown.html

Music: sales last year were down 21% from their peak in 1999
Television: network TV's audience share has fallen by a third since 1985

Radio: listenership is at a 27-year low

Newspapers: circulation peaked in 1987, and the decline is accelerating

Magazines: total circulation peaked in 2000 and is now back to 1994 levels (but a few premier titles are bucking the trend!)
Books: sales growth is lagging the economy as whole

Try media DECONSOLIDATION:

Viacom
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/17/business/media/17viacom.html

Viacom reports 4Q losses in excess of $18bn on write-downs
http://www.newratings.com/new2/beta/article_708451.html

More Viacom
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2005/05/29/ccsikl29.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/money/2005/05/29/ixcoms.html

Clear Channel to Dismantle Media Empire
http://www.desmoinesmc.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=180&Itemid=0

http://billboardradiomonitor.com/radiomonitor/news/business/leg_reg/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000912940

Clear Channel Posts $4.7B Quarterly Loss
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050225/earns_clear_channel_12.html

Disney
http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/11/news/fortune500/disney_radio/

AOL
The 'Big Brother' who never was
http://www.mattwelch.com/NatPostSave/AOL.htm

2/3 of media money went to Dems:
http://www.techliberation.com/archives/013853.php

VIACOM
http://slate.msn.com/id/2120877/
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=8794794

|8.29.06 @ 8:54PM|#

I don't have an opinion on the media consolidation issue one way or the other.

I just wanted to say that the silly-assed commie talk in reference to Al Gore is the capitalist equivalent of spelling America with 3 Ks.

Weak, dude.