“Is traditional media already dead?” Reginald Addae, Graduate student at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, asked through LinkedIn. “Will hard copy papers and mags survive only as secondary delivery mechanisms and remain available at a price to niche interests (dimensional value-adds for hobby enthusiasts). What is the future of Newspapers?”
That was the same question journalists and advertising veterans were asking in the early 1950’s when TV showed up– is radio dead? During the decades before, radio was THE media. Everyone listened to it. All the advertisers were buying time. Everything was based around it. When TV arrived, the radio shows and radio stars quickly migrated to TV. The audience went with them. TV did radio so much better. The world was transfixed with the tube!
So what happened? Top 40 happened! Rock ‘n’ Roll happened. Disc Jockey’s (a term that hadn’t been used until then) became part of a person’s life. The companies that owned radio stations had to come up with a new way to do buiness. Radio became the way to market music, with disc jockeys going on for usually four hours each. The costs of doing a radio show went down dramatically. Radio became very profitable again and an incredibly important part of people’s lives.
Then came FM radio and the industry went through another Morph. This time music went to FM where it sounded a lot better and AM radio became the home of news and talk radio. Again, very profitable. Everyone was listening to radio and everyone was watching TV, because they became different. I’m sure somebody will think of a way to make paper-based media very important and profitable again!
BTW, television is now going through this as well. It’s not just print. Audiences are shrinking, partly because of all the additional stations through cable, as well as people spending their time in the Web. That’s why there’s so much reality TV. It costs less to produce.
