Over the past several years, there has been much talk about the polarization of media, especially the news media in the US. As politics in the United States has become more polarized, people have begun to prefer their favorite news sources over those which may favor opposing viewpoints.
If I had a dollar for every time I've heard the phrase "I bet you got that from Fox News" I'd easily be 100 dollars richer. Now, I don't watch TV, so I don't watch cable news networks. I get my news from the radio, and some online sources -- generally news aggregators. I have my opinions, but I try to keep my mind open about things. As I worked for 20 years in the news and broadcast media, I am a little dismayed at some of the directions it is taking. But, at the same time, there are positive aspects to the change.
I think what we're seeing is the dismantling, and in many respects, the democratization, of the mass media. The "mass media" doesn't seem so "mass" anymore.
As the older media -- newspapers, magazines, radio, TV networks -- start to fade in importance, increasing numbers of Americans get their news from online sources, be it a cable news video posted online, or a news aggregator like MSN or Yahoo news.
Although the shift of journalism going online hasn't necessarily killed journalism, there are some very disturbing trends, not just in journalism, but also in broadcast and music media -- all related to the change from old media (newspapers, paper books, radio and TV, CD's, DVD's, movie houses, etc.) to the new media (everything being internet "content").
Exit the Big Singing Star
A couple weeks ago I wrote a post here about the decline in the hit music industry, describing how the recording companies are having issues adjusting to the new, online music paradigm. I also suggested that the lack of great new hit music might be a result of this change.
There are fewer and fewer really big singing stars. That is partly because the recording and entertainment industry has less of a hold on the American music consumer than they did even 10 years ago, when Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Kesha, and Pitbull were household names, and were turning out great hit music.
Now, even radio professionals admit that there are no more big singing stars. The loss of the big stars hurts the music industry, as it reduces visibility for their product. There no longer are famous faces to promote the industry as a whole.
There has been a drastic shift from music purchasing (i.e. buying CDs, MP3's and the like) to the streaming subscription model. We see this trend in software and even books (with Amazon leading the way with their "Kindle Unlimited", eBook subscription model). This has cut into revenues for many artists and authors.
More Books = More Competition
In the case of book publishing, the subscription model, as well as the rise of the easily produced, paper-free, and independently produced eBook has caused the book publishing pie to get bigger, while each author's slice is smaller. Many in the independent author trade have seen the effects of this increased competition even since 2011 and 2012, when there was an eBook boom.
An example of the 'blockbuster novel', circa 2011. James Patterson is a prime example of a top-selling author who knows how to adapt with the times. He practically invented the idea of using TV advertisements for selling novels. Then he sped up production of his novels, by using co-writers. Almost half of the books in his 'backlist' (listed on the last several pages of the book in this picture) were co-written, with Patterson doing editing and refining. He changed the concept of the sole author into the idea of the author as a 'brand' -- where his name and style are the 'brand', with production being turned over largely to a team of co-authors. His idea of fast and frequent book production, by using a team, is copied by probably thousands of other authors today.
However, Patterson -- and other top authors like him -- now have literally thousands of competitors, thanks to the democratization of book publishing. There used to be the 'Big 5' publishers and a few hundred smaller book publishers in the US. Now, technically, there are thousands of independent publishers -- many who sell thousands of dollars' worth of books a month -- thanks to the E-Book, and thanks to the new Internet Book Publishing Model.
...And Ad Revenue Drops
Along with this 'subscription model' trend, advertising revenues and royalties have dropped for individual media platforms -- the overall pie has enlarged, but each individual slice gets smaller and smaller. Newspapers took a massive hit in the late 1990s-early 2000s when free, online classified ads took a huge chunk out of their revenue. Major daily newspapers used to have maybe ten pages of classified ads, each ad running a week or so, costing maybe 3-5 bucks. When online, free ads became popular, a single daily newspaper probably lost thousands of dollars of revenue every month.
One prominent newspaper owner stated in an interview that "[free online classified ads] destroyed the daily, and the weekly newspaper business." He saw revenues dive as soon as prominent online classified ads took hold nationwide. He wasn't alone.
Here is an article that backs up that newspaper owner's opinion. It claims that daily newspapers received up to 40% of their revenue from classified ads, which dried up after online, free classifieds became popular.:
Deregulation and Recession Take Their Toll
At roughly the same time, the music and broadcast industry took hits from the 2008 Recession and the great online boom. Radio advertising revenues were cut by nearly 50% between 2005 and 2020, and radio employment was slashed by over 20% during the same time period. Over the same 15 years, royalties had dived for most recording artists, because the streaming model just doesn't pay as much as CD, LP, Cassette, and MP3 sales did. Musicians are always complaining about the low streaming royalties. But the streaming platforms can only charge so much for subscriptions, and can only pay out so much in royalties, so they can stay afloat.
And because no one buys music anymore, that source of income has disappeared.
As one can tell, the entire world of what we used to call Mass Media -- radio, TV, newspapers, recorded music, books, movies, videos, and journalism in general -- has taken a huge hit as everything finally went online between 2005-2020. Mass Media was exactly that -- various media that had mass appeal, and also had mass audience.
That has changed.
I have reached the conclusion that we are entering a phase where there is NO MORE MASS MEDIA.
A Soundgarden CD. Remember CD's? Remember CD stores? Remember when people used to buy music? People don't buy music anymore. They rent it -- mostly for free. Not that free is entirely bad. For years, you could hear music on the radio for free, and no one complained about that. But now, there is NO purchasing of music, except by collectors and people, like myself, who still like CD's.
It just doesn't happen. And the music industry, unfortunately, is suffering for it.
WHAT ACTUALLY IS 'MASS' MEDIA?
Now, perhaps I should mention the definition here, of what the term "Mass Media" actually means. According to my American Heritage Dictionary (Fourth Edition, 2001, p. 520), "Mass Media" is: "A means of public communication reaching a large audience."
I guess the question here is: What is a 'large audience'? For example, my post here has the potential of reaching millions of readers. But is this blog truly a "mass medium"? I've had 80,000 blog views in the 8 years this blog has been in existence. That's maybe 10K views a year. Although I am grateful for every reader, that number is small when compared to some blogs and YT video channels, that get that many views in a week, or even a day.
Is that truly evidence that an internet blog is a "mass medium"?
And at what point is a media considered "mass"? At 1000 views? 10,000 views? 100K? One million? The definition of what makes a media a "mass media" seems to be evolving.
I would think that 'mass media' is something that reaches hundreds of thousands, or millions of people -- be it by radio, newspaper or magazine, TV show, hit recording, movie, etc.
And I see the extensive reach of the Mass Media slowly eroding. In 1967, CBS Evening News announcer Walter Cronkite had between 27-30 million viewers a night, during a time that the United States had 150 million people. That was a time when America truly had what we could call "Mass Media".
Here is a link to a Forbes Magazine article about the heyday of TV network news, during Cronkite's era.:
The highest rated TV news shows in the US today have only 3-4 million viewers, and the US has more than twice the population it did in 1967.
Something has changed along the way. I think that 'something' is the internet.
From MASS MEDIA to Millions of Individual 'CONTENT PROVIDERS' --
In Just One Decade
To explain my concerns here, I must go back in time.
I grew up when music was all purchased via LP record or cassette, and it was something you heard on the radio. I grew up in a world where the big three networks (CBS, ABC, NBC and you could also add CNN after the 1980s) gave you the news. For more analysis, newspapers and magazines gave you the backgrounds. We all (or most families) read Time, Life, US News and World Report, and Newsweek.
Every other house got the daily newspaper. Everyone watched the same TV shows. When MTV hit, everyone who had cable watched it at least some of the time. Everyone knew who the big rock and pop stars were. We all had the same records, tapes, and CD's we listened to. We all listened to the same radio stations. We all saw the same movies. We often watched the same movies when they were available for purchase or rental at video stores.
We all didn't think or believe the same, but we all had something in common -- the news and entertainment that we consumed and enjoyed.
Remember the Blockbuster movie? (pun intended -- that Blockbuster store sticker was a rental I bought when the Renton store was closing) Yes, Hollywood still turns out movies, but nearly all the promo clips I've seen online for 'movies' have been streaming-only productions. I saw one movie trailer about a month ago. Every other 'trailer' was for a streaming-only feature. The future of Hollywood is streaming. And it's changing how we view movies, and also blurred the distinction between the 'big screen' and the 'little screen'. Look out for more changes as moviehouses close and the day of the blockbuster movie fades away.
The DEATH OF THE VIDEO STORE AND RECORD STORE
As recently as the late 2000's we went to record stores, where we often bought the same CD's, LP's, and cassettes. We went to book stores (including chains that are long gone like Borders) and bought the same books. We went to video stores like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video and bought the same DVDs and VHS tapes. If we weren't buying the same items, we all knew about the other artists and stars that other people were into.
We all went to the same news and magazine stands, and most people at least knew what other people were reading, if we weren't reading it, too.
Everyone may not have bought the exact same recordings, books or movies, but we all knew what the best sellers were. In the book publishing world, there were more than just four big publishers, and more than just a handful of successful, top-selling, big name authors. Most big name authors actually wrote their own books, as opposed to the writing 'teams' that are popular now, where a big name author is little more than a brand.
I grew up in a world where there truly was a "Mass Media". Everyone had some form of media in common. If we didn't listen to the same radio stations, maybe we watched the same TV show. If we didn't read the same books, maybe we read the same magazines.
Now? There are few bookstores. There are no video stores. There are no record stores. There are almost no news kiosks and magazine stores and newstands. All of that is gone. Less people listen to the radio, or the same radio stations. Everyone has their own, individual internet streaming 'playlist'. Everyone has their own favorite source of news and opinion, and less people have the same sources in common.
Common Set of Stars, Common Sets of Facts
The extensive reach of every form of mass media when I was growing up gave most people something in common, something with which we could relate to each other, more often than not in a positive way.
We all were influenced by the Mass Media.
It was so important that my parents encouraged me to study mass media and journalism in college. They actually had a course called "Introduction to Mass Media", with a textbook on it (which I still have). I took the courses, and I did very well at it.
MASS MEDIA TO INDIVIDUAL MEDIA
But my field, Mass Media, changed during the 2000s, when the internet started to become popular. It took maybe a decade for the internet to mature to the nearly infinite conglomerate of literally millions of content websites that it is now.
Today, we are entering a new age where there are millions and millions of music videos by hundreds of thousands of artists -- and all have the exact same reach. I have several songs on Soundcloud. Technically, I have the same reach as every other artist -- big name or little name -- who has songs posted there -- or anywhere.
I have several books for sale on Amazon. Technically, my books have the same potential reach that James Patterson's books do. There is no gatekeeper to prevent me -- and literally MILLIONS of other authors and MILLIONs of books -- from competing with a James Patterson or a Michael Crichton.
The internet has become the great equalizer.
An Extreme Example of the Change in the Nature of Mass Media:
THE DISAPPEARING PORN STAR
A classic example of a mass media industry in flux, thanks to the internet content model, is porn. Whether one likes it or not, it's an industry that has been around for decades. And for at least a couple decades it was an industry where there were video and movie production companies, and some big names and -- for lack of a better word -- big porn stars.
Even as late as the early 2000s there were porn stars who almost became household names. There were maybe a handful of companies that made big money, most of them based in Los Angeles and Miami. You could go into any adult store nationwide and you would see the same DVDs and VHS tapes for sale, all put out by the same 20 or 30 companies.
That has changed. Today, it's all online content. There is one website alone that hosts over 750,000 individual porn (and other) content providers, and that number increases daily. And that's just one porn content provider's website. There are online porn chat sites with hundreds of thousands of 'content providers'. And those individual 'content providers' make money off of their numerous 'subscribers'. There are also porn sites with hundreds, if not thousands of individual "channels", featuring couples and individuals who sometimes have hundreds of 'subscribers'.
Now, regardless of how one may view something as controversial as the porn industry, it is indeed a de facto industry, with more than one site making multiple millions of dollars a year, per site.
It's All Gone Individual
And it's all gone individual, from an industry where there were actual companies, to the domain of the sole proprietor. Porn used to be a billion dollar industry in the US, with a handful of key, dominant companies, and maybe a hundred stars during any given year. Now it's probably making even more money, but there are no stars.
Any girl or couple with a smartphone or webcam can make thousands of dollars and be a 'star'. And hundreds of thousands of them, worldwide, are doing just that. And to their numerous 'fans' -- they are indeed like 'stars'.
....AND MODELLING TOO
Along with the democratization of the porn industry, the modelling industry has also changed in a similar manner, where the 'middleman' -- the magazine publisher -- is bypassed. Now, on some social media, one can find literally thousands of enterprising women, modelling, promoting their own social media, and engaging with fans. When I was younger, there were 'supermodels'. Now there are literally thousands of them. All thanks to the internet.
The porn industry and the modelling industry have both gone in the same direction most music has... And most books have. And it's gone the direction a lot of audio-visual production has gone. It's gone the same direction the news industry is now heading. And you could include every other sector of the mass media.
It's an extreme example of the shift from mass media to individual, internet content.
And this trend does not just pertain to entertainment. It also applies to the NEWS MEDIA. And that part of this trend is the most disturbing.
THE NEWS INDUSTRY -- SLICED AND DICED
So, let's talk about the News industry. I was trained as a journalist in college. I edited college newspapers, and when I got out of college I worked for about a year at a newspaper chain, and then when I graduated from the University I was a news director at a community radio station for three years.
I trained people to write news, and to announce the news over the air.
For a while, being in a big news operation -- be it a radio station, or a newspaper -- was my dream. That disappeared after the three year stint as a community radio news director, when I became exhausted from overwork. That dream also ended when I realised there clearly wasn't much money in writing news. A starting reporter in a big city barely made enough money to rent an apartment there. And if you wanted to get ahead in newspapers, you had to move to the sticks. And they wouldn't pay you much. And even if you succeeded there, the bigger cities' newspapers weren't hiring. Because even then, in the early 1990's, the news and journalism industry was changing. The papers were hiring less and less people. The news industry had already started its long, slow decline.
In the bigger picture, there was consolidation of major news and print-media organizations, and the shuffling off of personnel that often accompanies such consolidations. But in the smaller picture -- the 'picture' that the budding journalist has to deal with -- the industry was already shrinking from competition from TV, cable, and the internet.
As the years progressed (during the decade and a half that I was working in the radio industry as a masterer / sound engineer) the journalism and broadcast industry shrank. Radio shed 80-100K workers after the Telecom Deregulation Act of 1996. As the internet took hold, newspapers lost more and more circulation. Newspapers folded. Two local, suburban newspaper chains folded during the 1990's. Others consolidated operations with other newspapers before folding.
Approximately 50% Fewer Journalists, in Only 13 Years
And the data tells us that the news industry has actually shrunk in size, literally. In 2008 there were approximately 114,000 people working in journalism in the United States (according to Pew Research). That number, by the way, was undoubtedly a decrease from the 1980's, when the number was probably closer to 150,000, or possibly even higher than that (there are estimates that in 2010 the number of journalism workers was half of what it was during its peak in the 1980's, which would make the number of journalists in the 80's to be around 220,000).
Just last year, in 2021, there were only 85,000 journalism workers in the entire U.S., according to Pew Research. The number dived, in just 13 years, by just over a quarter. The trend is disturbing, as the Pew Research report indicates that journalism is more centralized, increasingly based out of just a few major cities, and less and less journalists are available to interpret local politics or news.
However, if one looks at the Bureau of Labor Statistics tables, the number of journalists in the United States is even smaller: only 46,700. You can see that awesome bit of data here.:
That would be closer to a 50% drop in numbers.
Think of it. The entire number of journalists and news reporters in the U.S. is smaller than number of people in Wenatchee, Washington (a very fine city and metro area of around 45,000 on the Columbia River in Eastern Washington).
Do you think that the major news media are out of touch? The smaller number of people working in the news industry may be the reason why.
Couple that with the decline in ratings for the major news networks, it is a slightly disturbing trend -- Americans are less served, and probably less informed because of it. The decrease, industry wide, in the number of viewers of cable news networks means that they get more and more shrill as they compete for the smaller numbers of overall viewers.
Does that really serve the American people? I'll let you decide.
I think that journalism has also declined in overall quality at least partially because of these changes. I wrote an article several years ago about the Decline of Journalism in the US. I think my observations then (in 2016) still hold true today.:
Here is a link to the Pew Research article about the decline in Journalism workers.:
A radio (and a very good one, I might add). Now, those of us older than age 30 know what a 'radio' is. But today, even radio professionals are musing over what the definition of 'Radio' really is. Is it streaming? Is it podcasts? Is it something you get from a satellite (like Sirius)? Is it any form of 'broadcast', audio-based information or entertainment? They don't know. There is no one definition, and there is no one, single answer.
AND RADIO LOSES EVEN MORE JOBS
As many of my readers probably know, I worked in the Radio industry for nearly 20 years -- 16 years at one company, and just over three years at two different radio stations.
While I was employed at my last full-time radio-industry job, the Telecom Act of 1996 was passed by Congress, and signed into law by President Clinton. The long term effect of the Act on the radio industry is debatable, but the long-term effect on the average radio worker was a net negative. Radio companies went on a buying spree. Then, with the aid of the computer and internet technology, they consolidated operations, getting rid of workers in the process.
A lot of jobs were lost in the years following. We even saw a few layoffs where I worked, due to the company being bought and sold, along with the accompanying consolidation. I finally lost my last radio job in December, 2006, when the company bought our largest competitor and eliminated the division where I worked.
Since 2008 Radio has shed 20% more of its workers. It is a shrinking industry. It's making about half of the money than it was in the 2000's, and it has less workers than it did in 2005. A lot of the blame might be due to the way the industry is run, but actually, Radio is adapting to the new, internet paradigm.
At the radio forum websites, the pros talk about this. And often the subject comes up: What really constitutes 'radio'? Is a stream actually 'radio'? Are podcasts 'radio'? Are Spotify and Pandora -- two streaming websites that are taking listeners away from radio stations -- are they actually 'radio'?
It seems that every segment of what used to be the Mass Media -- Radio, TV, the Music Industry, the Movie Industry, Newspapers and Journalism -- they all are asking the same question: What really is the 'media' anymore?
Conclusion: We Have an 18TH CENTURY Media Model in the 21st
Now, I'm not a big fan of everybody conforming to the same tastes, where everyone is cookie cutter. I'm not a big fan of everybody having to believe the same politics, or everyone having to have the exact same taste in music or books or movies or holding the exact same views on news and world events.
But at the same time, I am concerned that we are entering a world where everyone has their own, personal set of facts, and less and less people have things in common. When there are no big singing stars, we have less in common to enjoy and share. When there are a gazillion news sources, all of them opinionated (like we have in the US now), we have less and less common ground from which to find ways to get along when we have differences of opinion politically, or otherwise.
It almost seems as if we are going backwards, to the era where people lived in isolated valleys and remote regions, and their only "media" was localized, based completely on the local tastes, and all external information was fragmented or partial, depending on the odd newspaper that made its way there, or some traveller telling them what's going on in the next valley.
The main difference is that it's now all electronic. But the concept is the same: completely and utterly fragmented.
We're not there yet, but I fear that we are getting there. And what will it do to society? Is it a net plus? Or is it a net minus?
Many of my readers in other countries probably aren't in exactly the same situation. In their countries there are state and federal news media, government broadcasters, government radio networks, government TV networks, and the like -- networks and broadcasters that everyone watches or follows. But here in the wide open U.S., it's like the Wild West right now when it comes to news media and mass media, and I do not think the present trend is particularly good for society as a whole, even though it may benefit individual people in the short run.
It's just not really healthy for a society to have an 18th or 19th Century, fragmented media model when you have a 21st Century set of problems to deal with.
I try to be a positivist, however. People can adapt and thrive. Perhaps my fears, which I've expressed here, aren't valid. But the increasing fragmentation of American society, and the transformation of Mass Media into individualistic, free-form and often fact-free media -- where even the definitions of words are changeable from day to day, and people have less and less in common -- just doesn't look great right now.
One can only hope for the best. After all, the rise of the internet has not only dismantled the Mass Media, it has also democratized it.
And democracy is a good thing, right?
I will end this blog article on a lighter note: with a cat picture. My cat Fluffy, when she was a kitten. I almost lost her to illness in August and September, but she came through OK. I always make sure to pick her up and pet her a couple times a day, thankful that she survived.
When she got older, she took to liking the bathroom sink.:
And with that, I hope all my readers are well and healthy. If you're a muso (Australian slang for "musician"), keep playing that guitar. If you're one of my fellow radio aficionados, keep listening. You never know what you'll hear. :-)
Until next time,
Peace.
C.C., February 11th, 2022.
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