Happy New Year's to all of you who check in to the blog from time to time. As I begin to write this, it is New Year's Day. It was around 28F last night, a bit cold, but not the frigid temps that we had about 3 weeks ago, so I'm not going to complain.
Last night I didn't go anywhere for New Year's, I just laid low. I did some writing, ate some pizza, fed my cat, played my guitar, and listened to the radio.
While I was writing on the computer during the hour after Midnight struck, and the New Year kicked in, I was listening to 1270 kHz AM on my Sangean PR-D5, which is my writing den radio. I was hoping to hear KVMI Tulare or KAJO Grants Pass -- stations that play Adult Contemporary music, and are based in cities that are in more southern latitudes with warmer climates.
Also on 1270 is KTFI, a Catholic radio station out of Idaho, which plays EWTN radio programming. Most Catholic radio stations in the US have varied programming, from teaching, to audio versions of the Mass (sometimes with nice singing of Psalms and the like), to call in shows.
This New Year's, just after Midnight, I was treated to a long piano piece, waving and fading in and out all the way from southern Idaho -- a beautiful version of Debussy's Clair De Lune, which is probably one of the most beautiful piano pieces ever written. In a way, it was a very poignant way to bring in the New Year.
I have no idea who the pianist was on the recording EWTN played, but here is an example of a prominent classical pianist playing the piece.:
Not being all that acquainted with the current state of Classical music, I've never heard of Pascal Roge before. But he definitely sounds good here. That piano is as big as a boat. Wow.
A beautiful piece of music.
And here is what you could call the original version of Clair De Lune -- recorded by the composer Debussy himself, in 1913! He recorded it on a piano roll.:
Later I went downstairs to get some tea, and on my kitchen radio, which I had tuned to NPR (KUOW FM 94.9), there was a story about the decline of newspapers. That definitely caught my ear.
Now, I'm not a terrific NPR listener. I find a lot of their programming a little on the dull side. But they do have the BBC on all night, and some of their newscasts are OK. Anyway, one of the leading stories on New Year's Eve was that newspapers in the US are dying. After I heard the NPR story, I looked up some articles about this subject on the internet. I found an article in Fortune's online magazine that covered the same facts, and I also found a Pew Research article from late in 2022 that covered much of the same territory.
30 PERCENT LESS NEWSPAPERS IN THE US SINCE THE 2000's
The number of newspapers in the US has declined by 30% since 2005, and that decline sped up over the past year. Also, in just in the past decade or so (the Fortune article I read about this same subject is not specific on the timeline) 48,000 Journalists lost their jobs. The Fortune article says that amounts to two thirds of the Journalists that had jobs in the 2000's. In the 1980's, it's estimated there were around 350,000 Journalists in the US. So -- while our population increased from around 230 million people to 340 million, the number of Journalists in the US declined precipitously -- from 350K to 46K or so Journalists -- in just over 35 years.
The Fortune magazine article says that in 2023, approximately 2.5 newspapers in the US shut down for good every week. In 2022, the number of papers that shut down permanently each week was two papers -- so the rate of newspapers shutting down is increasing. My home suburb of 100K people has no local newspaper to speak of. When I was a kid there was a bi-weekly paper, the Renton Record-Chronicle. It was part of a chain of three newspapers, that covered three major suburbs south of Seattle.
I also worked for another suburban chain for about a year. That newspaper chain had five weekly newspapers that covered the entire region from West Seattle to Federal Way. All those papers are long gone. It's an indicator of the miserable state of newspapering in the US today. People don't read print newspapers anymore.
And -- news flash -- they don't really read online papers, either (see below).
Online newspapers aren't really filling the gap. According to famed polling company Pew Research, online newspapers' readership has dropped back to 2014 levels, and is still declining. And the average amount of time spent reading an online newspaper, according to Pew Research, is one minute and 39 seconds. That's down from around 2 minutes an online session just a few years ago. How much news can you really take in, in just one and a half minutes?
And what does this say about the appeal, or durability, of online newspapers?
This decline in US Journalism is happening more to the local newspapers than the big national ones (NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, etc.) -- but even the big national newspapers are feeling the pinch.
For example, in 2023, the Washington Post made 240 positions redundant, and the Los Angeles Times laid off 71 of their staff (The LA Times additionaly cut 115 of their staff in late January, 2024 -- after I wrote this article. Please see Addendum below). The crunch is even hitting other news media -- NPR, whose listenership is dropping while revenues are still (amazingly) increasing, even laid off some people last year. Some news websites, like Jezebel, shut down in 2023.
The NPR story, and others similar to it that I found online (Fortune magazine, as well as several Pew Research articles), paint a picture of Journalism as a declining industry.
Here is a link to the Fortune magazine article I found on this news story.:
Here is the main Pew Research article I found on the state of News in the US today, and most of the statistics look a bit grim. Falling readership rates for Papers, declining audiences for Cable News and some OTA TV services, and declining interest in News -- in all demographics -- since 2016.:
Here is one of the Pew Research articles I found that goes further into the state of Newspapers in America.:
Now, I was trained as a Journalist in college, and I did quite well at it. It was one of the reasons I was able to get a start in radio, as a three-year stint as news director at KCMU (the community-based Seattle FM station that pre-dated KEXP). I never worked more than a year in the newspaper industry itself (and that was in the back shop), however, and I only wrote one article for a local paper as a stringer.
But I've always had an interest in the newspaper industry, and I even wrote two separate articles here, in this blog, about Journalism and Newspapers. One article I wrote was about the decline in Journalistic quality that I'd noticed over the past couple decades, and I thought the rise of the internet was negatively affecting Journalism. The other article I wrote, about the Decline of Mass Media, and how it affects the News Media, covers the subject more extensively.
It looks like I was perhaps correct on both accounts.
Here are the links to those two blog articles.:
This article I wrote concerning what I perceived as the decline in newspaper, and news writing quality, much of which I attributed to the rise of online news media.:
This linked article I wrote some time last year, about the decline of mass media in general -- we are entering a world where there is no real "mass" media -- everything is just "content", and everything is just "media". Online is the great equalizer, and it has its pluses, and minuses. I also cover a lot of statistics that are pertinent to the closing of newspapers and the impending job losses in other traditional media like Radio and Television.:
I still stand by what I said in those two pieces.
As you can tell from the statistics that I've listed, both here in this article, and from what I mentioned in my previous, linked articles here, the malaise hitting Journalism in particular, and the News Industry in general, dates back at least a decade or more. And it's not getting any better. It's like the American people junked Newspapers and News altogether when they shifted their attention away from paper and Over-The-Air media, when they started getting all of their entertainment and information online.
Now, I love the internet. I'm using it right now. I have had just over 101,000 visits to this blog since I opened it up in 2015. The idea that my writings would be read by over 100K people would have been absolutely unthinkable when I was in high school or college. But I do have an audience, thanks to the internet.
I have some music online, available for people to hear -- something I never would have been able to do without the internet.
But the internet -- even though it is a Godsend in many ways -- is causing some problems, especially in how Americans -- and maybe people in other parts of the world -- get their news and information.
NEWSPAPERS: THE CANARY IN THE COALMINE
And newspapers, which are one of the oldest mass media, are dying. It may be a harbinger for nearly all other traditional media as well. AM radio, as most of us in the listening hobby already know, is on the verge. FM radio will be fading away perhaps in 15-20 years. Over the Air broadcasting, with all of its infrastructure costs, will not be with us forever. Magazines and print books are starting to decline in importance, as the big book publishers combine to attempt to stay relevant, and stay alive.
The big movie and TV companies are feeling the pinch. Box Office attendance is down, and streaming doesn't bring in the same amount of money that movie tickets and DVD and VHS sales once did. The big visual (Movie and TV) entertainment conglomerates are struggling, even after dumping so much money into streaming. The most recent reports show that as the big media companies -- like Netflix, Amazon, Apple, and Disney -- invest in streaming, they have to jack up their subscription rates, and/or add commercials to their streams to attempt to keep from losing money.
It ain't workin'.
STREAMING VIDEO IS THE FUTURE -- WHILE IT LOSES SUBSCRIBERS
People are cancelling subscriptions at increasing rates. The streaming world is slowly learning the concept of "price elasticity of demand", i.e., there are only so many price hikes on things like streaming that the average consumer will tolerate, especially in a saturated marketplace. Here is a current news article on the Streaming services' problems.:
Even Netflix, which is apparently gaining profits and has actually added subscribers since the Pandemic, has less average time-spent-viewing by its subscribers than it had a year ago (a decline in one year of 17%).
Here is an article about Netflix's particular successes and problems. 17% percent less watching of their content isn't a great thing. They've also dropped in percentage of viewers overall (7.4% of all viewing in 2023, vs. 7.9% of all viewers in 2022). But, you know? -- it could just be a glitch. There is an interesting chart about halfway down the article, that breaks down the percentage of TV and Video viewing by media -- Broadcast, Cable, Streaming, and 'other'. Streaming is the largest medium used for Visual entertainment, being used for 36% of all viewing.
The music streaming sites are struggling, economically. Pandora and Spotify only rarely show a profit. Apple's costs are nearly 50% of their revenues when it comes to music streaming. Some of the big radio companies' streaming platforms are sustainable, but that is only because a) they still make money off most of their radio stations, and b) they were able to cut deals with the record companies over royalty costs.
But once all of their stations get rid of their antennas and go online-only, that will undoubtedly change. Instantly, the online-only stations will have to pay more in streaming royalties than they presently pay in broadcast royalties. Also, the individual stations' streams on those large platforms will fade into the vast internet static once they become just another faceless channel on the platform. Right now, there are 15,445 radio stations in the US. What's going to happen when all of those 15,445 radio stations are nothing more than channels on a larger platform, with no more unique, local identity, and no primarily local audience?
Here is an article about Spotify and Apple, and it mentions that Apple pays out 52 cents in costs for every dollar earned from their music streaming services.:
The big radio companies' platforms now deliver online streams for the local radio stations, along with the big platform's own music streaming channels. And the local stations can send people to the big platform to hear the local stations', and big platforms' own, independent streams. IHeart is an example of this, and Audacy also has a large streaming platform for its stations.
But once those local stations go off the air, the big platforms running their streams will become just another Pandora and Spotify. There will be no local stations on the air to promote the stations. The stations themselves will be much like online newspapers are now -- just another faceless cog in a big, big wheel. Except -- once they are digital only, their royalty costs will be much higher, because digital music royalties are higher than over-the-air broadcast royalties are. And once the local stations go online only, the tendency for their listeners to drift to other, nationally based streaming services will only increase.
And the corporate radio streaming platforms will end up saturated with 15,000 channels with few listeners per channel, higher royalty costs, and undoubtedly much lower revenue.
It's thanks to all the digital and online competition.
Newspapers are, of course, the canary in the coalmine. Print costs of the paper versions are expensive, and not getting any cheaper. The online versions aren't bringing in enough revenues to keep smaller papers from folding and the bigger ones from laying off staff and using AI to fill in for some reporting and editing.
The newspapers' plight is an indicator of the troubles that all traditional media face when they're dealing with nearly infinite online competition.
A cup of hot coffee, and a print newspaper to read during lunch hour -- it's looking more and more antiquated as the years progress.
THE PROBLEM WITH PAYWALLS -- THEY CAN DRIVE READERS AWAY
One issue that could be affecting the decline in the newspaper audience isn't mentioned in the press, and that is the increasing use of paywalls to limit online readers to only those who are paid subscribers. Sometimes you don't even get one or two free stories before the paywall kicks in.
Although this seems at first blush to be a practical and proper idea, being that a) no one should be working for free, and b) those who read the print newspapers either had to pay at the news box or they subscribed for delivery -- paywalls also have their negatives. First off, any time I see a news article appearing in my social media news feed, and I click on the article, and find that it's behind a paywall, I don't read it. They may get a click out of me (using their headlines as clickbait?), but they're not getting my readership, nor am I seeing their ads.
It's a bit irritating, because the paywalled stories often appear in my news feed -- and often it's a distant news magazine, news site, or non-local paper. If something is in my news feed, I should be able to at least read that item. After all, the papers who do this not only want clicks, they want "engagement". How can they get engagement from far away readers if the story that they place on people's news feeds is behind a paywall?
So, how many readers, and potential readers, are these papers losing by being super tight with their paywall? Some of the papers and news mags / sites I've seen in my news feed I've never read before. I don't even have a chance to get the 1 or 2 free stories out of them before the paywall occurs.
It just often seems counterproductive -- especially for an industry that is losing readers and losing revenues year to year. I know that running everything for free won't bring in revenue, but tight paywalls definitely aren't helping many of these news sites, papers, and periodicals either.
Tight paywalls may be part of the reason for the Pew Research statistic that the "average" time spent reading an online newspaper is about one and a half minutes. That's enough time to discover that the article is paywalled.
FACING THE REALITY -- THE NATURE OF ALL MEDIA HAS CHANGED
Sooner or later, that sector of the news media has to realise that internet commerce is a completely different business model from the old, traditionally delivered one. Online news and entertainment media is not just an online version of the traditional newspaper, radio or TV media.
Online is a completely different animal.
Online you have nearly INFINITE competition. It's just the reality of online news, music, and information delivery. Everything has been reduced to just another form of "Content". As I mentioned previously, I've seen this reality in the eBook world.
Visibility is everything, and Competition is IMMENSE. That usually means you're going to make less money than you did under the old model.
Further, you're going to have plan on making less money off the new model, than you made off the old model. Because you are competing with a gazillion other "content" creators, who are turning out stuff just like yours.
So, in my view, newspapers -- online or the remaining paper ones -- have a tough job cut out for them. I don't envy them. But, being an eBook creator, I get it. In a business model where there are basically no gatekeepers and the marketplace in every genre is saturated with content, it's a tough slog trying to get seen, and trying to gain revenue.
It can be done, but not easily. In 1995 or even 2005, I wouldn't have been published. No one would have published my books. My revenues from book writing would have been zero. Today, I make modest money. It's better than nothing. I can go to eBook publisher and author forums and see that most of them are probably just making a modest amount of money. Some of them, however, pay more in marketing than they make off of their book sales. Because of all the competition.
But under the old model -- the print model -- probably 99% of them would never have had a chance. Under the new, online electronic media model, they at least can gain an audience, even if their income from selling their books is modest.
This is what the newspapers face. And it's also what radio faces when it goes all online.
I don't envy them. There will be thousands more jobs lost. Radio, in particular, will be gutted. Most newspapers will be the same way. Less money will be made per unit of content produced -- be it news, music, or other "content". But it's the reality, and there's no putting the genie back into the bottle.
MANTISSA -- Kickass Oz Rock From Melbourne, 1993!!
I shall end this article with another music video or two, these ones being quite a bit different from the Debussy ones above.
How about some Mantissa?
Of course, you probably never heard of them. But you should have.
Mantissa were a relatively short-lived Australian rock band that got attention playing pubs and clubs in the Melbourne area in the very early 1990's. Formed originally in 1989, they called themselves Killing Time, until they got signed to a US record label in 1992, and it was found that an East Coast punk rock band already had that name. So they changed their name to Mantissa, apparently the title of a book they liked.
Mantissa played a mix of hard rock, metal, and grunge. The 'grunge' was mostly their clothing and attitude. After all, the grunge music and fashion explosion had hit Australia, just as it had hit the rest of the world. Mantissa also had some songs that sounded clearly like alternative rock, without the metal sounding guitars. They also had a chick bass player, who was a co-writer on a lot of their songs -- not unlike White Zombie. Women were getting more recognition in rock music in the 1990's.
Their one US album, Mossy God, is no longer available, unless you can find a used CD somewhere. This seems to be the case with a lot of 1990's and 2000's era, second and third tier, signed rock bands. I can't even find the whole Mossy God album online at YouTube -- there are several tracks available, though, along with some early Killing Time-era live performances.
I first learned of Mantissa when the CD single came into my place of work. The single never got used by our rock formats, and the CD single was placed in the grab bin. I grabbed it.
Here's the track -- Mary Mary. Like most Oz rock of the time, it KICKS. This is the official audio from the album track.:
Blogger's search doesn't bring up the actual video panel to the official video -- where the band is shown on a Sydney region freeway bridge (that was under construction at the time), and in a rural location near Healesville, Victoria -- but here is a link to it. Just click it and it will take you to YouTube where you can see it.:
The cinematic photography for the Mary Mary official vid looks 90's to the max!
This next vid is the official vid for the track that was on the CD single I've still got. It's a live recording of Mantissa playing Mary Mary at the Big Day Out in Melbourne in 1993. The Big Day Out was a massive festival in Australia during the 1990's -- it was similar in bent to the Lollapalooza Festival here in the US. And, just like Lollapalooza, it travelled from city to city. In the case of the Big Day Out, they played the major capital cities in Australia -- Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, and Perth (I'm not sure if they played Hobart and Darwin).
Big Day Out went away not too long after the Grunge and Nu-Metal eras faded.
Although it's clear that the band here are playing parts to another track (by looking at the guitar chords and the like), the video gives a good picture of what it was like for a band to play the Big Day Out, and the recording here is definitely live. Being that Blogger's YouTube search doesn't bring it up, I can only insert the link. Click it and it will take you there.
Here is another track by Mantissa, Land Of The Living. It's another single that was released during the Mossy God years, 1993-1994. Not too long after this, the band disbanded. Another victim of varying trends during the 1990's, as well as the difficulty for even a great band like Mantissa to break the US when there was such a plethora of great rock, pop, and alt music on the radio during that incredible decade.:
Land Of The Living also has an official video, which Blogger's search function couldn't seemingly find. Here is a link to it on YT.:
I hope that this article finds my readers everywhere doing well. The holiday season is now behind us -- except some parts of Scandinavia, which apparently hold off until the "20th day of Christmas" (Tjugondag Jul in Sweden) to take down their Christmas tree. Whether that custom still is common, I have no idea.
But for most of us, it's back to the grind again. Here in Western WA, it means more cold and rain. Lately, we've managed to avoid the 25-28 degree temperatures F that we experienced in late November and early December.
2024 is upon us. In the US, that means election year, and all the junk that goes with it. I plan on getting some projects done this year, and being that my boss is retiring, I'll have more time to do them in.
Let's all hope that 2024 is better than 2023 was.
Until next time, my friends,
Peace.
C.C., January 2nd and 3rd, 2024. Re-edited on January 5th, with a news article on video streaming services losing subscription added. January 16th I corrected the call letters of KTFI Twin Falls (I had mistakenly typed in KTWI).
ADDENDUM, January 24th, 2024: The Los Angeles Times is reported to layoff approximately 20% of its remaining workforce (about 115 people), even after its owner propped the paper up with $1 Billion (after purchasing the paper with $500 Million) since he purchased the LA Times in 2018.
The owner, a billionaire, reportedly has lost "tens of millions of dollars" from the paper's operations, including a loss of $40 Million last year. The second article below states that the LA Times' staff had previously been cut from 1,200 to 500.
Here is an article about the layoffs from MSN (the article exhibits some bias):
And another article on the LA Times' problems:
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