It’s been a very interesting past few weeks with a bunch of stories relating to the death of older news and journalism models (daily newspapers) and the emerging models that hope to replace the dailies. Below are a few of the stories that have caught my attention…

• On the old model front, Gannett has cut 1,000 more people from its payroll, and McClatchy’s efforts to restructure its massive, crippling debt load failed miserably. An extremely insightful, detailed analysis of Gannett’s debt reveals just how rapidly that company’s balance sheet has deteriorated and how perilously close to insolvency the once stalwart publisher truly is.

• Also on the old media front, USA Today shuttered ‘Open Air,’ its quarterly magazine targeting more affluent readers, and Tribune also ceased publishing its weekly Sunday magazine.

• Even smaller dailies, who had seemed somewhat immune to the travails of their big-city brethren, are feeling the impact of the web as well as the current economic meltdown. Deal activity in that segment of the media landscape is rising, and valuations present some interesting opportunities.

• Despite the grim news, there are signs that things may have bottomed and that at the current prices, certain media companies present compelling investment opportunities. Even Sam Zell appears to have found a buyer for his Cubs and Wrigley and his cable business. While below initial estimates, the fact that it might get done at all in the current environment is amazing.

• Another positive sign for the dailies is the fact that some are beginning to see returns on their investments in emerging media and technology. Even despite some embarrassing missteps and the fact that many investments are still in their very early stages, there is hope that the flurry of activity over the past few years, while perhaps too late, might have a chance in salvaging some value for the large dailies.

• Even Google is helping the cause of publishers by helping pave the way for customized news delivery.

• On a much smaller scale, some monthly magazines like Men’s Health have even figured out how to capitalize on the iPhone phenomena to create a nice little recurring revenue stream.

• One thing certain to not work for any daily paper is charging for the vast majority of its daily news content. Some will try, and perhaps one or two (NYT & WSJ) might be able to succeed at some minimal level, but the pay for content model is a death sentence for anyone else.

• A bunch of stories have sprung up recently about emerging new models for online news and journalism such as Huffington Post and Politico seeking to fill the vacuum being created by the implosion of the dailies. Debates are raging as to whether Huffington Post, in particular, is a credible, high-quality source of journalism, news, and opinion or a trashy parasite, and the arguments on both sides are both enlightening, interesting, and entertaining.

While the abuse that traditional media receives on a daily basis (i.e., it’s dying, they’re dinosaurs, they don’t get it, they’re clueless, etc.) is probably excessive, exaggerated, and in some cases even unfair, there is little doubt that much of it is accurate and well deserved. Examples of the missteps both large and small that media companies, and especially the behemoth conglomerates, occur virtually every day, and commenting on them has lost its luster of late and even generates scorn and derision from some in the new media camp.

Nevertheless, I had to chuckle when I read an article on Forbes.com about the sexiest TV commercials ever and the interactive feature that they embedded aside the story was a slideshow of photo stills from those commercials. Here’s a story on what should be a very technologically capable website about VIDEO and they DON’T HAVE ANY VIDEOS! I wouldn’t have commented on it at all, but the caption ‘In pictures: judges pick the steamiest TV commercials ever’ under the photo slideshow was too priceless to let slide by…

Someone actually took the time to capture screen shots of the videos and assemble them in a slideshow, but they couldn’t spend an extra 5 minutes compiling the video clips from Youtube and embedding them in the story. It’s laughable to imagine the conversation that took place where the decision was made to not do so.

Mind boggling.

The tectonic shifts transforming the media and advertising landscape have always been fascintaing to me a stand as one of the central areas of focus of this blog. And while the earthquakes and volcanos along the fault lines are worthy of the headlines they grab, I am equally intrigued by the smaller events and more subtle (and not always so subtle) tensions that are constantly taking place as the traditional media plate gets subducted underneath the new media plate. This subduction zone seems to be generating peak activity these days (I’ll save the record-length list of story items for another post) and has now even been put to music. Mad Avenue Blues is a little long, but for anyone in the media, advertising, search, web, or tech/software business, it’s worth watching in its entirety.

(Thanks Lief for the link)

In December of 2007, I made some predictions for 2008, one of which centered around a major metro market in the U.S. losing its daily newspaper altogether. While the timing may have been a little early, there is little doubt that it will come true in 2009. The only question that remains is which city will win the race. For the last few months, the frontrunners included Chicago, Minneapolis, and Detroit. Seattle will certainly lose one of its dailies, and appears to be working hard to work itself into contention by losing both. Handicappers should not overlook other dark horses in back of the pack such as Buffalo and St. Louis either. And after last weekend, Philadelphia roared up to the front of the pack, and now San Francisco is making a late charge. It’s already a crowded field with more entrants every week in a race that’s anyone’s to win.

The most recent biennial news consumption survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press confirms that the web contiues to displace traditional media as the primary source of news for most Americans. A Research Brief from the Center for Media Research not only provides an excellent snapshot of the 4 distinct segments today’s news audience (Integrators, Net-Newsers, Traditionalists, and the Disengaged), but also highlights the other findings from Pew. Among them is the fact that newspaper readership continues to decline precipitously. Between 2006 and 2008, the number of Americans that read the daily newspaper on a ‘typical’ day fell from 40% to 34%. Audiences fell for other traditional news sources as well, including radio, local TV news, and network morning news. Cable news audiences have shown impressive growth in that same period, and network nightly news rose slightly. Not surprisingly, the fastest growing source of news among media channels was the web with a 19% increase between 2006 and 2008.

The most depressing statistic from the survey was the fact that 33% of respondents younger than 25 reported that they get no news whatsoever on a typical day, up from 25% in 1998.

It seems that more and more stories are popping up about the value of multimedia, multi-channel advertising strategies. The most recent was a study by Integrated Media Measurement which found, not surprisingly given both the source and the topic being studied, that advertising on more than one media platform increased the effectiveness of the campaign (see the June 24th press release from IMMI). Being a part of a company whose value proposition is founded on that principle, these stories are always both rewarding and amusing to read. They are obviously rewarding because they further validate JobDig’s business model based on delivering recruitment advertising solutions to employers that truly incorporate print, the web (web ads plus digital media such as podcasts, email, digital newsletters, etc.), radio, and TV.

But these stories are also amusing for many reasons. First, the value of real multimedia, multi-channel, multi-platform media and advertising is so obvious. I am not talking about the fake, weak, or silly attempts that so many media companies and ad agencies have tried over the years, but the legitimate cross-platform integration that has always existed in various forms (at least for the past few decades) but is becoming more and more prevalent every day. It’s like reading about a comprehensive, multi-million dollar study that proves that exercise and smart eating habits are good for you. They have to be done and people need the hard proof, but they always run the risk of being somewhat pointless.

Secondly, the pathetic attempts that some media companies and ad agencies make in how they construct multi-channel campaigns and media offerings are a mockery. There are plenty of solid solutions that do truly qualify, but there are even more that are worthy of scorn and derision. It is these shallow, misguided, and completely flawed assemblies that justifiably generate skepticism and make it both akward and challenging for people to talk about the power of multimedia and cross-platform content and advertising delivery. It’s like the humorous scene from “In Good Company” when the CEO of the media behemoth gives his ridiculous speech to the newly acquired sports magazine about the cross-platform integration he envisions, complete with his silly handshake gesture. The charade is revealed when a befuddled Dennis Quaid asks why a reader of a Sports Illustrated type magazine would want to see content and advertising about computers and technology.

But as Dave Morgan points out in a good piece from May, the world is not only different today, but changing at an increasingly rapid pace (trite and obvious, but true nevertheless). What is missing from his list of reasons why multi-media is becoming more and more ‘real’ is the basic fact that newer media companies and ad agencies (at least the ones who ‘get it’ – a phrase I hate to use but it does, on occasion, apply) have been born into today’s world. It’s the same reason why I get my ass kicked every time I play Call of Duty 4 on XBox live – I grew up with Intellivision and the original Nintendo. New media companies today have never known anything but how things can, should, and must integrate today. JobDig, for example, was founded just 7 years ago and from day 1 we have built, integrated, sold, and distributed content and advertising across multiple platforms. We never had to adapt, transition, change, or fumble through the mis-steps that have derailed so many media companies that try to mash together disparate parts to create a cohesive whole. We’ve never known anything but what we do today and there have never been internal struggles or battles among various fiefdoms and competing platforms. We’ve certainly had our issues to overcome, like any start-up, and there are constantly new technologies and media forms to understand and integrate (social media, for example), but new media companies today inherently possess a different mind-set and perception of the world than their older counterparts. And it is that unique perspective that gives them an advantage in today’s media landscape.