Death of Newspapers -

One of the changes being hastened by these terrible economic times, is the end of television and print media as we know them.

Slowly newspapers are dying out as the purveyors of information because the younger generation do not get their information from newspapers and that has lead to a drop in circulation which in turn has lead to lower advertising revenues, which has lead to budget cuts which have lead to further declining circulation, and so it spirals downward.

The Print Media is dying. All non-digital media will end. You all know how many newspapers have shut down. PC Magazine, recently published its final print edition. It is henceforth available only online and soon books wills be digital and not print.

My own daily newspaper, has been shrinking in size and in the quality and number of journalists, for several years. Now, because of the factors just cited, it stands on the verge of bankruptcy.

Television, like newspapers and magazines, is now hemorrhaging money. This recession has hastened the inevitable, but it was inevitable.

The world wide web has changed the way we do business and has changed the way we will live our lives. By way of example, more people watched Barak Obama’s inauguration on the Internet than watched it on television.

Delivery of content over the web to your home or office is getting better and cheaper. Delivery of print media is getting more expensive. And television… well there used to be only a few networks and some independents. But today with cable and satellite there are hundreds of channels out there to divide up both the audience and the advertising dollars, and all the while the audience size shrinks.

A few years ago, the President of CBS said that the median age of the viewers of the CBS Evening News is 60 years old. You only have to look at the commercials on the evening news programs to see the age group that is watching.

The Internet is an "on demand" information and entertainment provider. Users are not restricted to the "News at 11" and computer literate people can select and filter the information they want pushed to them.

The good thing about the world wide web is that it is largely free, largely unregulated and largely untaxed. The bad thing about the world wide web is that it is that it is largely free, unregulated and untaxed.

If there is anything that these tumultuous times have reaffirmed, it is that "the only constant is change." It won’t be long before newspapers and television will be a part of history.