Back in July (yeah, again, fuck you — I just recently discovered that Viigo on my Blackberry had gone Microsoft and was feeding me articles for Techcrunch & Mashable from July), Mark Hopkins wrote an article called Old Media Deathrace 5000 in which he discusses which of the Old Media variants will die first.

His spin is that radio will go first. He talks about another article by Duncan Riley in which Riley says that TV will be the first to go. Just because I’m an arrogant prick I’m going to throw my opinion in and say, with qualifications, that I think they’re both wrong.

I think newspapers will be the first to go. My qualification to that is it assumes that newspapers aren’t already dead and just haven’t recognized it yet. Furthermore, here’s the order I think they’ll go in: Newspapers, TV, Radio.

Traditional newspapers are, for all practical purposes, are already dead. I mean really does anybody know anyone under 60 that stills reads a newspaper on a regular basis? I get all my traditional news online. Now it’s possible that some of you may consider that Old Media in a new dress. But I don’t — so there. I rest my case.

[In a stunning display of serendipity, Michael Hirschorn agrees with me in his article in the January/February issue of The Atlantic]

[And as if to further indicate my genius-osity, today it was announced that the  Seattle P-I was put up for sale and if it hasn't sold in 60 days it will go web only or be shut down entirely]

Next to go will be traditional TV.  This has already started in several significant ways: TIVO/DVR, Hulu, and other on-demand types of video delivery.

Last to go, IMHO, will be radio and here’s why — there isn’t any equivalent service available for use in the car that’s free. Yes, there’s SiriusXM. I have it because Triangle radio sucks for air (but that’s a post for a different day) but alot of people won’t pay for radio. There’s Pandora and it’s associates but there’s no current way to easily use it in the car. There are ipods but that’s not a passive activity. If you’re driving in your car and want to listen to some tunes without actively programming your own deal you’re stuck with Clear Channel minions or paying for satellite service.

That said I can’t wait for traditional radio to crash and burn  because I think Clear Channel and the major record labels are largely responsible for the sucking that is modern radio.

And that’s the name of that tune.

3 Comments »

1. [...] the Times hasn’t yet mentioned that they made it up. See my previous entry regarding “Death of Old Media“ Tags: Posted in: Generic [...]

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2. [...] in January I posted about the death of old media. Later that day, it was announced that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer [...]

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3. [...] in January, I posted about the death of old media and posited that the order of their death would be newspapers, tv, then radio because there [...]

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