The greatest lie of the Old Media is the one they tell themselves
We’ve all had it up to here with the consistent and unconscious foolishness and worse offered daily by the Old Media.
But their greatest lie is the lie they tell themselves every day. That is, they claim that the declines in nightly news viewership or in elite newspaper readership is the result of technology and increased choices. The alphabet channels’ share of news has declined from 60 million people in 1980 to 27 million today because of cable, the internet, etc. The New York Times has seen its circulation decline 22% in its home market over the last ten years because of the internet, cable TV or something else. What rubbish.
There are plenty of very mature industries in which new products, new technologies and new choices are invented all the time. But in those industries the CEO’s react to changes in market demand, and develop new products or alter existing products to satisfy the marketplace. In other industries and companies, it is quite common for well managed companies which are responsive to the needs of their market to maintain very high market shares over long periods of time.
Coca-Cola has 44% of the soft drink market and has dominated the market, along with Pepsi, for decades; it does so by changing its portfolio of choices. Anyone care for a Simba or Tab, to name two products that were phased out? In laundry detergent, Proctor & Gamble’s leading and ancient Tide brand continues to lead the market with 35% market share, and P&G dominates the entire market through a responsive product portfolio. Tried to find Oxydol lately? — another example of a phased out brand.
It really should not be necessary to point out that the reason CBS News has half the viewers it did in the 1980′s is that it is delivering a lousy product, appealing to an ever smaller segment of the population. It should not be necessary to point out that the reason that the New York Times has had by far the greatest circulation decline of any major daily over the past decade is that Pinch Sulzberger is a terrible CEO with an unpopular agenda. After all, the New Media have all exploded over the same period.
It may be the final tribute to the decayed monopoly power of the Old Media to shape perceptions that one of the last myths to fall is the Old Media’s fantasy explanation of its own decline.