Ad spending across the major U.S. media fell at its steepest rate since the industry's last recession in 2001, according to new data released this morning by ad tracking service TNS Media Intelligence. Spending across the media tracked by TNS MI fell 3.7% during the second quarter of 2008, reflecting the worsening of the U.S. economy, and a slackening of demand from major marketers for most major media. Combined with lackluster first quarter results, first half ad spending declined 1.6%. Using the term "collateral damage" to describe the impact the economy has been having on U.S. ad spending, TNS MI Senior Vice President-Research Jon Swallen noted, "Advertising expenditures started to contract in March, well before the September turbulence on Wall Street renewed concerns about the health of the economy." While second half results are likely to be "bolstered by the Summer Olympics and political elections," Swallen predicted that, "sustained improvement will most likely depend on a turnaround in consumer spending that rejuvenates corporate profits and encourages marketers to expand their advertising efforts." According to TNS MI's tracking, every one of the 19 major media it measures posted weaker year-over-year performance in the second quarter as compared to the first three months of 2008. While quarterly details were not released this morning, TNS MI found that Internet display advertising continued to increase its share and absolute growth during the first half, rising 8.0% over the first half of 2007. That finding comes in contrast to estimates released last week by Nielsen Monitor-Plus, which actually had online display advertising declining 6% during the first half due to fallout in the financial services ad category. Interestingly, TNS MI has financial services ad spending relatively stable through the first half, declining only a smidgen to $4.499 billion. The most significant category decline during the first half was automotive, which declined 11.2% to $6.478 billion, with the preponderance coming from imports (down 16.9%) vs. domestic (-6.3%) automakers. First Half Ad Spending (Vs. First Half '07 TELEVISION MEDIA -0.4% Network TV -2.4% Cable TV +3.1% Spot TV -4.4% Spanish Language TV -0.1% Syndication - National +10.2% MAGAZINE MEDIA -1.8% Consumer Magazines -1.8% B-to-B Magazines -5.9% Sunday Magazines +4.8% Local Magazines -2.8% Spanish Language Magazines +7.1% NEWSPAPER MEDIA -7.4% Local Newspapers -7.1% National Newspapers -9.5% Spanish Language Newspapers -11.0% INTERNET +8.0% RADIO MEDIA -6.5% Local Radio -7.5% National Spot Radio -7.4% Network Radio +3.4% OUTDOOR +1.8% FSIs +2.0% TOTAL -1.6% Source: TNS Media Intelligence. Figures are based on the TNS Media Intelligence Strategy(TM) multimedia ad expenditure database across all TNS MI measured media, including: Network TV (6 networks); Spot TV (101 markets); Cable TV (52 networks); Syndication TV; Hispanic Network TV; Consumer (PIB) Magazines (215 publications); Sunday Magazines (6 publications); Local Magazines (23 publications); Hispanic Magazines (26 publications); Business-to-Business Magazines (317 publications); Local Newspapers (144 publications); National Newspapers (3 publications); Hispanic Newspapers (51 publications); Network Radio; Spot Radio; Local Radio; Internet; and Outdoor. Figures do not include public service announcement (PSA) data.
Can TV advertisers take advantage of the current volatility and big news of the nation's financial markets? Horizon Media thinks so. As viewers run to financial cable news networks and related Web sites, the media-buying agency says marketers should pounce on ready-made opportunities. "As the stock market plummeted last week, investors and others flocked to late-breaking news available on cable business news stations and the Internet for information," said Bill Koenigsberg, president and CEO, Horizon Media, in a release about a brief survey of financial sites and TV networks. "Advertisers should be poised to take advantage of this." Horizon noted some key performances: *CNBC's "Closing Bell" at 3 p.m. rocketed up 70% during the week Sept. 15-Sept. 19--with 254,000 total viewers. "Closing Bell" in the 4 p.m. hour climbed 247,000 total viewers over the previous week. *CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" grew 34,000 total viewers from the week of Sept. 15. CNN's companion site doubled its number of unique users to 4 million since Sept. 14. *NYTimes.com had its highest daily total page views ever, while its business section saw a 54% increase in page views from the previous Monday. *SmartMoney.com saw an increase in traffic of about 30%. Yahoo Finance has seen an increase of 167% since last Monday. Overall, the numbers on Sept. 15 were up 32% from the week before. Horizon says for those advertisers that are looking to effectively reach as many financial viewers as possible, now is the time to buy.
Back around 1999, the oft-cited paradigm for what interactive TV would one day offer was the opportunity to watch "Friends" and almost instantaneously purchase the sweater Jennifer Aniston was wearing. It was frequently laughed off. But Tuesday, the head of the cable industry's would-be advertising revolution promised something similar within the next three years. David Verklin, the CEO of Canoe Ventures, said that some time in the next 24 to 36 months, a consumer will be able to watch an infomercial and buy a product either by charging it to a cable bill or an electronic wallet. It's heady stuff, but speaking at an Advertising Week event Tuesday, Verklin said: "We're going to try to get there in the next 24 months." The prospect of a cable operator taking a cut of the sale is yet another possible revenue stream from what Canoe Ventures is attempting to do--help MSOs bring in billions more from advertising. "The new medium of TV is coming," Verklin said. Canoe is funded by the six largest cable operators. Executives have spoken before about opportunities centering on interactive TV, as well as addressability and measurability. By having access to set-top boxes in perhaps one-third of the country's homes, Canoe promises to offer advertisers a chance to simultaneously stream relevant ads to different homes. The boxes also offer second-by-second data on all viewing in a home--which can help advertisers improve targeting. On a more basic level, Canoe could become a quasi-Nielsen and simply sell the data--another revenue option. Through Canoe, the cable industry is looking, in part, to funnel ad dollars away from the Internet--which offers targeting opportunities and results-based metrics that TV doesn't. Verklin said, in short, that digital capabilities are coming to TV. "I do think television can give the Internet a run for its money," he said. "The fact of the matter is, if you want to target a specific television spot to a specific television set, the only real way to do that is through the cable broadband structure," said Comcast COO Steve Burke at an investor event earlier this month. "You can't do it through the Internet. You can't do it through the broadcast infrastructure. You can't do it through satellite." On Tuesday, Verklin suggested that addressable advertising will have to involve some sort of opt-in function in which consumers know they are being targeted. He did not provide details. Any thoughts he may have had in his previous role at agency Carat about TV losing relevance were gone. He said media flowing through laptops, mobile devices and TVs "each has a role." Verklin doesn't believe that consumers want to use Facebook on their TVs, and he's "not convinced people want to see video on their laptops when they can watch it on HDTV." And the traditional 30-second spot isn't going anywhere. He said that over time, those 30-second spots make up half of TV ads. The other 50% will be interactive and addressable spots.
Taking a cue from its cable networks, DirecTV's in-house original programming channel "The 101" will launch its new season commercial-free. Highlighted by the recent acquisition of "Friday Night Lights," in which it will share airings with NBC, the channel's season debut on Wednesday, Oct.1 at 9 p.m. will air in HD and ad-free for the first time. Other returning shows on The 101 include "Supreme Court of Comedy" and "Rock & A Hard Place." DirecTV will also add "Crash," a new original series from Starz Entertainment. The new series starring Dennis Hopper will run 13 episodes, and is based on the Academy Award-winning movie. Starting Oct. 15, DirecTV will add a companion reality show for "Friday Night Lights" called "Live From Dillon," featuring cast members of the show discussing their characters, stories and taking live viewer questions. DirecTV will get the new episodes of "Lights"--now in its third season--and in turn, NBC will run the encores of those episodes, which begin next year. The 101 has been around since 1999 on DirecTV, but only began to gather steam with new high-profile network shows in recent years. In April 2007--in what was to be a forerunner of the "Lights" deal--DirectTV and NBC Studios agreed to run new episodes of the NBC daytime soap "Passions." This year, DirecTV decided not to renew the show, stopping it last month.
Several months ago, the Recording Industry Association of America and other groups representing musicians and studios reached a settlement with online music services concerning royalties for streaming audio and temporary downloads. This week, the parties disclosed the exact terms of the agreement, which remained confidential until a draft version was drawn up for the Copyright Board. The settlement effectively averted a lawsuit that threatened to disrupt the growth of online radio. Per the terms of the agreement, online music services will pay 10.5% of their total revenues to the musicians and studios that own songs played or temporarily downloaded online. Performance royalties for songwriters will also be included in this sum. However, the agreement does not set royalty rates for permanent downloads, so both sides are awaiting the judgment of U.S. Copyright judges on permanent downloads, expected early next month. Previously, the Recording Industry Association of America had demanded a per-play royalty of $0.0019 per song for streaming and temporary downloads, which many online radio services complained would drive them out of business. This settlement, first announced on June 18, represents a compromise between online music services and a group of industry organizations representing musicians and studios, including RIAA, the National Music Publishers' Association, the Nashville Songwriters Association International and the Songwriters Guild of America.
A week ago, ESPN reported that its season-opening "Monday Night Football" game saw viewership increase by more than 800,000 after those watching outside the home were added to the traditional Nielsen tally. It was actually much more. Maybe a lot. Is ESPN getting short shrift? And does it matter? Maybe and maybe. To recapitulate: For years, ESPN has argued that its viewership has been undercounted--since much of its programming is watched outside the home. Ratings didn't do it justice, the argument went--and perhaps advertisers should be paying more. Along with other networks and advertisers, it nudged Nielsen for years to find a way to track out-of-home consumption. And earlier this month, Nielsen obliged, releasing a new out-of-home (OOH) ratings stream for the first time. Ostensibly, now all those college students watching hoops in the common room, young professionals checking out "SportsCenter" at the fitness club, and rabid fans huddling at a bar to watch "Monday Night Football" can now be counted. Nielsen and partner IMMI (Integrated Media Measurement Inc.) derive the ratings from an effective panel of 2,500, where the participants carry a mobile phone that picks up audio signals wherever they go. But the operative word is "audio." If the TV is on, but the sound off--viewing (or exposure) is not picked up. And it's not counted in the OOH ratings. It's hard to argue that a mass amount (if not the majority) of viewing at bars is done with the sound muted. So, that's likely a huge chunk of audience that is not part of the OOH figures. Last week, ESPN said the new OOH ratings showed that some 831,000 people (across all key demos) watched its first "Monday Night Football" game away from home. Add that to the 8.4 million (ages 12 to 54) that the traditional in-home ratings recorded--and the network got a 10% bump in total viewing (to 9.2 million). How much more the increase would have been if "sound-off" viewing in watering holes were attached is a guessing game, but a few hundred thousand may not be out of the question. Toss in the number of people watching at the gym while wearing headphones--which also isn't picked up due to the audio signal issue--and the number increases again, albeit by surely a vastly lower amount. Is ESPN frustrated by the ratings system it has sought for so long that still appears to have some under-counting? "We are very happy with the methodology and the results," said Artie Bulgrin, the network's senior vice president of research and sales development. "Any measurement instrument will have limitations, but based on the years of work that we have done in OOH measurement, this measurement technology is clearly the best and most complete." ESPN is the only network (somewhat surprisingly, broadcast networks with a heavy load of sports content have passed) that is subscribing to the new ratings service. The only other recipient is Zenith Media. Zenith's president of strategic resources, Bruce Goerlich, said the OOH metric is not a "perfect" system, but it represents a significant advancement. "Certainly, we have a point of view of don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good," he said. Nielsen says the ratings are "an accurate reflection of people who are watching television out-of-home with the volume on." Devising a system that can capture "muted" viewing would seem, if not impossible, then likely cost-prohibitive. But is there even a need for it? TV advertising's strength has long been touted as the troika of sight, sound and motion. "You lose the sound and the value of the commercial is significantly reduced," said Lyle Schwartz, director of national broadcast research and marketplace analysis at Group M. "From our perspective, if the sound is off, it's not as valuable to us for the advertiser, so we're perfectly happy (that muted viewing isn't in the OOH ratings)," Goerlich said. Networks do have a history of arguing that "muted" viewing has value. Several years ago, when they fought for advertisers to pay for DVR viewing even if commercials were fast-forwarded through--before the so-called "C3 Compromise"--they argued that the quiet-and-quick ads still delivered messages via exposure to logos and other brand images. Another argument was that if someone had seen an ad in full before, watching it again in high-speed would prompt recall. Moving beyond the sound issue and focusing on the OOH ratings as they exist now, ESPN has given no indication that it intends to charge advertisers directly for the added OOH viewing, But clearly, it is hoping that the figures will serve as grist to demonstrate further value in its programming to advertisers. "Viewing in hotels, on campuses, in bars and restaurants has always been a critical part of ESPN's delivery," said Glenn Enoch, vice president of integrated media research at ESPN, in a statement. "These data are going to lead to additional learnings about audience behavior that will ultimately help us better serve our fans and advertisers." Schwartz said that sports deals already may be priced with an understanding on both sides that the ratings are not capturing a chunk of the viewing, so an added out-of-home cost may be baked in. Jim Kite, president of connections research and analytics at MediaVest, said his agency is evaluating the new OOH data and may eventually subscribe. But it remains concerned about the broader issue of how to use the various new measurement streams that track consumption of video online, on-mobile and elsewhere. "Our concern is we may find a methodology of somehow aggregating all these screens, but it's assuming the experience is like for like," he said. Watching TV in a hotel room may somewhat mirror at-home viewing, but what happens in bars and fitness clubs--sound on or off--would seem to vary significantly. [On the network side, CNBC would seem to be a natural to subscribers with its large number of viewers in offices and on trading floors. A network representative said the methodology is new and it's evaluating the data.] Grant Prentice, director of connections research and analytics at Starcom, said his agency is also considering signing up for the OOH ratings. "We're intrigued by it--it's a step in the right direction in terms of gaining additional perspective on the size of the audience that exists out-of- home for particular programs or particular channels," he said. "But in terms of the absolute value of this particular type of data, we're not 100% sure of where we land on that yet." But he suggested a scenario in which an ad seen in bars with the sound off may have some value. "Just having the visual of the brand register within a captivating environment like that, where the product is being consumed and is certainly within arm's reach--that's an important moment to be able to deliver your advertising," he said. Sports broadcasts, of course, are chock full of beer ads.
The number of markets experiencing revenue declines jumped between August 2007 and August 2008, according to Jim Boyle, a veteran radio analyst with CL King & Associates, who said "this trend is troubling." Last year, approximately 60% of the 46 markets tracked by CL King were down in August, versus 95% of 43 markets tracked this year. "It has never been so broadly negative," says Boyle. Radio is already suffering a one-two punch, as a secular downturn coincides with an economic slump; in year-over-year comparisons, revenues have declined for five straight quarters. Boyle noted the factors lined up against radio. "The recessionary economy does not aid radio near-term and the fragmenting media landscape does not help radio near-term and long-term." In a grim note to investors, Boyle advised: "With deep revenue declines and margins increasingly compressed affecting more and more markets, it is difficult for investors to profit near-term in radio, we feel." As in previous months, the one bright spot for radio comes courtesy of radio stations in smaller markets, which have consistently out-performed their big market colleagues. Over the last 18 months, small-market radio has enjoyed monthly average revenue growth of about 1.1%, versus a monthly average decline of 3.6% in big markets. Boyle has attributed small-market success to their continued emphasis on unique local content and strong relationships with local advertisers. Also, such markets were probably spared the price wars that undercut ad rates in big markets over the last two decades.
Like a non-threatening zombie, Time Inc.'s Life brand is back from the dead again, this time as a Web site offering thousands of old photos from Life as well as new photos from Getty Images. Set to debut some time in early 2009, the site will make the images available for free online for non-public use, including sharing the photos with friends. Visitors will also be able to buy photo albums created by other users. Overall, Life.com hopes to publish 3,000 new images provided by Getty every day, executives revealed at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's MIXX Conference in New York. The new venture's CEO will be Andy Blau, the president of Life and a senior vice president with Time Inc. Interactive. Catherine Gluckstein, vice president of iStockPhoto and Consumer Markets for Getty Images, will serve as CFO. The Web portal has been a long time in the planning. Time Inc. first disclosed plans for an online archive of Life's extensive collection of 20th-century photography in March 2007, when the company announced the closure of the Life Sunday supplement, a newspaper-distributed magazine.
First blood of the new TV season, which started officially on Monday night, went to CBS in a close race with ABC, as many network shows debuted. CBS' big highlight was "Two and a Half Men," tying ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" at a 5.3 rating/12 among 18-49 viewers for the best-rated show of the night--a nice 13% rise over last year's season debut. Better still, "How I Met Your Mother" was also up a bit, with a 25% hike to a 4.0/10 debut over last season's opening effort. CBS was pretty even throughout the night. Its "CSI: Miami" even got the best of NBC's big "Heroes" at 10 p.m., winning that time period race with a 5.1/12 to a 4.9/12. The network's new comedy "Worst Week" performed decently with a 3.8 rating/9 share in its debut at 9:30 p.m. ABC's two-hour special "Stars" helped the network to a second-place Monday night win. But "Boston Legal" at 10 p.m. couldn't keep pace, losing more than half of the "Stars" 5.3 rating to land at a 2.6/6. CBS had a 4.5/11 share among 18-49 viewers for the night, and ABC was right behind at a 4.4/11. NBC also loaded up for the season opener with its big show "Heroes." First, it launched a one-hour clip show at 8 p.m., which took in a 2.6/7; then a two-hour premiere, which averaged a 5.0/11 at 9 p.m. and a 4.9/12 at 10 p.m. All this gave NBC a competitive--but not top--4.2/10 on the night, coming in right behind ABC. The troubling news? "Heroes" was 25% off its one-hour premiere of a year ago, with a 6.5 rating. CW has answered its first big real question of the season. How would "Gossip Girl" fare against fresh episodes of its competitors? Pretty well. "Gossip Girl" earned a 1.6/4 among 18-49 viewers and 2.5/7 among its key 18-34 viewers, which the network says is the show's second-best results ever--as well as second-best-ever results against more specific young female demos. Those younger viewers on Monday night, 18-34, all went to NBC because of "Heroes." It dominated with a 4.6/12. ABC was next at a 3.0/8, then CBS at a 2.9/8. CW tied Fox with a 2.3/6. Then came Univision at a 2.0/5. While most networks could claim some victory on the night, Fox might still be looking for a good story to tell. "Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles" earned a still weak 2.3/6--although it was up from the week before. "Prison Break" did a bit better at a 2.5/6. It left Fox with a 2.4/6 on the night, a distant fourth place.
After years of heavy use in Europe, text messaging is starting to experience explosive growth in the U.S. Nielsen data shows that the average mobile subscriber now sends or receives more text messages a month than the number of phone calls they make/answer. Data shows that in the April-June period this year, the average mobile subscriber sent/received an average of 357 text messages a month, compared to making/receiving 204 calls. Meanwhile, the average number of calls is declining as text messaging rises. In the same period last year, the average mobile subscriber sent/received an average of only 172 texts a month--less than half of the 2008 figure. Average calls dropped from 228 in 2007 to 204 this year. In 2006 from April-June, the figures were a monthly average of 216 calls--and only 79 texts. Not surprisingly, teens ages 13-17 are helping bring the averages up. In the April-June period this year, the demo averaged 1,742 texts a month (and 231 calls). Those ages 65 and up averaged just 14 texts and 99 calls.
History is full of tales of disruptive technologies, material shortages and the innovations they inspired. Most of these stories had happy endings, with technological change yielding remarkable benefits to humanity. But the current trajectory of print media, which seems to be hurtling toward a catastrophic ending, has dire implications for Western democracies. To set the stage for examining the sorry state of print media today, let's look at the consequences of shortages and technological revolutions over the centuries.We'll start with a story with a happy ending. In the 17th century, the British used so much wood for extracting iron from ores, heating homes and building ships that there was a shortage in England, a "timber famine." This wood shortage set in motion an extraordinary chain reaction. First it spurred the use of coal. But many coal deposits were found deep underground, where flooding occurred, leading to the invention of steam engines to pump out the mines. Subsequent innovators improved the efficiency of steam engines, which provided the power for the Industrial Revolution, making goods more plentiful and, in the 19th century, driving the development of railroads. All this resulted from a shortage of wood.But innovation doesn't always mean that things get better immediately, and sometimes they get worse for long periods of time. Consider the transition from bronze to iron tools and weapons in the early 12th century BC. This major technological breakthrough was driven by a period of chaos some call the ancient Dark Ages. As Mediterranean civilizations came under attack by the mysterious Sea Peoples, the long-distance trade routes supplying tin for making bronze collapsed. This forced smiths to learn to process minerals to extract iron. Thanks to their discoveries, the price of iron fell by a factor of 80,000. In the long run, iron tools and weapons were far superior to those from bronze, allowing the clearing of forests and settlement of northern Europe. But this was clearly a long, painful period for Mediterranean civilizations: The situation became so desperate that sacred bronze artifacts were melted down to make weapons. On that note, let's return to the present day. The Internet was made possible by innovations over the past 50 years based on two materials: silicon for computer technology, and glass in the form of fibers for linking computers. In 1957, Robert Noyce realized it might be possible to form an entire electronic circuit, including transistors, resistors and capacitors, on the same silicon chip (he went on to help found Intel). In 1958, Texas Instrument's Jack Kilby became the first engineer to build an integrated circuit on a chip - the basis of today's personal computers. Then, in 1970, three Corning scientists produced the first high-purity glass fibers that allowed the transmission of light over long distances, opening the era of fiber-optic communication. Used initially to replace copper telephone lines, these optical waveguides now carry a vast amount of information along the Internet. The intensity losses are so small that it is possible to transmit a signal over tens of miles before having to boost it using an amplifier. Today, 4 ounces of optical fiber carry more information than 33 tons of copper wire. Put another way, the information previously carried by multiple copper wires in an array more than 10 feet across can now be transmitted along a single optical fiber. In the late 1990s, 40 million kilometers of optical fiber were laid across the world annually. The current copper shortage is helping drive replacement by fiber optics, allowing copper cables to be recycled (since 2004, the metal's price has more than quadrupled, from under $1 per pound to more than $4 today, and theft is a growing problem).Clearly, fiber optics are on the way up. But the same can't be said of the print media they're impacting. The growing use of fiber optics means more and more people can access news over the Internet. In addition, print newspapers are getting squeezed by the rising prices of paper and ink, which have become relatively scarce compared to the mid-20th century. And they may ultimately be stifled by another material shortage, as the skyrocketing price of oil makes any product delivered via gas-powered vehicles more expensive. Current forecasts from the U.S. government say the average price of oil could be $132.75 in 2009. Looking further ahead, trends suggest total world consumption will rise from 32.1 billion barrels in 2007 to 42 billion barrels in 2025, a 31 percent increase. Already, the high price of oil is forcing newspapers and magazines to raise newsstand and delivery prices, and it's also cutting retail traffic, meaning fewer sales overall.Thanks to innovations in the past 50 years, information is distributed faster and more broadly than ever before, revolutionizing the way we get our news. And shortages of key materials like oil, copper, paper and ink are accelerating the process. That's good news for consumers, but not for newspapers and other print media. (On a personal note, at 68 years old, I stopped buying my favorite newspaper, The New York Times, and can only imagine the trend is even more pronounced among younger people.) How can this be bad? The replacement of print by online newspapers means news publishers are facing financial disaster, because their advertising income is dropping at the same time they are delivering content for free. Simply put, no one has developed a way to make enough money from online newspapers. I have never worked in the media industry, and all I know about advertising comes from what I see on a daily basis. I admit I don't have solutions to these problems. But the threat to print journalism is very worrying to me because, historically, newspapers have played a crucial role in our democratic form of government by keeping politicians and other powerful people honest. If online newspapers don't generate income, who will pay reporters, who typically work for print media, to research and write these stories? Over the years, reporters for print newspapers have uncovered scandals that the government would rather keep secret - to cite one obvious example, Woodward and Bernstein's investigation of Watergate for the Washington Post. Print newspapers have correctly been called the Fourth Estate, meaning an unofficial but absolutely crucial part of a democracy. It would be catastrophic if there were no longer paid reporters keeping the feet of our elected officials to the fire. Is it possible that we have innovated ourselves out of a free press? Stephen L. Sass, a professor of materials science and engineering at Cornell, is the author of "The Substance of Civilization: Materials and Human History From the Stone Age to the Age of Silicon."
What in the seven circles of Hell is wrong with you people? There are God knows how many trolls in big newsrooms and small bedrooms who report on or blog about the events of the day. Is it too much to ask you to understand the most momentous business story you'll ever cover? As for the public, including those of us who make a living in marketing communications, would it kill us to think about what to do when facing economic catastrophe? We have an infinite capacity to ponder the Alaskan hick chick's go-go boots; whether the skinny guy in the other traveling circus is a Muslim Manchurian Candidate (Obama's definition of what makes someone "rich" certainly sounds like he was brainwashed); or how Jerry Seinfeld hustled $10 million to do two Microsoft commercials. But when it comes to, you know, our future--not so much. Apparently, the looming annihilation of our entire economy is not the right time for journalists to use words like "crash," or "meltdown" in their stories, as The New York Times reports. (Truth is no longer fit to print.) And it seems there's nothing more going on here that affects marketing than "Economic Woes Make Firms Rethink Ads," as The Wall Street Journal notes. (That daily did email me a solicitation to subscribe for only $99 a year, noting: "This may be your only opportunity." No kidding.) The faux newsmen like Colbert, Stewart and Maher, inevitably, are telling it like it is. But among those who are supposed to know how business works and its implications for ordinary people, I found only Jonah Bloom's column in Ad Age. It was headlined "Self-Absorbed Media Missing the Biggest Stories of Our Time." I guess it takes a Brit to recognize the end of an empire. There is more at stake here than what kind of ad campaign AIG is running, how global ad spend is faring, or whether there should be an ad icon parade during Advertising Week. Our country is dying. I say it's up to ad agencies, media shops and PR firms to counsel their clients on how to help consumers weather the coming storm. Let's see spots that don't shy away from reality, instead of pitching us employee discounts on trucks that get 2 miles to the gallon. Let's talk about communications plans that use network and cable TV--still the biggest bully pulpits--to counsel folks on how to stay solvent, rather than schemes that waste money on this week's hot social network. Every person in the U.S.--that would be your customers--is in dire peril, and savvy persuaders can help us pull together and survive. Well, except for investment bank executives and mortgage brokers. To paraphrase one of Samuel L. Jackson's most memorable lines: "Yes, they deserve to die, and I hope they burn in hell." Journalism has sunk too low to rise to the occasion. But marketing that attempts to be part of the solution, for once--instead of exploiting the problem--couldn't hurt. It might even help. Otherwise, see you all on the bread line, people.