With electricity out, and online gadgets drained of power, 5 million households in Hurricane Sandy’s wake are rediscovering radio. “What remains is a version of 1932: families gathered around the radio, waiting for a bit of information on where to go or what to do next,” writes Michael Learmonth.  “Radio, the first electronic mass media, has become the only game in town.”  Measuring radio’s expected higher ratings has also fallen victim to the storm, since Arbitron’s electronic meters work off of…well, electricity. So you can expect a return to another old-fashioned tool: phone-based surveys.  

Check out these newspaper front pages from the last few days, courtesy of Poynter's Julia Moos, who writes: "Others will debate the politicization of Hurricane Sandy and its effect on Tuesday’s election; we submit front pages that provide some interesting visual fodder for the debate." And, indeed, newspaper editors' choice of front-page pictures of President Obama touring the New Jersey shore after Sandy is telling: from a pix, headlined "Obama Views Damage," where Obama is actually looking away from shoreline damage, to shots of the prez looking much more sympathetic, with his arms around a storm victim. Then …

Atlantic Media has launched an online vertical channel, The Sexes, set to cover “gender dynamics in the workplace,” writes Erik Maza. "Helping guide coverage is Anne-Marie Slaughter, the author and former Hillary Clinton aide who had a viral hit on her hands with her 'Why Women Can’t Have it All' cover story."

Newspapers can learn from the New York Times' mistakes in justifying its paywall to potential paying customers, according to a study just published in a psychology journal.“When [research] participants were provided with a compelling justification for the paywall — that The New York Times was likely to go bankrupt without it — their support and willingness to pay increased,” say the professors who masterminded the survey of of almost 1,000 Times readers before the wall was launched, and 400 after, writes Jim Romenesko.

Unlike other mainstream companies that stumbled when they bought hot digital properies, Conde Nast parent Advance Publications, which  "spent little more than loose change in 2006 to acquire Reddit, one of the Internet’s edgiest news and comment sites...  could be looking at a 30-to-1 jackpot on a fast-growing property that’s arguably worth $240 million or more," writes George Anders.

Netflix is now in play since Carl Icahn took a 10% stake in the video streaming service, "signaling a potential end to its days as an independent company," writes Cliff Edwards and Michael White. "In a filing, Icahn said the company may have appeal to larger buyers."

A little post-appocalyptic-storm perspective, anyone? That's what you get in spades from a post written by a former advertising art director, the late Linus Redding. Full points go to Advertising Age's Matt Creamer for pointing us to "one of the best pieces I've ever read on the pressure-cooker of creativity and commerce that is advertising." First published in March, "It's a 'must read' for creatives, account and especially clients," according to a commenter on the Ad Age site. "It's true also for those of us who are marketers/communicators who are responsible for evaluating finished creative work, writing positioning and …

With the election only days away, the Huffington Post is putting the focus on an ad aimed at the segment of the voting population that could determine the presidency: senior citizens. The spot focuses on how the Romney/Ryan administration would effectively end Medicare, replacing it with a confusing voucher program.