Commentary
The Dispirit Of The New America
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, February 28, 2025
Early in my career as an ad trade journalist, the
founding father of ad industry economics -- the late Interpublic forecaster Bob Coen -- shared a spreadsheet with me showing the growth of ad-supported media over time. It began in 1776, and it
had only one line item on it: print. …
Joe Mandese is the Editor in Chief of MediaPost. You can reach Joe at joe@mediapost.com.
Joe, Bob Coen estimated that total advertising in 1776 was $200,000 - it didn't reach $1 million until 1800, John Adams' last year in office. PQ Media has updated Bob's estimates in 1776 to $266,000, as we believe he didn't include marketing media other than direct mail, such as point-of-purchase displays (P-O-P), out-of-home posters (his first data point on OOH was 1935), and catalogs, for example. We believe $1 million was reached a few years earlier (around 1798), as PQ Media's estimate for 1800 is $1.33 million, as some new marketing services were beginning to emerge in the late 1700s, like promotional products, product sampling, content marketing (then called custom publications), product placement, experiential marketing and public relations.
The first amendment covering free speech was a 100 years in the making. The first U.S. newspaper, Public Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick, published on September 25, 1690 in Boston was put out of business via censorship after the first issue, when the British-appointed governor of Massachusetts stated, "The Governour and Council having had the perusal of said Pamphlet (NOTE: not called a newspaper in those days), and finding therein contained Reflections of a very high nature. As also sundry doubtaul and uncertain Reports, do hereby manifest and declare their high Resentment and Disallowance of said Pamphlet, and Order that the same be Supressed and called in; strickly forbidden any person or persons for the future to Set forth any thing in Print without License first obtained from those that are or shall be appointed by the Government to grant the same." By the mid-1700s, newspapers were at the forfront of the rebellion against England, such as Franklin's "Silence Dogood" letters in the New England Courant in the 1720s, to Thomas Paine first draft of Common Sense orginally being written for the Pennsylvania Magazine, which Paine served as editor. Thomas Jefferson wrote about the free press in the 1780s, including his infamous quote he wrote in Paris in letters to Edward Carrington, that if he had to choose between "a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." While the Bill of Rights were written in 1788, it wasn't ratified by all the states until December 15, 1791, 101 years after the first censorship referenced earlier, making a free press in the United States.
@Leo Kivijarv: Thank you for clarifying. Nice to know that data still exists and is constantly being updated.
Any thoughts on what a "free press" share of media is today?
That would be difficult to determine since it would require determining what is and what isn't "free press." For example, in 1800 the National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser was the first newspaper considered "party press" as it backed Jefferson for president during the 1800 elections he lost to Adams, and continued to be a Republican-leaning paper until it stopped publishing in 1870. Do we use Ad Fontes Media's The Media Bias Chart: Version 13.0 January 2025 Edition to determine which news outlets are "free" and those that are "not free?" Where would MSNBC go, for example, since they are on the Bias Chart as being "Left," but they do report the news factually with a Democratic-leaning bias. For that matter, would the New York Times and Wall Street Journal be considered "free" with their respective political leanings? Would ad & marketing media platforms with little to no political bias be included, like loyalty programs, digital place-based ad media, such as cinema and corporate, be included? Would we have to break out e-mail marketing by political and non-political, as well as static billboards? It's a complex question you asked.