As I prepare to teach another semester of my undergraduate Media Industries course, more than ever before, I find myself struggling to figure out what tenor to take about the state of the business. It isn't hard to figure out the media industries have been entering into "crisis mode" for quite some time due to fragmentation, rise of new technologies, increased piracy, etc.
What is striking is how the writers' strike combined with the larger economic crisis has moved much of the talk from anxiety to calamity. The loss of ad revenue from the auto business alone poses serious challenges to television...add that to the wave of bankruptcies we can anticipate in the new year in the retail sector, and the picture looks uglier still.
An initial response for some might be to say "huzzah! bye bye big media!" However, as someone soon to speak to many an undergraduate eager to make a living in a world in which downsizing and bankruptcies are the new state of being, I can only feel distressed by the emerging state of the media world.
Just a couple thoughts provoked by reading
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i935003166745e37d691b6c9a69c398dcOk, back to work on the class pitch...
