A media shell game


TortoiseWhen times get tough, companies like to hunker down like a tortoise in its shell. When the rough times pass, they’ll come out of our shell again.

But in the media business today hunkering down and focusing on the core is like a tortoise withdrawing into its shell in the middle of a highway.

You have to get to the other side of the road or …

KnoxvilleTalks blogger and WBIR online producer Katie Allison Granju has some thoughts on getting to the other side in light of the well-publicized scaling back of Internet efforts at Nashville TV station WKRN, once a pioneer in how TV stations should do the Internet (and which has had more than a few ideas that newspapers could borrow).

The new State of the News Media 2008 study from the Project for Excellence in Journalism has some charts that might help to bring it into focus what is happening to news and the media.. Which of these three charts seems to be showing growth?

Daily newspaper readership by age (click image for larger version).

ReadershipAverage early evening news share for TV (click image for larger version).

TVNewsShareTop online news sites and growth (click image for larger version).

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