Bloomberg News' editor in chief Matthew Winkler made a proclamation today to the staff writers at the wire service: calling the economic crisis what it really is — a recession.
"But wait," you're thinking, "haven't we been referring to this as a recession since last Spring?" Sure, and the broadcast news pundits have no problem throwing that word around liberally. But in print, it's a little harder to find. Sure, there are obtuse references to "appearing" to be in an economic downturn, but trying to pin that phrase on a journalist is harder than catching a greased up pig in lipstick. Remember how pissed everyone got when Sarah Palin mentioned that we might be moving towards a Depression?
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Can you believe that Survivor has already been on for 16 seasons? Jeff Probst can't, especially since it's taken him nearly that long to win an Emmy for his work as host. But if the ratings year's award ceremonies featuring the reality-television stars are any indication, viewer interest in watching contestants eat bugs and create alliances is waning.
Though Survivor is still #1 in its time slot on CBS Thursdays, viewership has decreased over 50%, and with the economy being what it is, there is little chance that advertisers will be willing to invest the big money they used to.
"After eight years, you’ve got to wonder what’s left to come up with,” said David C. Joyce, a media equity analyst at Miller Tabak & Company who follows CBS."
Is the decline in Survivor interest a sign of the upcoming hard times ahead? Will the new Depression really be heralded in by the dearth of reality television as the ubiquitous canary in a coalmine?
The pop culture end of days is upon us! Repent, and check out three other recent examples of penny-pinching in pop, after the jump:
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Does it seem like biz journalists are just getting lazy in reporting trends, now that we're all recessiony (or not)? Sure, it's fine and good to talk about how local businesses need to scrimp and save and can't get loans, and maybe even how the face of advertisement has shifted to appeal to more frugal-friendly consumers, but is it worth a whole trend report to say that marketers are using Halloween as a time to promote special deals? Using Hallmark holidays as a way to bump up consumer spending is as American as apple pie(TM), and the fact that Papa John's is promoting "'spooky specials' along with 'deals so good they’re scary,” isn't a sign we're in the middle of a major crisis of faith as a country (we are), but rather that Papa Johns has really unoriginal ideas.
Now, if we could get a story on the rise of little hobo costumes this Halloween, maybe it will finally hit home that the salad days are over.
Welp, the recession is getting p. real (my dad says it's not technically a capital Depression until it happens to you and not just the other guy), and the newest casualties in the media biz are not staffers and exotic teambuilding retreats, but the free snacks and gratis gym memberships offered over at Mansueto Ventures, the publisher of Inc. and Fast Company.
And while the execs are scrambling to come up with some ways to cut costs, they often overlook the obvious or distasteful (firing of employees, like themselves) and skip straight to sweating the small stuff. After the jump, some more in-your-face recession cuts for the company:
Every day coming home from middle school in Wilmington DE (Joe Biden what!), I would see signs for the Delaware Powerball that had one of those ticker counts that told you what the jackpot was up to those days. As the numbers clicked through the millions from Monday to Friday, who wouldn't as a kid fantasize about all the cool SNES games they could buy with a cool $1,000,000?
Granted, movies like Blank Check and Richie Rich also fueled these childhood dreams of having your own indoor McDonalds/waterpark…which seems funny now to think of, because kids aren't old enough to buy lottery tickets, so those delusions of grandeur had to wait a couple more years until the young, idealistic kid who just wants Arnold Schwarzenegger as a personal trainer becomes the disgruntled youth that can't even be bothered to vote, let alone buy a scratch-and-win (unless it's done ironically).
So now, more than ever, those big dreams of lottery winnings and being the envy of all your friends aren't enough to make fiscally conservative adults buy lotto tickets. That's why the marketers and ad men behind state lottery games have had to rethink what it is Americans want during these hard economic times (hint: It involves a personal Exxon fountain):
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The theme of New York's Fashion Week? Poor people. The Migrant Mother look is in right now, what with the recession and everything making it harder to buy that $4,000 "peasant skirt" from Saks. "Women will pare down to essentials and make what they have go further, both in fashion and in their day-to-day spending, say trend-watchers and designers who unveil spring 2009 looks at New York's semi-annual Fashion Week starting on Friday," says somebody paying attention. It's like the Depression all over again, but this time with irony.
Okay, whatever. There were no blogs during the Depression, thank god. OMG banks took farm. Mood: Pensive.
On the heels of the Vogue India debacle, where the country's poor and infirm were used as models to shill haute couture, it's just a lil' bit presumptuous to have New York runway shows with messages like "dress conservatively for the harsh economic winters ahead." Like, so what if the Euro is still kicking your ass? At least you aren't in a country where half the residents live off less than a buck twenty five a day.
And make up your mind, Fashion. Either you are trying to sell Burberry to those below the poverty line, or you're making rich people dress in sackcloth. Not both, or the time-space continuum will rip.
Regardless of the state of the economy or metaphysics, here's hoping Betsy Johnson's new mauve line is called Grapes of Wraps (ba-dum-bum).
First they said the recession was hitting Hollywood hard, forcing fat cats to – gasp! – fly business class instead of first. Then they said industry profits were actually increasing. Now, they’re back to saying Hollywood’s screwed, despite the fact that The Dark Knight is making more money than should be legal:
While Maria Bartiromo was watching the Dow go up and down, and Fox Business recapped the market while throwing back a few pints, the News Corp.-ownedWall Street Journal figured out what to do with its CNBC relationship, and Portfolio watched as staffers fled and gossip radiated, where was everyone calling out financial institutions on their risky lending practices? MediaChannel.org's Danny Schechter would certainly like to know.
Just as the mainstream press is quick to blame things like America's boredom for its plummeting Iraq coverage, they've also tucked away coverage that you're going to lose your home into the "not widely read business sections that focus on the ups and downs of the markets and the way the collapse of these arrangements have affected the fortunes of CEOS and business enterprises, not citizens, consumers and most of all homeowners."
And they were only too happy to do so: Many media outlets prospered financially from ignoring the coming crisis. CONTINUED »
Editorial Director
