Pundits love death. They’re forever proclaiming the death of this or that.
It’s dramatic and authoritative.
So over the last decade we’ve been told:
Newspapers are dead.
Books are dead.
TV is dead.
Advertising is dead.
Of course all these industries have undergone radical change over the last 10 years, but name an industry that hasn’t.
And radical change is far from death but nowhere near as dramatic.
Newspapers generated an estimated $179 billion in circulation and advertising revenue in 2014, according to the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. That’s bigger than the film or music industry. Yes, many papers have closed or consolidated but a $179 billion death? Bring it on!
Book sales in the UK totalled 245 million in 2014 (up from 237 million back in 2008). True, 63 million of these were e-books, but there are still 2,500 bookshops serving the country. Furthermore e-book sales appear to have plateaued. Makes sense to me. Who wants to spend more time looking at a screen?
TV may get beat up the most of these examples. Mobile video is eating its lunch in spite of being dogged by scandal. Netflix is eating its dinner but it’s not a horrible dinner guest because it’s also paying the networks millions for rights to shows.
With everyone taking their bite you’ll probably be surprised to hear TV revenues are still growing to $71.1 billion this year and $81 billion projected in 2019. TV may be a mess but reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.
Global Advertising revenues increased from $438 billion in 2009 to $611 billion in 2015. That’s a tad under a 40% increase in 6 years. Yes, much of the spending is going into digital and lots of traditional agencies got caught out but if this is death, bring it on!
It’s not what Keats had in mind, but the line fits: “Now more than ever seems it rich to die!*”
I imagine there were people around 1950 watching the ascendancy of television convinced that radio was dead.
Which will come as news to Howard Stern who just signed a new 5-year contract with Sirius XM worth a rumoured $400 million plus.
And many people have proclaimed the death of the buggy-whip industry, which has long been used as an example of failure to adapt to a changing marketplace.
But guess what, if you need a buggy whip you can still buy one!
From which we can surmise that while the industry may have been in a coma it cheated death.
And if the buggy whip industry still has a handhold, however tenuous, it would seem very few industries die completely.
Not that you'd know it from the Blank is Dead brigade.
It’s not the hyperbole I object to, it’s the lazy bandwagonism masquerading as thought leadership.
Guess there really is a sucker born every minute.
It’s the circle of life!
* I added the exclamation...
