Don Tuite wrote in
:

On Mon, 30 May 2005 17:43:14 GMT, Judah wrote:

Who pays the salaries of the Press?


The CUSTOMER in the media is the ADVERTISER, not the reader. The
reader is just a means to support the customer.

Yeahbut.

The commodity the medium is selling to the advertiser is eyeballs.
Eyeballs of particular ages, genders and income levels.

Most newspapers currently do a poor job of segmenting their markets and
selling advertising based on demographics. They don't believe they can
effectively distribute inserts to specific households accurately, even
though the equipment has been capable of doing it for a decade. They
think it is asking too much of a carrier to make sure that the paper
with the address on it actually gets to that address, and as they all
switch to Distribution Centers are concerned about their ability to
control the carrier through the DC...

Advertisers want to base their buying decisions on circulation,
zipcodes and ratings.

To that extent, the reader/viewer could influence what runs in the
media.

Only when the influence is En Masse. A few hundred eyeballs won't make a
difference one way or the other, even to a small local paper. Only when
enough of the general public start to react will an influence be
noticed, much less be enacted. It's starting to happen - that's why
circulation numbers are going down.

Except when every medium is controlled by one entity, at which point
the reader/viewer *and* the advertiser both have hobson's choice.

Don