Silver Lining to Obama's Suffocating Nanny State: No More Loud Commericals!

Because nobody should ever have to fumble around for the remote after being rudely awoken by a blaring infomercial.

That's in the Constitution somewhere, I think.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has signed legislation to prevent advertisers from abruptly raising the volume of TV commercials louder than regular programming.

The law signed by Obama on Wednesday requires the Federal Communications Commission to adopt industry standards coordinating ad decibel levels to those of the regular program within one year.

The new regulations go into effect a year after that. They apply to all broadcast providers, including cable and satellite.

Lawmakers who sponsored the bill said they were reacting to their constituents’ complaints about abrasively loud television commercials — and their own experiences.

The FCC has been receiving complaints since the 1960s about jarring sound bursts when commercials come on, but had not regulated program or commercial volume.

Hmmm. Any chance the FCC might crack down on the jarring sound bursts MSNBC bombards unsuspecting channel-surfers with night after night?

Just askin'.

Cross-posted.

Newspaper Ad Revenue in Freefall

It's a grim quagmire. Maybe they should all just give up and go strictly online.

For newspapers, the news has swiftly gone from bad to worse. This year is taking shape as their worst on record, with a double-digit drop in advertising revenue, raising serious questions about the survival of some papers and the solvency of their parent companies.

Ad revenue, the primary source of newspaper income, began sliding two years ago, and as hiring freezes turned to buyouts and then to layoffs, the decline has only accelerated.

On top of long-term changes in the industry, the weak economy is also hurting ad sales, especially in Florida and California, where the severe contraction of the housing markets has cut deeply into real estate ads. Executives at the Hearst Corporation say that one of their biggest papers, The San Francisco Chronicle, is losing $1 million a week.

Over all, ad revenue fell almost 8 percent last year. This year, it is running about 12 percent below that dismal performance, and company reports issued last week suggested a 14 percent to 15 percent decline in May.

“Never in my most bearish dreams six months ago did I think we’d be talking about negative 15 percent numbers against weak comps,” said Peter S. Appert, an analyst at Goldman Sachs. “I think the probability is very high that there will be a number of examples of individual newspapers and newspaper companies that fall into a loss position. And I think it’s inevitable that there will be closures in this industry, and maybe bankruptcies.”

Analysts and newspaper executives find themselves revising their forecasts downward every few months, unable to gain a stable footing on a sinking floor. Papers have cut costs by shedding thousands of workers, eliminating some distribution routes and printing fewer, smaller pages, but profit margins continue to shrink.

Beating a dead horse, of course, but they have only themselves to blame. You turn off readers long enough with the relentlessly leftwing bias and the readers just aren't going to waste their money or time on you. There are far too many options for news consumers and people aren't going to pay to be insulted. You lose circulation and the advertsers follow.

Basic stuff. Problem is they'll never get it and now the natural result will be some newspapers ceasing to exist.

Grim Milestone: Newspaper Death Spiral Accelerating

They'll blame it on the faltering economy, the Internet, whatever. But an undeniable fact is people are tuning out newspapers in record numbers because they're sick and tired of the product.

Relentless leftwing bias has a price, and now they're paying it.

The newspaper industry has experienced the worst drop in advertising revenue in more than 50 years.

According to new data released by the Newspaper Association of America, total print advertising revenue in 2007 plunged 9.4% to $42 billion compared to 2006 -- the most severe percent decline since the association started measuring advertising expenditures in 1950.

The drop-off points to an economic slowdown on top of the secular challenges faced by the industry. The second worst decline in advertising revenue occurred in 2001 when it fell 9.0%.

Total advertising revenue in 2007 -- including online revenue -- decreased 7.9% to $45.3 billion compared to the prior year.

There are signs that online revenue is beginning to slow as well. Internet ad revenue in 2007 grew 18.8% to $3.2 billion compared to 2006. In 2006, online ad revenue had soared 31.4% to $2.6 billion. In 2005, it jumped 31.4% to $2 billion.

As newspaper Web sites generate more advertising revenue, the growth rate naturally slows.

Apparently it hasn't occurred to anyone that if they weren't so biased they might be able to lure some readers back, hence increasing potential ad revenue.

What Does Media Bias Smell Like?

How long until someone has an allergic reaction and sues USA Today?

Joint Promotion Adds Stickers to Sweet Smell of Marketing

A PROMOTION scheduled to begin today may prompt hotel guests to exclaim, with apologies to “Apocalypse Now,” that they love the smell of advertising in the morning.

Guests at Omni luxury hotels will find small scented stickers on the front pages of their free copies of USA Today. A blackberry aroma will suggest that the guests start the day at their hotels with a cup of Starbucks coffee “paired with a fresh muffin.” The promotion, to be tested for at least six months, is being sponsored by Omni Hotels and Starbucks Coffee.

It is one of two ideas being explored by the Gannett Company, the parent of USA Today, in the increasingly popular realm of scented advertising. The other concept Gannett is testing is to let marketers add scents to the ads they run in the pages of USA Today. Another national newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, owned by Dow Jones & Company, is also looking into scenting its ad pages.

Seeing Maureen Dowd at the top of the link above reminds me of the faint odor of cheap scotch and mindless prose.