Apocalypse Nigh

One of my daily reads is George Parker’s AdScam/The Horror! If a blogger could be considered no holds barred, it would be Parker. Even though I am not involved in advertising, Parker’s rants are occasionally humorous, always laced with profanity and often instructive.

Take for instance yesterday’s post, Kudos to Bob Garfield. Parker writes:

Yes, I have taken the piss out of Bob in the past, but you have to take your hat off to him occasionaly, not just for being around longer than the dirt in my back yard, but for frequently hitting the nail firmly on the head.

Parker goes on to tell us to read Bob Garfield’s article, Future May Be Brighter, but It’s Apocalypse Now, in AdvertisingAge.

His piece in this weeks AdAge, titled “Future may be brighter, but it’s Apocalypse now,” should be required reading for every douchenozzle currently running any piece of a floundering media company

[snip]

Read the parable of the 14 year old who can create a global television network with applications that are built into her laptop, to get a grasp of how fucked traditional media, and the fucking dinosaurs who run it are. I insist that all AdScammer’s read this piece. Now, damn it, now!

Apologies to the reader as we have taken a small detour prior to getting to actual point to of this post, Garfield’s piece which details how fucked the institutions of media and marketing are.

Chicken Little, don your hardhat. Nudged by recession, doom has arrived.

[snip]

The sky is falling, the frog in the pot has come to a boil and, oh yeah, we are, most of us, exquisitely, irretrievably fucked.

Garfield dissects the financial troubles of newspapers, magazines, broadcast stations, TV networks, cable and, yes, online publishers. Yes, if you are a traditional media giant, apocalypse is nigh, the fat lady is no longer singing, she has  sung and left the building.

Garfield sums up the issue nicely in his Newspaper section:

The audience doesn’t imagine that all cars want to be free, or that all toasters want to be free, or that all paper towels want to be free, but it somehow believes that all content wants to be free.

So, in the words of Parker, don’t be a douchenozzle, go and read Garfield’s article now.