And this time, barring massive government intervention, it will be terminal for traditional media.
The other night, as I documented in this commentary, the mass media platform known as “X” shook the world. As of the late night on Saturday February 10, an interview with the President of Russia will have higher viewership than the combined totals of both 2020 US Presidential debates combined (186 million vs. 136.1 million).
Think about that.
In the time period of less than 2 years, a new media startup has created more global interest in watching a geek interview the President of Russia. And let’s face some reality folks, Tucker Carlson is a geek like us because after all, how many of us really focused on the Rus tribe and their historical ties to the evolution of the Russian Empire until Thursday night?
That is just a hint though as to the degree of the maelstrom being created. What I wrote in Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson Have Killed Cable TV News last June, is now being confirmed:
What Elon Musk purchased and stumbled upon and into, is a public square with the greatest potential to reconfigure American politics, discussion, and government policy for the next decade. Twitter is no longer just a place where jackwagons like me can offer cheap shot political snipes at the freaks in our society or attempt to warn others about our own nation’s instability.
Twitter is evolving, growing up before our very eyes in just weeks, not months or years.
That was before his “evolution” into to changing towards the “everything” platform now known as ‘X’ which many “financial experts” questioned also at the time.
My opinion is quite simple and capitalistic:
He bought it, if he can absorb the short term losses commercially and afford to use his personal fortune to create a media and online revolution, God bless the man.
I own this little slice of internet heaven that your are reading this article on, and have done with it what I want since 2007. If Elon wants to do something bigger with his substantially larger portion, then good. If I want to do something bigger it’s none of your damned business either unless I slander, make up lies, or promote hypocritical positions which would cost you financially or myself in the long run.
Meanwhile, the revolution continued in another part of the X arena this week that most economic and political geeks ignored but that is a foolish move of their own volition.
On January 9th, Jim Rome a nationally famous radio sports talk radio host made the following announcement:
The Jungle is coming to @X! pic.twitter.com/G2A2nWVq0K
— Jim Rome (@jimrome) February 6, 2024
From Deadline.com:
Brett Weitz, Head of Content, Talent, and Brand Sales at X, added, “We’re building out more than just a content offering at X. We’re building a 360 degree media destination that encompasses the best in sports, news, and a variety of other audio and video categories.
CBS Sports Network was struggling with its video format, a streaming concept which unfortunately followed the Disney model of “hey, we have cool hosts, let’s put them on video while they are doing radio shows.”
In a crude, Generation Z way of explaining this, some seriously formatted boring shit.
In my old days, if I wanted to watch a radio show live, I would bring a beer to my friend doing the late night shift on a local reduced power mediumwave station or swing by and watch some of the local sports hosts live. All of that, of course, before September 11, 2001.
The evolution of the internet however has changed not just the information available to the average global consumer, but the methodology of how it is delivered. This is quite apparent because my loyal readership wouldn’t be here if it were not for my brief broadcast career on shortwave then via the internet in the 2007-2010 time period.
Translated into today’s terms, if I want to watch a specific movie or show, do I pay the hostage fees of the streaming services or cable television systems or just pick and choose as I please? Obviously, the latter.
Why would one want to pay outrageous amounts of money to watch streaming services which recycle 75% of the same crap over and over again like the cable networks used to do into hotel rooms in 1982?
Thus why the Jim Rome announcement was earth shattering but in a quiet 5.9 magnitude pre-big one earthquake sort of way.
X Changed the Game
The apparent philosophy of X via Elon Musk and the team at Range is to just create a platform of diverse information presentation which allows the individual to pick and choose, plus research, what the program presents as fact or what appears to be fiction. This is going to present a major problem for advertisers who boycotted X due to Elon’s 1st Amendment stances and refusal to become a government censor.
While advertising on the platform is a hodgepodge of corporations, pharmaceutical companies, crypto, and other diverse politically themed movements, the core consumer goods segment was scared away due to the Biden regime and “traditional” media’s concocted anger at Musk’s refusal to play ball. All of the sudden they might find themselves promoting longwave radio station programming in 1995 while the rest of the world has moved on to FM, television and satellite.
S&P Global highlighted the decline in “broadcast” advertising for 2023 in their outlook for the industry:
The US broadcast station industry is expected to reach $33.83 billion in total advertising revenue in 2023, down 7.0% from $36.39 billion in 2022. Core ad categories including automotive, retail and travel categories, have mostly rebounded from pandemic-level declines although showing signs of softness as a result of high interest rates and inflationary pressures while pharmaceuticals, telecoms and professional services are still relatively strong in terms of ad spending.
(emphasis mine)
This decline might seem minute but in the same outlook, they provided an upbeat outlook for 2024 since it was an election year and broadcast media will see a disproportionate amount of ad spending due to the Presidential and Federal election cycle on a local basis.
Reality?
The primary demographic for AM talk radio (mediumwave) is those individuals like myself over the age of 55. That demographic has been in decline for over a decade now and that is being reflected by the number of AM radio stations shutting down on an annual basis despite a highly politicized American electorate.
How does “X” fit it into this?
Imagine a broadcast revolution on one’s phone. TikTok provided that hint and the idiotic US government “usual suspects” demanded it be banned because it was a Chinese Communist instrument.
Yes, seriously.
In reality, the same politicians who are promoting this nonsense are the same ones who approve of the FBI, Department of Justice, CIA, and NSA spying on every communications outlet American citizens have via the internet, work communications, or telephony (Google it Gen-Z).
The truth?
The political elites anti-TikTok stance is absurd as their anti-Twitter/X stance.
Or is it?
Just like the history of the yellow journalists employed by the Hearst empire in the 1920’s to attack that “newfangled” radio thing, they fear extinction. Google and YouTube, Yahoo, Comcast, TWC, etc. are terrified they will become irrelevant due to the “everything” one stop destination X desires to become so they are using their ties to the political elites and bureaucracy to block not just TikTok but X from becoming larger information sources for not just the American, but global masses.
Thus while the government and traditional media attempts to shove their opinions and new down one’s throat, be it financial news, political events, or global conflicts, the internet and outlets like X, TikTok, and yes, even Telegram, are now providing outlets where actual and alternative facts and opinions can be presented.
The ability to promote an alternative on demand information and entertainment outlet has not yet been realized by the traditional media nor the governments of the West. However, those on X, TikTok, and Telegram have begun to do so and the commercial exploitation, aka, capitalist opportunities are endless.
While the risk of the major Western governments silencing these outlets is a real threat, in the interim people, enjoy the freedom. The freedom to make money from these new sources. The freedom to listen and watch or now on X even read content contrary to the old guys now failing news sources.
This change is inevitable as more individuals abandon traditional media and the younger generations become the driving force behind the methods they wish to receive news and entertainment. This is no different from our great grandparents when they put down the newspapers and began listening to that newfangled radio thing, just a little over a century ago.
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