What to expect from the media in 2006 (predictions from insiders)

[RagingInMiami]

http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a6497.asp

2006: A Media New Year
We asked critics, commentators, and industry reporters for their predictions for 2006
By David S. Hirschman – December 26, 2005

While much of the media spends late December hashing out the best and worst of the past year, we prefer to look to the future. Mediabistro.com's David S. Hirschman checked in with some industry watchers to see what they thought 2006 might bring. We won't have flying cars, but at least we'll have newspapers to kick around for a little longer. Happy New Year!

KEITH KELLY, NEW YORK POST

* Maer Roshan is on the brink of getting new investor to resurrect Radar. Roshan said he could not reveal her identity, other than to identify the potential investor as the wealthy foreign-born widow who always had a fascination with American pop culture and media. Her late husband was once the biggest goat farmer in Armenia, specializing in the rare show jumping goats that are very popular in certain Middle Eastern oil sheikdoms.
* Roshan said that one of the big failings of the second coming of Radar was that he did not spend the $20 million that Mort Zuckerman and Jeffrey Epstein promised fast enough.

JOHN MCMANUS, GRADE THE NEWS

* Wall Street discovers newspapers aren't pork bellies; halts war of attrition.
* CBS hires Bob Edwards to anchor NPR-style Evening News.

DYLAN STABLEFORD, FOLIO

* A new Pew/Internet study will conclude that everyone in the world now blogs, though just 7 percent know what a podcast is.
* Vice magazine begins to tire of itself.
* Publishers will be a year away from a year away from a year away from seeing digital paper.
* Maer Roshan will make regular fundraising trips to Atlantic City, Vegas and Uncasville, Connecticut.
* Jay-Z will buy reeling hip-hop magazine The Source, and thusly inherit his 100th problem.
* Jon Stewart will be paid $150,000 to skewer a panel of high profile book publishers in front of a roomful of distributors.

JON FRIEDMAN, MARKETWATCH.COM

* Mitch Albom won't write his Final Four column this time until AFTER the end of the tournament.

DAVID HAUSLAIB, JOSSIP

* Someone at AMI will finally make good on those rumors of peeing in Bonnie Fuller's coffee.
* At long last, Adam Moss will win at least one "hottest men of media" contest. Ariel Foxman, too—if he's still employed.
* Maer Roshan will generate more headlines than his magazine ever printed. Again.
* Jann Wenner will remain a rageaholic. Staffer desks, meanwhile, will continue to make Domino's FOB appear organized.
* Lloyd Grove's contract will expire. For real this time.
* Fashion editors will forget they ever hired a man named Peter Braunstein.
* Once again, Time magazine will pick the wrong Person of the Year.

BILL POWERS, NATIONAL JOURNAL

* In 2006, newspapers will finally get their act together and become exciting, modern, user-friendly tools for life. A newspaper rolled up under the arm will be more hip and fashionable than dangling white earbuds. In an unrelated development, scientists will announce the birth of a pig with tiny, fully functional wings.

MARK JURKOWITZ, BOSTON PHOENIX

* In an effort to take some of the partisan venom out of the debate over public television, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting appoints Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush—who find themselves between gigs--as its new ombudsman tandem.
* CBS fails to land Katie Couric as its new nightly anchor, and settles instead for the runner-up in the new American Idol competition. True to Ted Koppel's final-show warning, ABC ultimately does replace Nightline with a comedy show—reruns of Happy Days.
* At a Wall Street media conference, five major newspaper companies announce they will lay off 1000 more employees in an attempt to bolster their stock price. Bearish investors respond that "the street" won't be able to view the newspaper business as a promising "buy" until all the windows are boarded up and cobwebs cover the printing presses.
* In a stunning Vanity Fairarticle, "Deep Throat"—aka W. Mark Felt—reveals that he was the Bush administration source who discussed Valerie Plame with The Washington Post's Bob Woodward.

ADAM PENENBERG, SLATE.COM/NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

* Columnists will continue to predict the death of newspapers while they collect paychecks from online versions of newspapers.
* Maureen Dowd, Nick Kristof, and the other New York Times Select columnists will go on strike when they learn that no one has been reading them since the Times started charging for online access. Maureen Dowd says, "Never ask a publisher who's in a bubble if he's in a bubble. I'd write a column about Pinch the son and Punch the elder, but I used up all my good material on evil Dubya and his prose-mangling father, George senior."
* The "blogosphere" will self-combust when researchers from Stanford University learn how to turn digital hot air into the real thing, momentarily solving our nation's energy needs but giving workers nowhere to go when they are at the office surfing the Internet on a high-speed connection.
* As Google and Craig's List steer more and more revenue away from newspapers and other news media, journalists will cease writing fluff and start taking a hard look at the two companies. The patina of goodness that surrounds the two tech darlings will begin to wear off. Meanwhile the term "To Google" will now mean to "drive a competitor out of business by giving away your product." And the New York Post will claim that sleeper cell terrorists use Craig's List to secretly communicate through the personal ads.
* Desperate to keep pace with Fox News, CNN will replace Anderson Cooper with supermodel Gisele Bundchen when viewers get tired of his earnestness and pine for some good ol' T&A.

JAY ROSEN, PRESS THINK/NEW YORK UNIVERISTY

* The paths of The New York Times and The Washington Post will continue to diverge. (65 percent probability)
* The prestige and defensibility of "he said, she said" journalism will continue to plummet while the incidence of it will remain about the same. (80 percent)
* Local television websites will become larger players in news. (52 percent)
* The brilliant strategy of trying to beat the competition by cutting quality will remain in place in the newspaper biz, and so more newspapers will tip from black to red ink. (85 percent)
* More "traditional" journalists will catch the bug and emerge as blogging stars. (60 percent)
* More innovation will come to the news industry from players outside that industry, including Yahoo, Google, bloggers, amateurs, geeks and non-profits. (75 percent)
* Journalists—not all, but lots—will continue to let their web literacy lag and their blog ignorance grow while simultaneously assuring themselves that the Web is unreliable and bloggers can never replace them. (68 percent)

ERIC ALTERMAN, THE NATION

* President Bush will make statements that are demonstrably false. Most, if not all of the mainstream media will print these statements without pointing this out. Bloggers will complain. Mainstream reporters and editors will respond that "since we are being attacked by both sides, we must be doing something right," and attack Democrats for their "fecklessness" in failing to offer up an alternative plan to Bush's fictional statements. Bloggers will complain more. Reporters and editors will respond ... (see above).
* The above process will be repeated, repeatedly.

JON FINE, BUSINESSWEEK

* Time Inc. sells off some of its portfolio, though this doesn't happen until springtime at the earliest. Obvious—though not sole—contenders: The niche and outdoor titles in its Time4Media unit.
* Carl Icahn continues to make noise about Time Warner at every opportunity. But Time Warner does not get broken up nor taken over; management does not act on any of Icahn's pet notions; and stock performance stays sluggish.
* After a brief post-Google-deal honeymoon, the press turns on AOL again.
* The limits to what Google can do become apparent by the fall—e.g., they do not wipe out entire established sectors of media and/or advertising.
* Primedia sells its consumer enthusiast magazines. This effectively finishes off the company, to the enduring regret of Simon Dumenco, who loses a favorite media punchline.
* Saber-rattling from pundits and advertisers over fragmenting audience continues, but broadcast TV ratings hold relatively steady. This doesn't stop the networks from getting their butts kicked in the upfronts, though.
* Fox Business Channel debuts, to underwhelming ratings and reviews, late in the year.
* OK! magazine shutters its US edition.

[tavalon]

1. Media will actually begin to do their job

Just kidding. Like that'll ever happen!

[RagingInMiami]

2. Like this guy said ...

BILL POWERS, NATIONAL JOURNAL

* In 2006, newspapers will finally get their act together and become exciting, modern, user-friendly tools for life. A newspaper rolled up under the arm will be more hip and fashionable than dangling white earbuds. In an unrelated development, scientists will announce the birth of a pig with tiny, fully functional wings.

[tavalon]

3. Teach me to skim!

Bill Powers, eh? Has he considered taking a job at The Daily Show? They would appreciate that there!