Recently I was at a family function where I ran into my stepbrother who I hadn’t seen in a couple years. We are both huge 80’s Action movie fans and just like old times, we started hypothesizing about things like:

A few years ago I wrote in our newsletter that the news industry could not survive in its current form if it did not begin to charge for online content. What is now called a paywall, would allow the news organization to keep its reporters employed, which results in original content.

Some in the outdoor industry are telling us that every bulletin (the large boards that are typically on highways) will be digital in short order. Meaning that the boards currently covered with messages printed on vinyl will be converted to the LED displays that are certainly commonplace today.

Everybody loses in the recent Tonight Show debacle: Leno loses his street cred because his primetime show was cancelled after four months. Conan loses because late fringe programming is less important now than when Fox offered him all the gold at APMEX.com six years ago.

Super Bowl spots are going for a reported $3.3 million this year (although the average figures to be under $3M when all deals are considered)! Bud and Pepsi and GM are out this year. CareerBuilder's in again- with something risqué no doubt (PR ploy). E-Trade is running again too. Apparently, Bud's back in (ploy to come in late?).

Staying on the television theme-- was it that television was such a powerful medium in its heyday? Or was it the video (film, moving pictures, etc.) format? With the rapid increase in viewers of online video (spurred by bandwidth), the format seems to remain highly preferred by consumers. 

Cable television giant, Cablevision, launched an interactive ad format this month that allows digital subscribers to click on a spot and get more information including product samples. This long-term promise has finally been fulfilled. And the most valuable part of this technology is NOT the ability to track your ads.

Television ratings seem to have almost leveled off from their dive that began nearly a decade ago. It’s no big secret why anymore – Video games, cable television, the Internet, and more recently hulu.com, tv.com and various websites where you can watch your show on demand.

A recent research study by Nielsen revealed that the decline in television viewing has leveled off while other media continues to rise in usage. This means a few things: 1) Television is not dying (it never was) 2) Overall media consumption is on the rise. Much of the average person's free time today is being spent consuming media.

In addition to the paid online news content, last month we asked how many of you were listening to commercial radio these days. 72% still are, but many mentioned also spending time with satellite radio and their Ipods.

The debate over free vs. paid news content is heating up. Traditional daily newspapers are dying because readers are shifting habits online, but advertising revenue isn't following them en masse.

In a time when content is king, I'm surprised to see all of the layoffs in editorial departments at news organizations. If revenue is down, you can't eliminate those people that produce what you sell. Sure, that's an over-simplification of the issue. But news and information is what they sell.