The Biggest Mistake of the Past 10 Years? Too Much Stuff.

Bear with me as we recap last week’s 100-yard dash of media industry financial woe before breasting the tape of eternal doom. First comes ITV with its 40 percent profit decline, 600 redundancies and regional closures, then Channel Five making one in four people redundant–saving almost as much money as Channel 4 will gain from Kevin Lygo halving his £1m pay package. In print, things are no less unappealing. The ABCs for national newspapers recorded almost universal sales decline, with no sector growing and the Daily Sport (yes, it is still going) withdrawing from the audit altogether. In magazines, Arena closed, and even on the internet Gawker’s founder, Nick Denton, has folded his blogs together, proclaiming that “micropublishing is dead.” Wherever you look, it is clear that the media industry is in dire need of quantitative tightening.

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