Report: 2019 Brutal Year For U-S Media

2019 was a transformative year for the U.S. news media industry, but it was also one of the most turbulent points in its history, reports Axios.

The big picture: There were enormous business challenges, which resulted in an unprecedented number of layoffs, desperate product maneuvers and fire-sale deals.

Driving the news: The impeachment of President Trump by the House of Representatives on Thursday was prompted by a whistleblower's complaint, but the stage was set by the dogged reporting of many journalists across the country.

But despite those efforts, the economic outlook of the news industry is still grim heading into 2020.
The impeachment process has proven that voters are starting to tune out political coverage, which for the past few years has been the news industry's biggest money-maker. That reality, coupled with an anticipated recession, has newsrooms on edge.

Where things stand: 2019 was a particularly brutal year for older news industries, like newspapers, magazines, television and radio. Revenue for television was down nearly 4% this year, and for print it was down nearly 20%.

Legacy magazine brands that were once considered must-reads, like Sports Illustrated, struggled to find suitors. Magazine titans like Conde Nast are expected to miss their revenue numbers given a bleak advertising forecast.

Univision, one of the largest media companies that serves America's fastest-growing population, is looking for a buyer to help it crawl out of a massive debt hole, driven by a private equity investment gone bad.

Be smart: Legacy industries still continue to serve local news markets, which are mostly void of the same investments financially, and in tech and talent, as national outlets.

The two biggest local newspaper holding groups — New Media (GateHouse and Gannett) and McClatchy, which collectively house over 700 newspapers — had a combined market cap value as of Thursday of less than $800 million. By comparison, Apple, which this year launched its own news product, is worth more than $1.2 trillion.

Meanwhile, several other papers serving major markets closed, like the 150-year-old Vindicator in Youngstown, Ohio and the beloved OC Weekly in California.

Regulators, aware of the realities that legacy industries and local media face in a digital world, continued efforts to level the playing field this year, mostly by trying to roll back decades-old rules that may be keeping them from growing.

Read More Now