communications industry structure, including mass media, advertising, and telephone companies
In 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, Bell System local telephone operating companies had $12.8 million in uncollectible revenue. That was 1.3% of total operating revenue, up from about 0.4% of total operating revenue in the early 1920s. Perhaps new measures addressing uncollectibles were instituted about 1934. In any case, in 1934 uncollectibles … Continue reading historical perspective on bad debt
Using publicly available telephone industry reports, I’ve constructed a U.S. Yellow Pages (telephone directory) advertising expenditure series extending from 1920 to 2007. Directory advertising (meaning printed Yellow Pages telephone directory advertising[1]) is an early example of a communications business generating additional revenue from data it collects. The directory advertising data also offers a view into … Continue reading telephone directory advertising data
“Content” producers — journalists and writers, book authors, musicians, film-makers, and similar professions — are becoming digital goods producers. Person thinking about how digital goods producers can make money might ponder two old-fashioned paper goods: books and greeting cards. According to U.S. Census Bureau surveys, from 2001 to 2007, greeting card publishers received about 50% … Continue reading books or greeting cards?
Traditional print media are facing major challenges from digital communications networks that allow everybody to share written words at low cost. The U.S. newspaper industry reports tremendous opportunities and exhibits fiery indignation at the newspaper industry’s ongoing meltdown. As recent analysis has highlighted, general-interest mass-market periodicals seem to have lost any special value as a … Continue reading the fate of traditional print media
The U.S. Census Bureau’s Service Annual Surveys include data on advertising expenditure from 1998 to 2007. I’ve extracted and compiled these advertising data and compared them to widely cited figures from the Coen advertising expenditure dataset. The Service Annual Surveys use statistically representative surveys of firms. The survey reports classify and aggregate firms’ revenues by … Continue reading U.S. advertising expenditure, 1998-2007