October 13, 2008 by Editor.

With the real question on everyone’s mind how - if at all - will Doug Allen deal with the shift in power on the National Board, the public face of SAG, our website, under the control of Membership First’s Communications Committee chair Justine Bateman, has quietly once again gone off its way over budget rails.Here’s the latest post, just in time for all of you who’ve been worrying two and a half months in advance about doing business with 5757 during the Christmas holidays.As long as you were worrying about doing that business two years ago, you now have all the information you could ever need.

HOLIDAY HOURS

Friday, December 22, 2006 - Guild will close at 12:30 p.m.

Monday, December 25, 2006 - Guild closed

Friday, December 29, 2006 - Guild will close at 12:30 p.m. (Membership/Cashier closed all day)

Monday, January 1, 2007 - Guild closed

 Then, inside, there’s the latest entry in the Allens’ effort to answer SAGWatch. SAGTalk features a month old entry on the discredited push poll referendum. Curiously, that one is dated both September 17th and September 18th, depending upon where you look.You’d think that if Doug Allen really wanted to keep his job he’d be trying a little harder to keep the ship afloat and less time trying to curry favor amongst those whose opinions he’s ignored so far during his entire career at SAG.—Correction: As several have noted, the SAG Communications committee is now headed by Membership First’s Jane Austin, who replaced Membership First’s Anne-Marie Johnson, who is apparently positioning herself as the group’s candidate for SAG president next year. 

Posted in SAG Politics | Print | 7 Comments »

October 13, 2008 by Number Six.

Here are the key paragraphs: 

How the dollars flow—or rather don’t flow—in any downturn can shape events in ways obscured until much later. As strange as it sounds today, the tech bust that started in 2000 meant that total dollars spent on online display advertising declined 21% between 2001 and 2002. And as strange as it sounds today, many established media organizations used that decline as a rationale for deemphasizing the Web in favor of their traditional businesses—and underinvestment allowed all manner of Web-only startups to outflank them in the one medium that’s still growing. While online display ads will still be up in ‘09, says BMO Capital Markets analyst Leland Westerfield, that growth rate will likely slow. Look for search advertising to hold up, so Google should be hurt the least.Elsewhere, Barclay’s DiClemente suggests, the slowdown’s effects will move up a media ladder of sorts, starting with newspapers, magazines, radio, local TV, and then hitting broadcast and—possibly—cable TV. There’s a “high probability,” he says, that the “advertising malaise spreads to network TV”—the one long-running medium that’s held steadiest as others have fallen off.DiClemente is forecasting a 5.5% pullback in ad spending next year, with only Web and cable TV posting ad upticks. It may be hard to conjure a scenario worse than today’s, given what radio, local TV, and newspapers are currently experiencing. This has been a year in which many unthinkable things have happened—newspaper executives, for instance, mulling which days of the week they won’t publish. But the coming downturn means that what once was unthinkable … well, you better start thinking it.

Posted in Media Business | Print | 8 Comments »