As a communications consultant, I am always intrigued by editorial free speech and I certainly do value reporter integrity.  The recent decision by General Motors to pull advertising from the LA Times and possibly other Tribune products raises the old debate of the influence of money in the editorial world.  I can’t help but wonder from a communications perspective what this means for GM.  Granted the LA Times is not The Wall Street Journal but the assumption goes without saying that hopefully customers don’t agree with the editorial opinion of the paper and side with GM, otherwise GM is in a world of trouble.  Will this be a slippery slope from a PR perspective for GM? 

Regardless, this is a situation where an industry typically on the PR defensive has decided to make a head-on reactive move against a key external voice.  This time, a car review in a newspaper has become a heated editorial debate. Unfortunately, an article that would have been kept fairly regional has now become national news.

Is this part of a key trend? Is this part of a larger view on the value of advertising? On the Media had a program last week about how traditional advertising budgets are being cut. The program mentioned that Procter & Gamble, “the largest television advertiser” is significantly cutting their television spend. Other interesting points:

—"When the world’s biggest advertiser, and therefore the world’s biggest underwriter of media content, is looking elsewhere to spend its five and a half billion dollars a year, that makes Madison Avenue and Hollywood shudder."

—"According to Nielsen, the network audience has eroded an average of two percent a year for a decade, while the US population increased by 30 million. In that span, the advertiser cost of reaching consumers has nearly tripled, assuming, that is, that those consumers armed with remote controls and now TiVo are actually watching the commercials, which, research shows, they usually are not."

—”Ten years ago, American Express spent 80 percent of its marketing budget on television. Now it spends less than 30 percent.”

What is behind these shrinking budgets?  Companies are looking to reach audiences through different means.  Remember the segment where Jon Stewart blasted Tucker Carlson?  That attracted 400,000 viewers to CNN. Chances are you did not see that segment on television. That same segment was copied on to the Internet, where it got at least five million views. So, what’s more powerful? The networks the big media companies own, or the networks that they do not?

-John Welton and Janet Martin