The Takeaway: Gauging the Media Economy

NYT: Revenue from online advertising is the only real hope newspapers have for survival in the 21st century. And it's slipping away: Web revenue was down 2.4 percent industry-wide in the second quarter, according to the Newspaper Association of America, even though online ad spending as a whole increased 7.6 percent in the same period.

WSJ: Spending on national TV ads, generally among the "more insulated parts of the media world," is also withering, forcing both Viacom and CBS to scale back their profit forecasts on Friday. Says one analyst, "It's really a scary time....It's going to get worse."

Ad Age: Even premium cable networks are feeling the pinch, although for them it's not an advertising issue: "Pay-TV subscriptions have been trending downward since the first quarter of 2008, when the first wave of the mortgage crisis caused subscriptions to contract."