Metrocation
Random thought that popped up for no reason. Not especially interesting but seems to be fairly fresh, not often discussed.

Point: Various types of media have similar time-graphs of centralized vs broad.

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Newspapers began in the 1600s as strictly urban. Amsterdam, London, Berlin, later New Amsterdam.

By 1920, newspapers were amazingly broad. Every American town above 200 population had a weekly. Towns above 2000 had a daily. Towns above 20000 had two or three competing dailies. Big cities had hundreds of papers serving every imaginable ethnic group and trade group.**

After 1950 newspapers started to repel their own readers, aiming instead to please NYC shareholders who were buying and consolidating papers.

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Radio began in 1920 as urban plus academic. The first organized stations were in the usual big cities, plus Aggie colleges like K-State, serving the interests of farmers. So the earliest radio listeners were flappers and farmers, an oddly bimodal distribution. By 1930 radio looked more like newspapers, with one station in towns above 2k, two stations in towns above 20k, etc. After 1960 radio lost its soul and consolidated, leaving only the biggest cities plus some 'autopilot' stations in smaller cities, basically relays for the networks.

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TV began in 1940 as urban plus academic again, but this time the academic versions weren't for farmers. After WW2 interrupted, TV resumed in 1952, now all urban. Two technical limitations made the earlier form of broadening impossible. (1) A basic television studio is far more expensive than a basic radio studio. (2) Because VHF is short-range and line-of-sight, smaller cities were completely unserved. If you were within 50 miles of a big city, you could pick up a decent signal with a tall antenna. Beyond 50 miles, out of luck. TV didn't broaden until the late '60s with the first cable systems, which were just a supertall antenna plus an amplifier and wired distribution system. Cable didn't become the consolidated provider of all programming until 1990.

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The internet began as government plus academia in 1970. Compuserve and BBS spread the service to everyone with a telephone connection. Consolidation began with high-speed cable modems, sharing the TV cable lines. Now we're back to only government.

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The common pattern is: Begin as urban plus academia, then broaden out for a while, then consolidate back to single-source urban.

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** Footnote: The minimum profitable circulation was about 300. This was true for small-town weeklies and also for those specialized newsletters in metro areas.

Labels: Asked and not worth asking, Constants and Variables

  ¶ 8:15 AM