Neighbours flee as bikie clubs feud

I'm not sure what Yeebok said, I said that media have reacted to
increasing competition by catering to the lowest common denominator
(sensationalist reporting).


G-S

 

Geezus... I actually find myself agreeing with Gerry... what's the world
coming to

FWIW there will always be niche media outlets with cater to something
other than the lowest common denominator but by their very definition
they won't be mass market.



G-S

 

Oh dear, Gerry is making sense. What's going wrong with the world ?

Technically newspapers from the early 1800s onwards(when they first
became widely available) were as often lower class oriented as they
were upper/middle and sensationalism was as rife in the 1800s as it is
now.

However I think your point is broadly correct.

Advertiser's demand for the numbers definitely drives behaviour, and
both TV and newspapers are losing the intelligentsia and the upper /
middle segments (for example the consumption of TV is inversely
proportionate to education according to a marketing article I read in
HBR a year ago - I can't imagine it's changed much). Given that
particular segment is shrinking the demand for so called "quality
news" in the traditional media is reduced and hence the majority of
both TV and newspapers will inexorably move towards the tabloid.

Reliable news sources will become harder to find but they will never
disappear IMNSHO (but I could easily be wrong on that)

JL

 

In a restatement of the "law" of supply and demand, if Mr Market says
"jump" it's a brave supplier who doesn't ask "how high?"

 

I think it's probably a chicken and the egg situation.

You could argue either way.



G-S

 

Now that I'd disagree with.

Newspapers when they were the only media choice were the entire media
market.

By definition that means that they were 'mass market', since they
catered to the entire 'mass' of the market.

Yes that market has expanded and almost certainly changed in demographic
terms but again... what happened first?

That's an old economic modeling argument we aren't going to solve here.


G-S

 

Unfortunately that's Mr Market for you.

I can't remember who (and CBA looking it up) but someone has
psycho-analysed Mr Market. Seems he is schizophrenic, bipolar,
suicidal even, a psychotic, irrational, and has about a hundred other
severe mental problems.

I doubt if he knows or even cares where he is heading or what he is
going to do when he gets there.

 

I think the majority of accountants/business analysts would look at the
total sales figures for the best selling media outlets, divide by the
sales for the entire market and use those figures to determine what
paper had most of the market.

That's certainly the way I'd work it out.


G-S

 

Mass market = produced in large numbers for undiscerning consumers. Niche
market = produced in limited numbers for discerning consumers. No amount
of muddling with arithmetic changes one into the other. In the early
1800's most people were still illiterate. The few who could read might
have all read The Times, in which case it would have had market
saturation, but it was not selling to a mass market just because it had
100% market share.

Gerry is right.

 

Not according to wikipedia (whose definition is close to what I suggested).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_market



G-S

 

The definitions I quoted were also from the InterWeb, are consistent with
my business studies textbooks, and make sense. Sadly, in this instance,
Wikipedia fails to state the obvious, and the article you quote is
challenged by the editors.

Your obstinacy in this instance does you no credit at all. Mass market
means a market with a mass of individual purchasers, where a mass means
what any rational person would think it means - lots.

 

Depressing, innit?
The alternative has been shown to be even more so.

 

<Smiley noted>

Geez, not you too!
I absolutely do not want to argue the bleeding office with you,
especially when I suspect we are on the same wavelength anyway.

 

Obvious! I meant obvious!
(bloody keyboards)

 

No mass defines the "amount of" whatever you are referring to.


G-S

 

No, I think you are doing quite well without me, and thumb twiddling
is so last year.

Anyway, I agree with about 95% of your foreshadowed conclusions so any
"debate" is likely to put us both to sleep. It might stir the punters
up for a while, but I really don't want to do that again.
So do go on by yourself while I watch from the sidelines.

 

Correct, but don't blame me, I didn't invent the term. In the term 'mass
market', mass is being used in a colloquial rather than technical way.
Try this:

mass-mar·ket (msmärkt)
adj.
Of, relating to, or produced for consumption in large numbers, especially
when sold in supermarkets, in drugstores, and at newstands: a mass-market
paperback.
tr.v.
mass-mar·ket·ed, mass-mar·ket·ing, mass-mar·kets
To produce for consumption in large numbers.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published
by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

To choose but one source.

 

Yes but that's a corruption of the original (and correct) usage.

If you go back through the various editions you will get to a point
where the original definition is stated.

I see no reason to change from the orginal (and correct) defintion to a
debased and incorrect one just because some marketing monkeys can't add.


G-S