Happy days are here again.
Well, not really. But magazine ads are up (in the monthly-mag category anyway) 5 percent from a year ago, the first year-over-year increase in two-and-a-half years, reports Media Industry Newsletter‘s Steve Cohn.
Combine that with The Wall Street Journal saying its ads were up 25 percent from a year ago in the first quarter, and you have some of the first bright spots in media in at least three years.
(h/t John Koblin)
— The Wall Street Journal‘s Jason Gay pushes back against Frank DeFord, who wrote the other day that the paper’s sports section should quit using honorifcs for athletes.
Mr. Gay’s excellent lede:
All right, all right, we got it, everybody. From now on, we’ll loosen our Windsor knot, put down the polo mallet and refer to Reggie Jackson as “October.”
And that giant, sphere-headed mascot frolicking on the dugout at Citi Field? Here on out, we’ll call him “Met.”
We’ll remember that the late Joe DiMaggio hawked a caffeine contraption called “Coffee.” And that in “Rocky III,” Sylvester Stallone fought a grouchy, mohawked pugilist played by an actor named “T.”
The Journal is in the right here: Stick with the Mr., the Ms., and the Messrs., etc.
Calling someone “Mr.” or “Ms.” feels like good manners, a throwback to genteel times when Mr. Tinker fielded it, then threw it on to Mr. Evers, who then tossed it over to Mr. Chance.
And while you’re at it, please bring back the old tripartite headlines on page one. In my dreams.
— Finally, my good friend Tony points me to this excellent graphic on how much money artists make from various forms of distribution.
A self-pressed CD sold for ten bucks yields an artist $8. An artist on a label gets thirty cents to a buck from a CD sale. An iTunes single brings nine cents. One Spotify stream nets you $0.00043.
You have to sell 143 self-pressed CDs to make the minimum-wage. With Spotify, you have to have 4.5 million Spotify plays a month to make the same $1,160.
Wow.
Ryan Chittum is a former Wall Street Journal reporter, and deputy editor of The Audit, CJR’s business section. If you see notable business journalism, give him a heads-up at rc2538@columbia.edu. Follow him on Twitter at @ryanchittum.