Emily Bell: ‘Five Newspapers Will Die, Robert Peston is Lush’

We all know that 2009 is shaping up to be a box of horrors for media companies who rely on advertising revenue (i.e. almost all of them, excepting the BBC). But yesterday Guardian executive Emily Bell painted a bleaker picture still, telling the Polis thinktank:

“We are on the brink of two years of carnage for western media. In the UK, five nationals could go out of business and we could be left with no UK-owned broadcaster outside of the BBC.”

Eek. But which five? The obvious candidates are the Daily Star, the Daily Sport, and the Daily Express (which is down 9.3% on sales this year), all of which are owned by pornographer/mogul Richard Desmond, and also the People, which apparently still exists (no, me either). The Independent, sad to say, is not looking too healthy either with its circulation shrinking to approximately 145,000, down 14.5% on last year. There must be some encouraging signs though, right?

Er, no, says Bell.

“This is systematic collapse not just a cyclical downturn,” she said, before predicting that we will increasingly see a “superstar culture” in the media, with journalists like BBC business pin-up Robert Peston rising up like a well-groomed meteor.

In short then, television and newspapers are doomed, and Robert Peston is, like, so hot right now. Is there no limit to this man’s powers?

Posted by Jack Roberts in Creative Economy | October 15, 2008 5:28PM |