Jason Rines (iThinkBig)

Fitch: Grim 2009 Outlook for U.S. Media and Entertainment Companies

I am in Digital Media, Consumer Healthcare. The business model management embarked on a year ago was to provide a market solution on a 'Cost-Per-Lead' basis where the advertiser and website vendor both had transparent data collection and tracking mechanisms. The business a year ago to get websites involved on that compensation model and advertisers was like pulling teeth. Capitulation is occuring and management is being replaced. Cheap ad unit model on a CPM basis had become non-profitable. The companies we spoke to are killing digital media in 2009, except for the risk sharing model I described. Every astute fundamentalist with a strong value proposition will do fine in media. That's about 2% of us.