Hollywood is feeling the pinch and abandoning “paid media (newspaper ads, television spots and billboards)” in favor of “armies of publicists generating what they call ‘earned media,’ free coverage in magazines, newspapers, TV outlets and blogs,” The New York Times says.
And, for those folks in publishers’ advertising departments who think positive coverage will generate ad sales, “If the P.R. team for [Disney's] ABC unit can land an article about ‘Dancing With the Stars’ on the cover of TV Guide, for instance, the network will make certain not to also buy advertising space in that issue to push the show,” The Times report says.