Posted 12:50 PM by Gene

We know we shouldn't make too much of the BEEEEEEEEEE-OOOOOOOOOOO numbers (they're down again for the weekend year-to-year), but we wonder whether the slow leaking of air from the whole MEDIA BIZ doesn't reflect a growing dissatisfaction with the product. We fear it may well be, as the PAUL DRECKs and other apologists say, just a matter of timing or the fluke of luck, or maybe people are staring too much at their computers, and the time must come (unfortunately) when audiences will finally shrink to an unthinking indissoluble hard-core crowd that wouldn't abandon media whatever its dross, but all sorts of media are losing their audiences: newspapers are down, recorded -- SOUND is down, movies are down. (Only TV appears to be holding steady, and that's because it's our national night light.) We suspect if people liked the product they might willingly spend a little more money on it, but we want to believe people are smarter than media types.