B-to-B Media: In the Recession’s Winter

It’s very quiet now, as the snow falls across the recessionary landscape. Though it’s only Fall outside, inside the B-to-B media business feels like winter. The private-equity players that got caught when the music ended with no chairs left to sit on or Greater Fools around to buy their roll-ups are sitting in workout meeting after workout meeting with the banks and other lenders trying to scale back their debt and cut their losses.

The CEO’s and top managers of these companies are gamely pulling in the remaining revenues for 2009. The cuts they made probably won’t be the last but the Fall usually brings a few pleasant surprises, a few surplus budgets willing to spend. But they know what’s coming. We all know what’s coming. The turn of the year. Contract time. We all have No Idea What Will Happen. Customers are being coy, playing their hands close, bravely saying they’ll be in next year but…we just don’t know. They see the media businesses are weak, reeling, ready to be taken advantage of. It’s the very quiet elephant in the room. Next year’s business.

Gone is the talk of Second Life, podcasts, video and vertical search and all of the other Next Digital Upsides. Yes we may all be doing some of these things and indeed online revenues are becoming a growing percentage of our businesses – but they’re smaller businesses. It’s quiet, cold and quiet, across the snowfields. We’re hunkered down. Waiting.

My faint hope is that the next 12 months will be the winter of our recession and that Spring begins to emerge for the survivors. But right now, looking to the November and December contract season for 2010 it’s very uncertain. And it gives me shivers to think about.