A tough first half

Some ugly numbers for traditional media in the first half of 2009, courtesy of the Vocus Media Database. According to the company's tally, 123 news television shows were canceled along with 186 radio shows, most of them in smaller markets. The magazine industry saw 154 launches and 556 closings.

Major daily newspapers have been shuttered as well, but much of the contraction has been seen in the bureaus. From the Vocus media blog:

The newspaper industry was hit by significant closings in the first half of 2009 (the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Baltimore Examiner and Seattle Post-Intelligencer all ceased publishing a print edition), but legions of daily newspapers haven’t folded. The vulnerability of the newspaper industry cannot be measured only by the number of shuttered papers, however. Newspapers across the country also closed 110 bureaus, according to the Vocus Database. Some of the bureaus were in Washington, D.C., but many were in areas close to the parent newspapers, a trend that would never have occurred during more robust times.