I’m seeing signs everyday of the struggle for traditional media to remain relevant:

• The Wall Street Journal reported that Newsweek shed 20% of its staff, a result of lower ad revenue and newsstand sales. The most telling quote: "At a recent speech at Columbia University, [Newsweek Editor] Jon Meacham delivered a blistering response after he asked who reads Newsweek and none of the 100-odd students in attendance raised their hands."  Blistering response? Well, yes, I can understand frustration. And he’d be a lot better off channeling his anger into curiosity about what digital natives want. Dan Pink (who I blogged about as the author of the manga business book meant to appeal to digital natives) has a great commentary on the article.

• On the same day, the WSJ reported that HarperCollins has a new book imprint that is meant to leverage Internet sales, sharing its profit with writers and paying no advances to authors. They also won’t take back unsold books from retailers, a departure from the past. Jane Friedman, chief executive of HarperCollins is quoted: "This is the right time to experiment with a new business model. We have to look at a changing marketplace."

• Nielsen Media Research reports that the total audience for the three major networks’ evening news programs dropped 5% from 2006 to 2007. The loss of viewership over the last few years continues. Major networks can no longer afford their high-priced anchors (as the WSJ writes about Katie Couric, her $15M/year contract, and the likelihood that she’ll be parting ways soon from the CBS evening news. Ironically, the blogosphere was posting about this yesterday evening, before I could read about it in this morning’s paper.)

Don’t get me wrong. I think there will still be a large audience for traditional media for awhile. ABV uses a hybrid approach to accommodate this. However, as the population of digital natives increases over time, newspapers, news magazines and network television will increasingly be irrelevant.  The gatekeepers are guarding something with disappearing value, a millenial version of chemical half-lives.