The Digital Handshake: Seven Proven Strategies to Grow Your Business Using Social Media

Chapter 2. The Media Is Fragmented and So Is the Audience

MEDIA IN THE SIXTIES: WHEN I WAS MY FATHER'S REMOTE CONTROL

My job was relatively easy as there weren't many channels. Normally, depending on the weather, we averaged three and sometimes four—two stations in a nearby town and two a bit farther away. That was television in the sixties. Most of it was black and white, as was life back then.

What about radio? FM had not yet taken over. That left a few local AM stations that played mostly country music or a combination of formats: country in the mornings, rock and roll in the afternoons, and gospel on Sundays. They went off the air at dusk to make room for the 100,000-watt clear-channel stations broadcasting out of Nashville, Little Rock, and even Chicago.

As for print, there was a daily newspaper published in a nearby town and our local hometown weekly. My parents subscribed to Life, Time, and Readers Digest. Oh, and Progressive Farmer, too. (I guess you can tell I grew up in a rural community.)

Advertising in this "Mad Men" era was, by comparison, much simpler than it is today. It was much easier to reach a mass audience, and companies like Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, and General Motors had mastered the art.

In the 1960s, for example, a single ad aired simultaneously on the big three networks (CBS, NBC, and ABC) could reach 80 percent of U.S. women. Today, that same ad would have ...