When it comes to New Media vs. Heritage Media analysis, I find that I seldom line up with any other analyst more than I line up with Duncan Riley, founder of the Inquisitr.  He and I have disagreed from time to time on minor points in this wheelhouse, but generally we agree more than we disagree.

The latest stellar post by him on this topic is entitled “The Stars Will Align For New Media In 2010.” In it, he briefly summarizes where we are now and makes a hard and fast prediction on where we’ll be in a year:

Economies run in cycles, and already things are starting to look up for those left standing. I spent the last two weeks in the United States talking to a variety of people in new and old media, and in the advertising industry. The message from most was the same: we’ve past the bottom of the market, advertisers are starting to spend more, and the quarter ahead and into 2010 will see more money in the space. […]

Newspapers with paywalls will not only affect advertising, but will also drive a huge shift in reading habits. Online newspaper readers will look elsewhere for their news, and new media is poised to grab a big slice of those readers. […]

Even the most hardened skeptic of new media would agree that what we are witnessing now is a diametric shift in the overall media landscape. Newspapers are dying, helped along the way by their failure to take full advantage of what an online, always on world has offered. New media doesn’t really need to prove itself; it already has, but collectively the space is poised to become the biggest media source online, and eventually as heritage media assets fade, the dominant force of media across the globe.

For folks who’ve been following this evolution, as I’m sure many of you have been, this seems pretty remedial.  If you’re reading this, it’s a virtual certainty that you’re a follower of the bleeding edge in media and technology, so our words are likely preaching to the choir: the old business models involved with traditional media aren’t sustainable.

As I discussed several weeks ago (“176 Newspapers Line Up to Jump Off a Cliff Like Lemmings”), newsprint organizations are sometimes centuries old and almost always laden down at the top with entrenched management and intracate editorial structures. This prevents them from making the transition to lightweight New Media business models, and thus, prevents their survival.