Even with political dollars pouring in the door, TV broadcasters knew early on that 2008 would not finish well. Spending by other big advertising categories steadily eroded throughout the year as the country slipped into a full-blown recession.

When it came to revenue, flat was the new up.

In December, research firm BIAfn estimated that when all was tabulated TV station revenue would sink 7 percent in 2008 to $20.1 billion, the lowest in seven years.

The decline in core advertising was led by the category that TV stations have come to rely on for as much as 40 percent of their revenue — automotive.

As car sales plummeted in the face of rising gas prices and tightening credit, so did the dollars the auto makers and dealers routinely spent on TV advertising.

By year's end, most broadcasters were rooting for some kind of government bail out for the Big 3 domestic auto companies, fearing what the loss of their marketing dollars would mean to them in 2009 and beyond.

To the relief of broadcasters, the Bush administration came to the rescue of the U.S. auto industry on Dec. 19, offering $17.4 billion in emergency loans in exchange for concessions from the deeply troubled carmakers and their workers.

What made the dour news of 2008 especially hard to take was that it was prelude to 2009, a down year in the industry's two-year, up-down revenue cycle that would be without heavy political spending and the extra advertising demand around the Olympics. Core advertising would stand alone.

In November, the Television Bureau of Advertising confirmed the worst when it reissued its forecast for 2009 in the face of the rapidly deteriorating economy. Instead of a 2-5 percent decrease next year, TVB said revenue would drop at twice that rate, 7-11 percent. BIAfn pegged the 2009 decline at 8.5 percent.

"It's ugly because there is not a real sense that we're at bottom," said longtime industry securities analyst Bishop Cheen in assessing the business in July. "It's always scariest, whether you're in the TV business or the doughnut business, if you feel things sliding and you don't have a firm conviction of where bottom is."

Wall Street crushed the stock prices of all old media companies, especially those of the pure-play TV station groups. Many are selling today for a fraction of what they were a year ago. In December 2007, a share of LIN TV cost $12.95. This morning, you could buy single shares of LIN, Sinclair, Scripps, Nexstar, Young, Gray, Extravision, Belo, Journal and Acme for that and still get change.

Adding to the angst of most broadcasters was the feeling that broadcast programming itself was unraveling at an accelerating pace. The ratings of all three types of broadcast programming — network, syndicated and local — dropped as the Internet joined cable in atomizing the TV audience (see Programming below).

Seeing where things were heading, most station groups did not wait to cutting costs, particularly headcount. No department within the stations was immune. Producers, reporters, account executives and engineers all paid the price for the top-line shortfalls.

Management also began to cut loose high-priced veteran anchors, concluding that their fat salaries no longer made sense in the new economy of broadcasting (see Journalism below).

Organizers of trade shows and vendors of station hardware and software were also feeling the pinch. The former planned for smaller crowds; the latter, for less capEx spending.

Stations' financial troubles slowed the rollout of local HD news in 2008 and they will probably continue to do so next year. According to Television Broadcast magazine, as of July, 126 stations in 65 markets were in the HD news business.

More Business

The station trading market ground to a halt in 2008 due to the lack of credit and the near collapse of the financial markets. There was little equity and virtually no debt chasing TV stations.

The year's two biggest deals failed to close.

Just yesterday, Post-Newsweek Stations walked away from its deal to purchase WTVJ Miami from NBC Local Media for $205 million — a price for a network affiliate in a top 25 market that would have been unheard of even five years ago.

In the joint statement, Post-Newsweek and NBC cited "the current economic environment" and regulatory delay for the decision.

Post-Newsweek had planned to operate WTVJ in tandem with its ABC affiliate in the market, WPLG.

It may have been a bigger setback for NBC, which had also hoped to sell its O&O in Hartford, Conn., WVIT. But it quietly pulled it off the market earlier this year after failing to attract any buyers.

It was essentially the same story for Bonten Media and Landmark Communications.

Bonten, headed by Randy Bongarten and backed by | More …