We all know the profound impact the web has had on advertising of all forms. I won’t even bother to mention stats or insert links to sites that talk about how newspapers, TV and magazine outlets are reeling from the shift to the web. The longstanding, cozy and symbiotic relationship between Madison Avenue and big media has hit a major road-bump (and that’s understatement) with Madison Avenue too slow to adapt, while consumer behavior continues to evolve seemingly as fast, or even faster than technology.

Advertising is down everywhere, at least that’s the story in the media. Which leads me to several observations/questions about another industry that also enjoys a similar relationship as the ad companies with the corporate media…Big PR. If media outlets are loosing market share and going out of business, what is the value of traditional PR? What is the PR world doing about it?

So if magazines and newspapers are thinning out because advertising is down, then pages are down. If pages are down, chances of placing a traditional story follows accordingly, and at the same time, the competition among those trying to place a story on these pages will rise. But again, what’s the value? What is the value of a story, in today’s terms, placed in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Vogue, People, or BusinessWeek, if circulation is down and continues to dwindle? Certainly being associated with national or international media brands has great upside, but what about being associated with a national or international brand with an ever shrinking audience?

Measuring the value of advertising losses or gains is easy. The size and characteristics of an audience is the usual determinant of the value of advertising on a particular outlet. So when audiences shrink, does it still make sense for the large PR firms to rely on their cozy relationships with big media to get placements for their clients. “We’re in the New York Times,” sounds good. By today’s measure, my response is “great, what’s next?”

It’s interesting to hear the bruhaha about advertising’s seeming demise or misfortune’s, but PR hasn’t really caught the attention of the national media, but then again, that may be a good thing for PR. Perhaps the PR guys are so good at this game that they know when to stay out of it or divert attention to the next story. Either way, the silence is deafening, and there’s no message coming from the industry to the business community (unless it’s happening behind the scenes, which is possible but doubtful, because like big ad companies, the big PR guys are still trying to make sense of all this). Remember, the guys who are running the show, the ones with the cozy relationships, have careers and dollars at stake here, so this can’t be a comfortable situation for them because this new reality directly impacts revenue. So nothing is being said, and continuing to sell the same stuff in a new world is a cocoon of comfort. Although, PR would be smart to look at Madison Avenue’s long denial of what was coming – the internet – and learn from its mistakes.

Clearly PR has to adapt it’s methods to deliver value for clients as the media climate and audiences continue to change. And we’ll be watching.