US media winners and losers in the downturn
Laura James
The US is now officially in recession. Recent figures showed that the country's GDP contracted at an annualised rate of 3.8% in the three months to December 2008, the largest decline since the first quarter of 1982. US consumer spending, which accounts for a considerable proportion of the country's economy, also fell by 3.5% in the final quarter of last year, following a decline of 3.8% in the previous three months. Furthermore, unemployment is its highest since the recession of the early 1990s.
At constant prices – i.e. adjusting for...