“’What’s discouraging is that this trend plays into, and worsens, the whole divide we see in America,’ Abernathy, the report’s principal author, told me this week.

The neediest areas — those that are more remote, poorer and less wired — are the ones that get hurt the worst. Most of the new investment and innovation pouring into the media sector, as valuable and needed as it is, doesn’t reach these regions.”