The death of the jingle

Interesting AP story on the demise of the ad jingle (sing along: "I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener..."). The story itself is worthwhile, but I was struck by the idea that the death of the jingle may be in part a side-effect of the fragmentation of media:

A jingle campaign today would be expensive and high risk because jingles require head-banging repetition, says Larry Londre, a professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. In the past, national advertisers could guarantee jingle saturation by buying time on the big three TV networks, whereas now they would have to include technology's new media platforms: cable, the Internet, satellite radio.

"You need the old media environment to make it work," Garfield says.

The jingle, the article notes, has been replaced by old rock songs, which hearers already recognize.