Fragmentation of Media
I was reading today’s post by Paulie about the centralisation of mass media. This quote particularly struck me:-
Someone else (Ross Sleight of Virgin Games I think?) quoted in-house BBC strategists who claim that - by 2011 - only two events could expect to attract over 10m viewers (a royal wedding or a World Cup Final involving England). Bearing in mind that 110 programmes cleared the 10m viewership mark in 1994, this illustrates the fragmentation of the mass media.
As a lad, the premiere of a James Bond movie (typically 5 years after release) on TV was a big deal. But with satellite and DVD, no-one cares any more. Everyone with an urge to see it already has. "Water Cooler TV" is declining because there is less cohesion in the audience.
TV and newspapers are fragmenting and that’s a good thing. More interesting ideas can be explored by more people.
I don’t think it will have the effect of removing centralisation that Paulie talks about. But what I think it will do is to remove a certain amount of the statism out there.
RSS
Tim,
I think the one thing that we all know is that we don’t know how it will shake out.
I wouldn’t reach any conculsion with any conviction at the moment. We can just live in hope.