Out With A Bang

A little over a year ago now, I let Mr Magic Lantern shine a little light into the gathering gloom of the Internet. Or rather, Old Media’s role within it.

For everyone else, of course, the Internet is like so many Christmas’ come early. ‘Heh, Mom, look what I did with my mobile… cool…’

I had it on the way home from a karate grading on Sunday with my nine-year-old; that his best pal Jac – all of 11 – had uploaded his own ’story’ onto YouTube; that he had become his own ‘movie’ producer. And director. And star.

I still heartily recommend Anthony Lilley’s piece…

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=26

There are lines therein that underpin and explain so much of what is unfolding around us at such a frightening rate of knots; all-but drowning those of us that once had command of our audience.

When we knew where they were at 4.30pm on a Tuesday afternoon when the paper boy deigned to show… or at 6pm on a Thursday night when Anglia News took to our screens.

Back then we had no option but to sit on the sofa and watch Kevin and Helen; now the rules of the media game have fundamentally changed – our Jac is busily making his own entertainment for his own little audience as opposed to mutely sitting down in front of the ads on CITV.

Here we go… the four pars to ponder… and to really take to heart.

“The coming of global broadband linkage and the web has changed that landscape forever.

“In the process, as has been discussed above, an explosion of participation in media is beginning.

“This world has flipped from a state of affairs where scarcity of content was the norm to the landscape we see now – with many more content creators, aggregators and owners out there.

“In addition, the availability of low cost digital production and post-production technologies is driving an unprecedented surge in creation, modification and remixing of content by the people formerly known as the audience…”

That’s our Jac – ‘people formely known as the audience’. An 11-year-old making up his own stories and broadcasting them on the Web. Cruically, at a time of day – you suspect – when the suits at ITV would be desperately hoping that he was adding another bum on their seats…

But what’s also very interesting is the way that new players are emerging into this landscape; people who don’t arrive with the ‘legacy’ that besets so many an Old Media player – be it in the shape of either a print press hall or a TV studio in Leeds, Mr Demi Moore and now Sir Bob Geldof are coming to this landscape in a sufficiently lithe and nimble shape to make a monkey or two of their traditional rivals.

And just as the level of creation and participation has now been game-changed forever, so the means of distribution lends itself wholly to the non-legacy entrants…

http://www.digitalmissive.com/about-your-entertainment-the-retail-king-is-dead-long-live-the-digital-king/

‘From stationary collecting and archiving (our favorite books, vinyls, and VHS tapes), to sharing and communicating about our entertainment picks anywhere, anytime (now all in a single format – digital), Apple et al fundamentally altered the business model of how we find, purchase, and consume entertainment content and devices, period….’

All you need to do there is swap the word ‘entertainment’ for ‘news’ and the two pieces of the puzzle start to fit – especially under the light of Anthony’s Magic Lantern.

Because this piece is fascinating..

http://www.sarahlacy.com/sarahlacy/2009/02/ugc-just-a-loss-leader-in-the-end.html

Not so much for the thoughts on the value – or not – of UGC, rather what Ashton Kutcher and his company Katalyst Media are up to next… and whether or not for Ashton and Katalyst you could read Sir Bob and Ten Alps here…

Or if not here, Norfolk here, on the lap-tops and iPhones of Ulster; that having cut their teeth on Kent CC TV, Bob and the boys now fancy getting right down with the Northern Ireland natives… and going very, very local…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/19/mediabusiness-musicindustry

This line is pure Lilley: ‘In the age of the internet, the notion of television itself is as archaic as the word wireless – even if that has been reinvented for the digital age…

As are the thoughts of Demi’s OH. His views on the very notion of ‘TV’ chimes exactly with Messrs Lilley and Geldof..

‘The wake up call for Ashton? Five years ago, if you made people chose to get rid of their TVs or computers, most of the ones he knows would have said computers. “Now, you ask the same question and hands down everyone would get rid of the TV. You don’t need it anymore…’

There is, of course, one final, crucial piece in the jigsaw that Ms Lacy’s excellent piece touches on.

Advertising. And where next for the ads that used to sit on Ulster TV.

Because both Geldof and Kutcher have one, other thing that unites them – they have an individual ‘brand’ that is pure 2009.

In 2008 maybe – just maybe – one or two of the bolder advertisers might have run with GaryVaynerchuk TV via the wine buff’s blog http://garyvaynerchuk.com/

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=157

A year and a credit crunch later and my best hunch would be that the ad suits will put their ad dollars with a legacy-lite and Twitter-proven indiviudal ‘brand’ that they already know and trust from another age; somewhere they feel safe; insulated from the worst excesses of UGC.

And on that front, it may well prove to be a wise investment – banking on Sir Bob and Ashton to be the next big things in what we once called ‘TV’.