The point is that I was consuming the inauguration in oh so many ways and only one -and a day later - was a newspaper.
So what does this mean for the future of newspapers?
This morning I was at the press conference for the UK regulator Ofcom to disclose its recommendations for how to restructure UK broadcasting to meet the digital age and preserve public service programming (ie so it all doesn't become Big Brother and Pop Idol). They have proposed some radical measures, key among them the idea of merging Channel 4 into a joint venture or partnership with (possibly) Five or BBC Worldwide. But in the hallway before we went into the conference I had a conversation with the FT's media correspondent which was more revealing of the changes we are facing in the economics of media. He had just broken the story about the Russian oligarch (and former KGB agent) Alexander Lebedev buying the Evening Standard for £1. He was chuffed because the FT had it on their website an hour before the Guardian.
And that of course sums up the new universe we find ourselves living in: always connected means that digital scoops and Facebook conversations and SMS chats and tweets are more relevant than the paper delivered the next day. Is it any wonder why the Evening Standard sold so cheap? Is it any wonder why Channel 4's star news presenter Jon Snow has started a blog, snowblog? Snow's Blog
And it is going to get more crazy before it gets better. So why does Ofcom prefer a linkup between Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide versus Channel 4 and Five? Because BBC Worldwide is a more robust, more diversified entity with deeper resources. And in this climate of financial fallout, that counts for a lot. Newspapers are selling for a pound. But TV stations are not far behind. Just look at the music industry if you need a roadmap. FT Article on music biz
3 comments:
What is infuriating / intriguing is that these media companies must have all seen this coming for over a decade. What we learned from the music industry is that when assets get digitised, things change and so businesses need to evolve to suit those changes. In a couple of years you'll be able to take this article http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/28c57ece-de7f-11dd-9464-000077b07658.html and simply search and replace the words 'music industry' with 'media industry'. And that's a terrible thing because we're going to lose a lot of skills and a valuable service. The question is why the management of these companies continued to ignore reality (a bull market and rising share prices?) and what on earth are they going to do about it now? No-one seems to have attempted a tracheotomy on what is clearly a choking business model. The prognosis is not good.
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