4.19.2008

Death of a Medium

What a depressing thing to say. I keep hearing about media dying off and wondering, why do people keep saying this? Is this a news media scare tactic?

I'll admit, I have - on more than one occasion - asserted that newspapers are dying. TV is dying too. Radio is long gone. And advertising on those channels? We'd better start planning for the apocalypse. I've even been so brave as to hypothesize that "if technology exists to avoid it, it's obviously on its way out" (referring, of course to satellite radio and DVRs).

But all of the above is just talk. The thing that is happening right now is fragmentation. And growth. We have all these wonderful new media channels, but still 24 hours in one day. So of course something has to give. Maybe I'm not listening to the radio, but I'm downloading podcasts. Or I'm not watching the evening news, but I've got CNN on RSS. It's not a matter of life or death - just change. Change from mass appeal to segmented audiences.

Just a little food for thought.

2 comments:

tallycast said...

I think you're on the right track with your comment of "fragmentation". However, I put a slightly different tweak on it and look at it as a change from broadcasting to narrowcasting.

My iPod is mostly playing podcasts, but my Nokia Internet Pad is tuned to streanubg radio stations from around the US and around the world.

michelle marts said...

Nice - yes, broadcasting to narrowcasting and mass audience to segmented audience. I like it!