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RSSConsider radio. Once upon a time, I listened regularly to NPR affiliate stations, mainly for specific programs. Today, I download three NPR-affiliated podcasts and have little interest in the rest. And while NPR affiliates go on periodic, interruptive network fund-raising drives, I would much prefer to support only the specific podcasts I consume. On The Media, for example, plays an important role in my life. Why can't I invest specifically in that program? If it discontinued its affiliation with NPR and went independent, I don't think it would matter to me. In fact, I'd probably be more likely to support it.
Consider, even, news publications that distribute lots of content. The big brands mean less and less to me. Sure, I scan The New York Times online headlines occasionally--but what I really care about are specific writers and my ability to subscribe to their RSS news feeds. What comprises 90 percent of my engagement with The New York Times? The Bits and Freakonomics blogs, and they are competing with about 200 other feeds in my Google Reader.
Consider television. I don't knowingly patronize any single network. Like most people, I selectively watch television programming regardless of the network. In fact, I use TiVo to subscribe to the shows I like and don't pay attention to the networks that carry them. I use the DVR's fast-forward button to undo intrusive advertising, although the DVR falls short in its inability to remove the distracting logos that all networks stick in the corner of your screen. Makes you want network-program disintegration to occur faster!
Which leads to my latest personal media-consumption change. With a high-definition plasma television connected to a laptop and the Internet, I opted-out of a cable television box for it. No traditional network feeds! I'm finding that I have plenty of viewing options on the Web. It's not perfect, but it's getting easier and easier to go straight to the programs I like, regardless of who's serving it. For example, Netflix now includes over 10,000 on-demand titles, including movies and television shows. Then there's BitTorrent and Hulu. Even the networks themselves are getting on the bandwagon and offering more high-quality on-demand streamed programming, directly from their sites and elsewhere. All this is adding up to a world where the importance of the high-profile network distribution brand to the program I like is getting less and less.
Of course, there are exceptions. And they tend to be when network brands offer real premium value or service. Or when they deliver focused niche programming. Consider ESPN or Disney Channel. If you're a sports enthusiast, ESPN could likely be viewed continuously, with very relevant, quality programs resembling chapters of a larger single program. If you're a parent, Disney Channel might provide the service of a trusted source of safe programming for your children.
But with distribution commoditizing, the real value that big media brands can deliver to consumers is to enhance the programming experience--and stop locking it down. Isn't it ironic how I mentioned above both Netflix and traditional networks in the same sentence? To me, Netflix is quickly becoming a preferred network. Not so much because of distribution, but because it enhances my programming experience across a large body of content, not only content that it backed exclusively. It organizes and taps into community. It recommends and informs. It saves me time and it gets to know me. It helps me be a more effective and joyous consumer of content.
Even with these opportunities, the disintegration of big media brands to programming will only become more pronounced. To get an idea of how fast this is happening, just ask a few kids who are thirteen years old or younger to name the major television networks. See how close they don't come. But see how easily they will name their favorite programs.
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1. the totality of free distrib. means writers/hacks etc.‘’artists’’ can cut out the middle man ‘’the network’’ and reach the consumer directly.
Will not happen ‘’artists’’ cannot organise a piss up in a pub, (its that left brain right brain thing).
2. most people are not ‘’on the train tracks’’ to the extent that they have ceased to trust their preferred content provider ‘’the network’’ to provide them with information that they might be interested in, and not know about. (although with ageing populations, this will be more significant, but the threshold of media brand collapse will never be reached.)
3. in some cases, artists will be able to go it alone and reach their consumers directly, but this will only happen after they have reached a popularity threshold that is only achievable with the financial support of a large network.
There are other reasons, but I have work to do.
@Paula: Of course, nothing is free! But that doesn't mean that consumers should be forced to endure the branding noise and distraction from the branded shells and distribution pipelines, if they don't want them.
Great article – you bring up some good points about target content and the demise of western civilization – Sorry I mean Big Media Brands.
Reading this, the right side of my brain says “Yeah – That’s great�. But the Left side says "Not so Fast"!! (Or is it the other way around - I've always had problems telling right from left.)
Sure it's compelling to select only the content that “you� like – and have the opportunity to dive deep into a specific genre - but I worry about the impact when people limit their experiences to what they already know.
One of the best parts and often least appreciated aspect of the Big Media Brand is the diversity of content. By having to appeal to very broad audience they offer content on different subjects from differing viewpoints. It’s unfortunate that their predicted demise is based on their greatest strength (although I agree they should be producing a better product in many cases).
Sure I like specific articles and experiences the BMB’s offer, be it the NY Times, NPR, PBS, Cable and Networks, etc., and seek them out. But if I restrict my experience to what I already know - my brain will turn into mush. Sure I’ll become expert in Xydeco and dining in NYC - but I’ll never know about Darfur or Somalia or Iraq or Obama. Or for that matter – Jazz, Pop, New Age, a new show at the Met or that the head of MMA resigned – and will definitely miss a personally important new product intro from Anheuser Busch.
The value of the BMB experience is it’s diversity of content, subject and opinion. Even browsing through a newspaper one is exposed to events, ideas and the opportunity to have one’s curiosity piqued. The same is true for channel surfing or simply walking into a magazine stand.
(Now just imagine if the only magazines you exposed yourself to were about “Timber Frame Homes?� – you’d miss Paris Hilton’s new boyfriend of the moment.)
After all, how do I know what I'm going to like if I never know what it is? And how will I learn anything new if I only pay attention to things I already know? To quote the famous tag line in a recent commercial: “The more you know – the less you don’t know!�
So one side of my brain is telling me: “Hey - listen to more Cajen Bluegrass� and the other side is asking - "What else is out there?
So as our society rushes to fill the: “I want what I want when I want it� –mantra – are we going to end up with a country filled with dolts? But then some of us would say “we already are�.
I predict that the more carefully the consumer targets the specific media they are interested in – they will end up knowing little and understand less. So in speaking of the disintegration of the Big Media Brands – be careful what you wish for. Be very careful.
But as Ed Koch is fond of saying: “nobody asked me – BUT� -
See similar attitude from the Long Tail guy: (http://technology360.typepad.com/technology360/2008/02/program-pledgin.html) and my babbling response to that post (if you're a typepad member).
I too used to rely on a public radio station for On The Media, Studio 360 and This American Life. Now I sometimes catch the latter on the pubradio station in my hometown, but I don't worry if something else distracts me from it when it's on. I know I'll catch up with the podcast. I don't even bother searching for OTM and Studio 360 on my public radio station anymore and I'm not completely sure they carry both. That's strictly podcast territory for me now. Radio Lab and the less even TSOYA are the programs that marked a real departure for me. I became aware of both through podcasts without terrestrial radio even introducing us. I thrill to listening to the podcast of both and could care less if my pubradio station has the good sense to carry it or not.
But . . . well, first some context from my twisted mind is, I fear, necessary. I tend to think of the content I consume on a regular basis fitting into one of three categories: disposable content, savoured content and cherished content.
Disposable content is the daily newspaper, this blog post and my response to it, this morning's telecast of Morning Edition or a joke or funny picture I StumbleUpon. I am momentarily delighted, intrigued, amused, occupied . . . or it's content that has become habitual for me to consume (like ME, ATC or--guilty pleasure confession--Jeopardy). Disposable content does not suggest that it's less worthwhile, it's just more of a "moving finger writes; and having writ moves on" sort of thing.
Cherished content, however, is the stuff that I want to preserve high end versions of in my own library such as my director's cut DVD of Scorcese's Goodfellas, my Mel Torme CD box set or my signed copy of Charles Bukowski's Roominghouse Madrigals.
Savoured content is somewhere in between the two. I don't see it something I can abandon once something else shiny or interesting captures the constant partial attention I pay to my environment most of the time nor do I see it as something I will throw away once I'm through with it. But it's not something I revere and keep under glass, either. I might watch a TiVoed episode of The Office that I thought was particularly good twice and even share it once with someone who doesn't regularly watch the show, but when space starts running out, it will be deleted.
So, returning to the original point, while I've abandoned "the network" (in this specific case, NPR) for programs like OTM and TAL, I'm sure as hell not going to download Morning Edition or All Things Considered. I just flick on the radio to catch that stuff while I'm making coffee and waking up or making dinner and winding down (or driving in my car). So in this narrow example of NPR (and perhaps overall) the "Big Media Brands" have some juice left in their game if they think in terms of investing in the proper mix of disposable media, savoured media and cherished media.
Hmmmm . . . that needs some work before it becomes a post on my own blog, but there just may be something to it.
Peace
www.marklaskowski.com
A TV network is only a network by virtue of the interconnection of its parts. The interconnection of the distribution parts - the broadcast network - is less valuable if the content can be had by other means - so, regarding that component, the affiliates are at risk. I know, I'm on the board of an NPR affiliate and we're scared of people like you who will download the podcast. (maybe the affiliates will be in the business of providing trial for content, kinda like the relationship between record companies and radio stations).
There's a glimmer of hope. I think its a pain to find and sequence and sort out the best content. Broadly, this is an editorial function. I will pay someone to do that for me and serve it up the way I want it - and there's no reason networks can't provide that - it just means they will have to recast themselves as being in business to provide me the content I want when and where I want it. There's a business model waiting to happen.
Online, even the New York Times is a "network" if it would just stop thinking about itself as a "newspaper" -- online, it is the equivalent of CNN. What difference does it make what a company does in the real world? Online it can be anything it wants to be, if it would get out of the framework of what it does in the real world.