• Reuters, Friday, May 5, 2006 11:45 AM

In a dispatch headlined "Old Media Fights the New for Audience Share," Reuters reports on several of the speeches delivered by industry leaders at the We Media conference, currently under way in London. Most seemed to agree that while the current digital revolution had been hard on Old Media, particularly print newspapers, the overall effect has been positive. In the end, audiences and advertisers will be better served, and especially sluggish media (by which is meant the newspaper industry) will have made the necessary adjustments. Mark Thompson, director-general of the BBC, told the crowd, "We are seeing a second digital wave that's far more profound and disruptive than the first wave, into a world where the media audience moves effortlessly from device to device. The old idea of broadcasters assuming that the right of the audience is to sit there and take it and be grateful for it is over. There are people working in our industry who still don't have computers and mobiles and imagine that these are the possessions of a few anoraks in Western society. In fact, you can drive for hours across Africa to get to water yet see many people there with mobile phones."

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