The FCC announcement that everyone was expecting came this week, and now barriers to cross-media ownership will be brought down. As for the effects of this, I guess we'll see this shake out over the
fullness of time. But one thing that I am definitely looking forward to is the birth of new media sales models.
Think about it. Huge cable company owns all the eyeballs in major city, and it also
owns two stations. Said company is the major provider of high speed Internet access, too. In my hometown of Philadelphia, this is already the case with Comcast, as it is in much of the country since
their acquisition of AT&T Broadband. What happens when this behemoth begins the snap up newspapers and magazines? Don't think they will? Well, let's look at another way that they'll probably change
the way we buy media.
Their media asset of 20 million households or so has enormous buying power, sure. But it also has two kinds of wide pipes through which to measure an ad's effectiveness. If
I'm Comcast, I think I'd already be looking into ways to poll this media cohort to see how much they're watching the ads - not watching the programs. I'd also want to learn what viewers liked and did
not like. Best of all, I could do this in almost real time, thanks to the dual broad pipes in these homes.
The TiVo announcement of their new measurement products this week is almost like this, but
without the actual ads (oops). Imagine being able to poll users across all media, then selling that data to advertisers and agencies. Harris Interactive has been doing this for years to great effect,
and Nielsen may be getting closer to this model even as I write this. But, neither of them has the eyeballs nor the media channels that a Time Warner, a Comcast, or a News Corporation has. The effects
of the FCC decision could be that far-reaching, going well beyond the news and how we see the world to how we use media.
Disagree? Take a look at the effects of the 1996 Telecom Reform Act. All it
did was stoke the fires of the Internet Blaze through the rest of the decade. This could be even bigger.
But, I think there may be enormous downsides too. I returned from a trip to London last
week, where my friends really took me to task for my ignorance of the hottest story over there. Seems that both the BBC and The Guardian have given great coverage to the story (assertion?) that the
Jessica Lynch POW rescue was staged. After some searching, the only place online I could find where this story was given any real play was Salon.com. There were some
broadcast stories. But, nothing along the lines that it seemed to merit.
That is, until this week, when a lot of attention was drawn to the April 1 rescue. The Associated Press has filed numerous
stories on it now, and politicians are demanding to see the unedited videotape of the rescue itself. All of this made me wonder just how "embedded" the reporters were who covered this "rescue." But, I
digress.
With new media consolidation, who is going to fill the void left from the ideological consolidation of major media in the US? There is an enormous, media-savvy cohort of hyper-educated,
$75K/year-earning, multi-race/cross gender Americans that thinks that Salon is cool, and looking at the bigger picture is usually a good idea. I think this media cohort wants something along the lines
of an everyman version of the New Yorker, without the long-term commitment of it's gorgeous articles and essays. Maybe not as glitzy as "George" tried to be; just a water-cooler conversation starter.
As the Bush administration tries to wriggle free of any culpability as to why there are no weapons of mass destruction and still no Saddam Hussein Habeas Corpus, even though these were the
chief motivations to prosecute the war in the first place, I guess we soon will no longer expect to find the hard questions being asked on a day-in, day-out basis by the New York Times, Washington
Post, and other stalwarts. Outlets as varied as Vanity Fair and The Village Voice have wondered out loud just how much sway the Bush Administration has in suppressing media dissent. But, I'm chiefly
concerned with the role played by advertisers.
What kind of advertisers would support the media outlet I'm speaking of? Even during the bad months of the past year, Vanity Fair set records for ad
pages. I don't think it has anything to do with its improved reporting. But, I could be wrong. If the media consolidation that most people think will follow the FCC decision does occur, what other
fallout will there be? With fewer media outlet owners, what happens to costs? With more cross-media ownership, will we hear the same kinds of viewpoints again and again? What of the natural checks and
balances provided by multiple, independent sources?
One thing for sure, some of the people who own the most outlets are going to make a ton of money in the next few years. Hopefully, there will
be concomitant opportunities in the new media models for more of us. I'm betting there will be.