• by Tim McHale , June 10, 2003

I can't help but think back to the age of steel and draw similarities between what the Vanderbilts and the Astors were to the railroads and what the Karmazins and Redstones are to Television. "All Aboard" was the call the train conductor shouted long ago. We've just seen Big Media and the FCC do just that. The question is, will this new expansion make Big Media audiences shout "All Abored?"

I feel we are approaching the end of the TV age, as money and mediocrity win the day. Once FCC de-regulations begin to take hold, it's inevitable that the networks will experience a great re-evaluation by the public, regardless of the new Bush/Powell doctrine, and be held accountable in ways they have never been before.

Having essentially given away the store, does anybody believe that the government will not wake up from its "Go West, Young Man" trance within the next 3-5 years? Does anyone realize that having orchestrated their Jesse James railroad bank car heist giveaway to Big Media, legilators really need to take the consumer side of things for a bit?

What goes around comes around. The government's now going to have to show that it can kick some butt, and the area they may pick is Nielsen, the hegemonic monitoring system.

We've seen individuals and cultures wake up and react, often intensely, to being liberated from restriction. We also have been reminded that people aren't stupid. We learned from both the Soviet Union and Iraq that the general population always knows how to discount the "official news."

If third world cultures, which were once dominated and fed daily with the "official news," can naturally reach for the truth coming through the cracks of the dogma, Big Media will need to be mindful of that and prepare for the powerful reaction that marketers and tax payers - two groups that have been watching the proceedings quietly on the side - will feel. It's going to be interesting for Big Media when these two groups will no longer ignore "the elephant in the living room."

The government giveth and the government taketh away. Reactions can be intense and can sometimes bring great activism. Microsoft, Enron, WorldCom and others have experienced both the love-kiss and then the face-slap from the government, which feels no self-doubt about smacking large institutions if they get out of line. The government's a great leveling and, ultimately, balancing element that over time limits "its children," which the networks have essentially just become. Soon, the friendliness between the government and Big Media giants will change.

Greed vs. fear - the two great motivators. Money is always a driver. The possibility of great gain of money has pushed the networks to become Bushie lapdogs. After all, the possibility of a great loss of money is what pushed our state attorneys general to take on the tobacco companies and Microsoft.

Now that the greed cycle has been satisfied in Big Media's favor, the fear cycle will follow. After they've gobbled up the remaining markets the networks had been eyeing for decades, Big Media will feel some backlash, as the public becomes aware of their over-reaching and propensity to become self-interested purveyors of "official news." The networks are destined to become more condescending. It's inevitable. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Once this is indelibly perceived by the American public it will grow into something very hurtful to the networks, not unlike a psychological bullet wound from the James Gang's gun in their right shoulder.

When added to the left shoulder wound the Networks have already taken, that being the silent evolutionary bullet wound that has been disguised for quite some time, TV is going to actually begin to hurt badly. TV networks already know that important audiences have already left the station. They've graduated to other media.

Bill Bernbach said a long time ago, "There is practically nothing that is not capable of boring us." The great boob-tube-ization, or otherwise psycho-edu-lust-fear-greed-voyeur packaging they call primetime programming is in fact the great melting pot of "post" pop-culture. By and large, size is going to become a more contentious point, put into our heads ironically by the talking heads coming from the television stations themselves.

One extremely well-known marketer has dissected its audience into 120 segments. Television is about to become less fragmented just as the world is becoming more so. It's incredibly ironic that the recent national giveaway just handed to the networks has taken place just as average consumer is about to feel like they "own the networks" more than ever before. Networks will have now have to deal with consumers in ways they've never had to.

There will also be significantly increased tension between Big Media and marketers. Just as marketers of all types become more specific, the networks are becoming more general. Both consumers and marketers are going to begin demanding more, greater control over programming and a more regulated reporting mechanism for audience delivery. Driven by the same ultimate goal, marketers and taxpayers will ultimately require the new national networks to become more accountable than they've ever been.

One's an old beef. For years, marketers have been putting up with Nielsen and subscriber agencies that base all TV spend decisions on this antiquated method. Nielsen has been flying high with NASA Challenger-level technology overseeing the media business. Yet, the technology exists today to significantly increase the "probability of reality" of who is really watching, much closer than Nielsen reports. What marketer wouldn't mind spending a little more on research, especially if would provide a much more specific report, beginning with the quantity of the people really watching, and as well as the quality of what they actually thought of the message. It is very easily within reach. The expansion of Big Media may very well be the impetus that is needed to pressure Big Media and Nielsen into improving its specificity.

One's a new one, the American Taxpayer. Every day of the year, the US government is also a purchaser of media. Millions of dollars of taxpayer dollar are handed over to the networks based on Nielsen's estimated audience estimates. If US dollars go into R&D to build smarter bombs, certainly marketers should expect new nationalized Big Media to provide data to help guide their messages to the right audience segment destination.

Any class action suit attorney will tell you that the "nationalization" awarded to Big Media could make a compelling court case to insist TV becomes more accountable. Nielsen needs to now expand its universe, install smarter technology and begin to bring TV measurement technology into the 21st century. Nielsen should also add boxes that count eyeballs watching sports in bars to be fair. With outside the home viewing, we'll now much closer to determining how many are "really" watching.

Much like how activism has changed tobacco, technology and is underway with the financial business, since the government is also a Big Media spender, taxpayer organizations will begin to dissect how our new national Big Media institutions can become more accountable, to improve its record keeping.

The US government these days believes we need more Reality TV programming. It's therefore time to have this change spur additional reality into measuring who is actually viewing what and what these audiences really think of what they are watching.