Net Imperative report on a speech by Simon Waldman, head of Guardian Unlimited.
[For non-Brits, The Guardian, is a left-leaning, intelligent broadsheet newspaper. See below for Yes, Minster's famous amusing analysis of the Brit newspaper scene. The Guardian is also on a par with the BBC (a high compliment, indeed) for "getting" digital trends.]
Simon clearly sees the major trends in publishing and broadcasting at the moment and it’s a nice round up of many of the issues I write about here. Regular readers won’t find anything new here (OhMyNews, Citizen Journalism, blogging, RSS, blogging, PodCasting and BitTorrent) but if you’ve just started coming here, it’s a great catch up.
It’s also good to know that someone from traditional publishing can see the trends so clearly. Many in old media are like rabbits transfixed in headlights, aware that there’s some issues but not knowing what the hell to do.
Others see a few symptoms and desperately try to change tiny bits of their product. CNN’s coverage of blogs is a great example. Essentially, they react to the threat of blogs by getting newsreaders to read verbatim from blog sites. Not the most compelling TV and Jon Stewart has done a very funny broadcast about it on Comedy Central. It’s worth a look if you haven’t seen it already.
What they should be doing is figuring out how to take the best of the old and marry it with the opportunities presented by the new. Not easy, in fairness.
But what could TV channels in response to their viewers real needs to express themselves?
And how could they change the distribution of their product to meet people’s needs to control when they view it? The latter’s an easy one for me and one I’ve suggested before. Make available a legitimate internet download channel in return for micro-payments. If they don’t legitimatize it today, “illegal” content will continue to thrive and it’ll damage them badly in the longer term. Sooner or later, they need to introduce this, so why not, for once, do it sooner? Learn from the record companies’ denial phase and do it now.
Sir Humphrey Appleby (pictured above) of Yes Minister’s Guide of Brit Newspapers:
The Times is read by the people who run the country. The Daily Mirror is read by the people who think they run the country. The Guardian is read by the people who think they ought to run the country. The Morning Star is read by the people who think the country ought to be run by another country. The Independent is read by people who don’t know who runs the country but are sure they’re doing it wrong. The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Financial Times is read by the people who own the country. The Daily Express is read by the people who think the country ought to be run as it used to be run. The Daily Telegraph is read by the people who still think it is their country. And the Sun’s readers don’t care who runs the country providing she has big tits.
—–>Follow us on Twitter too: @russellbuckley and @caaarlo
Recent Comments