I received this email response from Stephen Goforth on my post on Joost.
Stephen Goforth is joining University of Mississippi as a broadcast manager/assistant professor of journalism, and is presently working with CNN.
After reading your post on OurNewsNetwork about Joost, I’m curious your take on the new, as-of-yet unnamed video network (below).. given that Joost’s main offering is just Viacom product while this new network will draw from so many established sources. April 9 Issue Networks Get the Net - US News & World Report Late last month, NBC Universal and News Corp. said they would launch a vast, advertising-supported online video network this summer, offering thousands of hours of free TV shows, movies, and video clips. The content, from at least 12 networks and two major movie studios, will include such shows as The Simpsons, Heroes, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? and Saturday Night Live, as well as movies like Borat and The Devil Wears Prada. It will be distributed at a new website (still unnamed) and by AOL, MySpace, MSN, and Yahoo!, which together service 96 percent of Internet users. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/070401/9tv.htm
I think its interesting to see what future unveils its cloak. However with all the new forms of broadcasts coming up, one this is definite - Media is changing and all those who will remain very orthodox to the past media perception are going to realize it sooner or later.
When I say TV-killer, I admit it is an overstatement. Nothing is going to completely eradicate the audience of TV. In fact, if properly used, internet can prove to be a promoter of the conventional media.
Said that, what we cannot deny is that although media consumers are growing at linear rate, their options are growing exponentially. And that means division of revenue.
Now the media centers have two options -
- Either to provide an alternative in the new mediums to keep their audiences
- Or watch other mediums consume their audience’s time.
A local TV station’s news viewership might not completely change if they are the long established providers of local news; however the amount of time their audience spends on their other programs is definitely changing. And they will continue to be under the threat of anyone involving the pro-consumers(consumers who are also producers), because the latter are always going to be the quicker to respond to any news.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Matt Davis // Apr 10, 2007 at 10:15 am
I think all of the arguments are fair ones. We know TV was a Radio Killer, though radio still exists, it is not the primary means of entertainment or news. It simply means that the audiences have shifted predominantly to television. It is undeniable that the internet is a TV Killer because it is transcending the limits of traditional television much like TV surpassed radio. And I say “traditional” because the hard part is defining what “television” really is in this age. Any features, series or programs regularly seen on the internet are considered internet television. To say TV Killer would only mean, to redefine what the digital media is calling its platform. TV viewers will inevitably shift to the internet platform but as long as visual information exists and is displayed, viewers will be viewing the internet on their TV, or likewise viewing TV on the internet.
2 Arvinder Kang // Apr 10, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Thats very true Matt.
Convergence is definitely getting interesting.
3 Stephen Goforth // Apr 12, 2007 at 3:33 pm
If by “TV Killer” (or “TV broadcasting is dead”) you mean something different than what most people would assume you mean by using the phrase, then perhaps you should consider using a different and more accurate phrase. Otherwise, you give critics an excuse to dismiss your opinion as extreme. While making such a change may be giving up an attention grabber, it would promote clarity and better communication.
Also.. the Wall Street Journal reports today (April12) that CBS is now in talks with the still unnamed NBC-News Corp venture.. giving it even more product to eventually put on MySpace and Yahoo in contrast to Joost.
4 Arvinder Kang // Apr 16, 2007 at 5:57 pm
Thanks Stephen. I would definitely keep that in mind from next time. I’m in the process of learning writing for journalism and I hope to learn each time friends like you are there to tell me, when I go wrong.
5 Stephen Goforth // Apr 20, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Since we’re not talking about a moral issue here, Arvinder, perhaps it’s not so much where you “go wrong” as much as it’s a case of simple “overstatement”. And don’t be too quick to throw out “TV Killer”. Matt offers a reasonable defense for using the term (though I don’t find it convincing myself).
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