Nov 05
10
Media Today. The rest of us tomorrow.
This was the week that NBC and CBS announced the 99 cent 'on demand' cable shows, joining ABC (who've already cut a 
download deal with iPod) in starting the painful, change of business model. Oh sure, there'll still be the network business development guys still selling ads and saying “no” to anything new. But they're on the way out. Just like revenue is at the moment. Ask the 200 people fired at Warner Brothers last week.
Meanwhile the recording industry finally killed Grokster. Grokster, Kazaa, Napster are the parent ideas and companies that built the download economy. Stealing is never good. But the technology is great. And the new versions of P2P like BitTorrent, promise faster and faster transfer of data and files and consequently are quietly reaching into newer and newer areas of business. And clearly television has embraced the vision of downloads. Just like music is. Finally.
Print media is not having an easy time either. Only the New York Times built sliver of circulation this quarter.
Otherwise all the rest of the papers lost, often badly. Journalists are being fired all over the world as blogs and the internet gather eyeballs and attention. Kinght Ridder is being pressed to sell itself. Reuters wants Indian journalists to take routine press releases and turn them into news for US markets. Naturally, then firing US writers.
Journalists yelped when they saw this. What? Did they think that being middle class, educated, comfortable observers seemingly remote from Wal Mart that this would save them? Zero communication costs but a pressing need for overall cost reduction, loss of revenues, cheaper overseas alternatives all lead to high quality educated, Indian journalists.
It's a sign that no business anywhere in America will be untouched by the revolution. Media is the leading edge. They laughed at the internet initially. Thought blogs were hippie kid stuff. Both are flattening businesses and markets rapidly. Yes. And building others. But the change is on us all.