That is to say, after a 50 plus-year reign of supremacy, has broadcast media begun to slide down a slippery slope to be consigned to history with the telegraph and Morse code? More and more evidence seems to be mounting that broadcast is facing troubled times. First, the market was segmented when cable came of age. The “Big three” were suddenly faced with actual competition and they lost significant numbers of eyeballs. This didn’t do a lot for programming initially, the song “500 Channels and Nothing on” sort of summed up the early cable landscape (with the possible exception of MTV, in the early days). But eventually, the industry found its footing and went the way of the magazine industry with channels dedicated to niche markets—think the History Channel for old men, the Food Network for people who like to eat, the Travel Channel for people who want to see the world without leaving their house, and Animal Planet for people who can sit through six hours of Ron Reagan commentating the riveting action of a dog show.

And while radio has always been a bit of a wild-west environment, the world reacted to the homogenization of content with satellite radio and our friends (soon to be friend) XM and Sirius (maybe Xirius, quick run out and register that URL). Once again we have channels that are designed to appeal to a much narrower demographic based on the inescapable logic that there may not be enough of an audience to make a radio station devoted entirely to the delta blues genre in any one metropolitan area, but if you take all of the people from all of the metropolitan areas in the country and add in the smattering of people in between those places, suddenly you have a potential audience that rivals the legions of Britney Spears fans that used to exist. And Clear Channel had to go running to a judge to make sure its leveraged buyout isn’t plagued by nit picky questions from a lot of bean counting bankers.

So, we see the broadcast universe moving to a model of medium-casting, with content appealing on different channels to smaller groups of people. But where do we go from here? What do recent statistics that show broadcast advertising revenues dropping and new media advertising revenues rising actually mean for the future of television and radio, as we know it? With Google now looking to open up not only the 700MHz spectrum, but now pushing the FCC to open up the space between the channels, there is a potential for huge amounts of content to be accessible through our phones and other wireless devices. AT&T has just announced that it will begin offering a mobile TV service using technology from a company called MediaFLO (an offshoot of Qualcomm, makers of cellular phone chipsets). Thus, we have a confluence of delivery technology and bandwidth about to become a reality…but to what end? The AT&T service outlined will still rely heavily on the current broadcast providers with content coming from Comedy Central, MTV, NBC 2GO and News2Go, Nickelodeon, and “two as-of-yet unnamed exclusive channels.”

Is AT&T missing the boat here? If there is enough bandwidth to deliver streamed video, then there will certainly be an opportunity for a company like Apple or Amazon to provide content on demand. If I can watch Anthony Bourdain on my iPhone when it’s convenient for me, why would I bother limiting myself to the content offered on AT&T’s TV networks? On the other hand, can Anthony Bourdain continue to produce his spectacularly excellent program “No Reservations” (shameless plug for my favorite TV show) without the support of major advertisers? Or, to look at it another way: content creators will have to produce programs that are actually worth watching if they expect to cover their nut at $1 per download. Models will certainly evolve that will allow us to continue to consume content whether it is the continued mortar-like approach of 30- and 60-second advertisements with some adaptation so that they can’t be skipped, or overall sponsorship with links embedded in the programming, enabling consumers to purchase product from within the program (what ever happened to WebTV anyway?).

If we look over toward the fringe, we have the screaming prognosticators who claim that we are most certainly heading toward a world of uni-casting, where content is tailored to an individual’s wants and desires and marketers can cherry pick customers. These are the technological equivalents of the crazy dudes on the corner wearing the sandwich boards that read: “REPENT! THE END IS NIGH!” Once again, we can turn to the magazine world for a little historical reference. Ten years ago, there was a flurry of interest in magazines that would be tailored to an individual. I distinctly remember seeing a prototype copy of Time magazine at InternetWorld that was populated with articles of interest to a specific individual tailored down to the cover image. I always imagined Bill Gates’ copy showing up and being 1,400 pounds of advertisements with two pages of technology news, while mine was just a little postcard that reads: “Sorry, make more money.”

But a full decade later, no combination Sailing World/NPR news vehicle arrives in my mailbox. Instead, I log into my e-mail and receive e-newsletters and have my RSS feeds that notify me when Ernesto Bertarelli and Larry Ellison have their lawyers yelling at one another about when the next America’s Cup will be held again, and I tune into the local NPR station on iTunes. I point my web browser at specialty media outlets that carry content not carried by broadcast media. Indeed, event promoters like America’s Cup Management are able to provide revenue generating content that TV can’t even dream of with not only live video and audio streams in HD, but actual computer simulations generated from sensor data on the boats that allow the viewer to watch a simulation from any angle, even underneath the boats, rendered in real time with quality that rivals some of the best that Hollywood could have offered only five years ago. This is how I consumed the last America’s Cup series—mostly on vacation in the courtyard of a hotel in Charleston, S.C. And if I missed a race because my girlfriend actually expected me to go out and experience the city, the content was accessible within minutes of the end of the race, and I could access it at any time, which I found quite convenient to do with a nice cigar at the bar down the street while she was getting ready for dinner.

Does broadcast face an uncertain future? Sure seems that way. But when cable came along, there were those who said that NBC, ABC and CBS were doomed…DOOMED I tell you. However, these networks seem to have adapted and found a way to survive. Rather than hop on the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it bandwagon, maybe it’s more constructive to look at the bright side of the future. As a consumer, I revel in the fact that inexpensive production hardware and software have expanded the realm of possibilities open to me as a viewer/listener/reader so that I can access information about the topics that interest me, but do not attract enough eyeballs to warrant coverage on main stream media. As a marketing professional, I am intrigued by the possibility of realizing much better returns on my media investments by gaining access groups with more focused interests. Add to that the possibility of actual performance metrics that tell me how my marketing is doing and whether I am spending my money wisely, and the future looks pretty bright to me. That is, when I look up from my screen long enough to think about it.

Peter Howson is ERA’s director of marketing.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 1:07 pm and is filed under Advertising, ERA, Just for fun..., Marketer, Mobile, Online, Radio, Research, Retailer, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.