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Adrian Van Klaveren, Is the future of all media going to be via a one-stop service, on either a PC or TV? i.e. there won't be separate TV, PC, newspaper, etc Or will I be picking up e-books (the new Amazon invention), still listening to a (admittedly digital) radio set, browsing the web and also collecting a paper in the mornings? And how the hell does the media owner pay for these?? Unlike the Beeb, most have to make a commercial success to offer these services.
Asked by ryanscribe on Dec 03 2007 9:42:03 AM and supported by 15 members
15

Answer

Well the two things come together. You can access TV through your PC and you can access your PC through your TV set, you can get text on your radio – all of those sorts of things and that will continue. I think actually that the crucial difference is one about the distance away from the screen you sit and I think that’s probably what the difference will be in the future – you know the kind of screen that you might have a few inches away from you – a hand held device, a mobile or whatever – and what content is right for that. There is what you might do in terms of sitting in front of a PC, there is what you might do at your desk or whatever , how you actually work there and what media you consume in that way, and then there is the rather more passive, sit back and sit quite a distance away from the screen and really be entertained, be immersed in something sort of approach. I think the convergence will be more along those lines, that you’ll still end up with those different devices and different forms of content will work for different ones there but that means thinking about it in a very different way from thinking “Oh, this is made for the web and this is made for TV.” I think those distinctions will break down and go away. Shrikala’s follow up: So you think we’ll continue to see people carrying radios and newspapers and watching the news on TV? Well, I think you will have people who are carrying a mobile device which is capable of receiving the radio and I think you can see that happening – you only have to look at the iphone and see that is the beginning of how some of that can actually come together, so you will see that happening. I think in terms of “Is there a role for newspapers in the future?” There is still a role – what newspapers are having to do is to change in terms of kind of content they offer. It becomes more about lifestyle and comment and less about news in terms of the overall package, and there’s a place for that- for people to read at weekends, when they are traveling, those sorts of times- that works and its actually quite a convenient package for being to operate in that kind of way. You know- you’ve got it in your hand and there’s a kind of aesthetic pleasure to it. So I think newspapers are having to re-invent themselves very quickly and in quite difficult circumstances but I think there is still a role for that as long as they can make the economics add up in terms of the costs of printing and distribution and so on, which is a very, very expensive business. Shrikala’s follow up: so for economic success newspapers will have to decrease distribution costs and increase advertising? Well clearly, the economic model there is under pressure in terms of what you can actually do: there is the cost of providing the content, the cost of then distributing it and what you can actually get back in terms of either advertising revenue or the actual costs of buying the publication. I think there will still be a place for that and people will find a way of making that work but they will have to change what they do in terms of the type of content, and continue to do that, and think about how you actually go about doing that – what kind of printing and distribution? MORE!

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