Darwinism rudely arrives in our media ecology

Darwin said, for wont of repeating myself that

it is not the strongest or most intelligent that survive, but the ones most adaptive to change.

The other important point Darwin made was the ability of the opposite sex to attract; to find the best mate, another survival instinct.

Just think of the peacock, its gotta have something going for it, right?

So, Channel 4 is no longer a broadcaster, they are mutating into something else. Whilst other broadcasters are buying friends reunited , (though I think Murdoch got the better deal) as their advertising revenue crashes down around them, and mass audiences are in inoxerable decline. (ITV said that their advertising revenue was down £50million). Plus a recent survey by google showed that internet vs. TV attention now was 164 minutes for the internet and 148 minutes for TV.

John Naughton in his big think the piece The age of permanent net revolution , mentions the word ecology and then references this to Television and its historical dominant role (see below) equally there is a terminology called media ecology and this is going to play a key role in our media landscape going forward.

For most of our lives, the dominant organism in this system - grabbing most of the resources, revenue and attention - was broadcast TV. Note that 'broadcast' implies few-to-many: a relatively small number of broadcasters, transmitting content to billions of essentially passive viewers and listeners. This ecosystem is the media environment in which most of us grew up. But it's in the process of radical change because broadcast TV is in inexorable decline; its audience is fragmenting.

Twenty years ago, a show like The Two Ronnies could attract audiences of 20 million. Now an audience of 5 million is considered a success by any television channel. In five years' time, 200,000 viewers will be considered a miracle.

I have personally witnessed enough changes first-hand to want to investigate what this means to all businesses whether they be media companies or businesses that use and deploy any media as marketing tools. We realised that what we were witnessing was the wholesale unbundling of the media, of business models. Dramatic changes in consumption habits, and the explosion of peer-to-peer flows of communication both online and via the mobile phone.

Hence the book that I wrote with Tomi. Also worth a read here and here

The big question was the pace of that change. Last year demonstrated the pace has accelerated. Or was at least arriving at a dramatic chapter in the story. What some might call a page turner.

We were given one scenario of the future in an observer piece recently entitled TV. So how will you watch it?

The year is 2016 and Chloe is 16. She keeps up with text and video messages by unrolling a paper-thin screen wherever she is. A tiny camera beams images from her day to a video diary on her personal website, which interacts with those of her friends. Chloe has never heard of CDs or DVDs. When it comes to television, she knows she can access millions of hours of programmes, in high-definition picture quality, whenever she likes. She is the viewer of the future and her choice is, literally, without limit.

In Chloe's world, there are no TV listings because there are no TV schedules, and there are no TV schedules because there are no TV channels. Instead, sitting at her PC, she logs on to a website geared specifically to teenage girls. She watches programmes sold there by independent production companies, or even fellow teenagers - not broadcasting, but narrowcasting.

Gone are the days of racing home because she forgot to set the video; gone, too, the chat with friends about last night's universally watched big episode. The notion that television should require her presence at a particular time or place seems quaint, as does the concept of the commercial break. Chloe has come to expect TV on demand. Television's role in British culture has almost entirely changed.

On June 14th 2005 Tomi was in Ottawa giving the key note speech on what the future of telecoms looked like. Again the words ecology, and Darwin spring to mind.

So, our ecology as dramtaically evolved, via our own personal consumption via enabling technologies, and by the inability for the 30second spot to command the top spot as Jim Stengel so clearly identified several years ago

So what is broadcast, what are TV schedules, how will traditional broadcasters survive, how will the money go round? Beacaude round it must go.

I was talking to someone yesterday, who said, we have a saying in Holland which is that

the value in cheese is in the holes

Myspace, for example is the holes in the cheese. Murdoch bought holes, he didn't buy cheese.

Thanks Arjan for the quote :-)

That resonated with me, because, and this has been one of my personal defining views that we all have to rethink how we create value, as businesses and in our marketing communications.

The article also looks at the aggressive moves of the BBC to survive in an online world. Personally I can't blame Auntie. I just wish the marketing and advertising industries would do the same, as well as a few others.

The time now is for innovation, trial and error in measured and controlled beta testing of new routes to market, new marketing strategies and new joint partnerships.

And on the high street look at HMV who are now a target for Premira

Darwin evolving media ecology, attraction. Communities, commune, communion.

Now back to peer-to-peer. The explosion online is peer-to-peer flows of communication. lets just sprinkle the words, community, advocacy, time-shifting, curated consumption, word of mouth, trust, authenticity, in here, as a few reflexsives. According to data gathered by the Cambridge firm Cachelogic, peer-to-peer networking traffic now exceeds web traffic by a factor of between two and 10, depending on the time of day.

Its not a broadcast ecology, its a network ecology.

Nw we need to work out how play a role in that network