Just a reminder–if it isn’t obvious–that the “new media” world is fast upon us. We should be focusing more of our policy and creative energies to make sure the digital landscape provides the U.S.–and the rest of the world–with the kind of democratic media system civil societies require. If we don’t use this brief period of transition to build a more humane, diverse, and informative media system, we will set back the path of democratic growth and diminish the public health (in the broadest terms). As you will see from this excerpt of a trade news report on the latest study coming from media financial analyst concern Veronis, Suhler, Stevenson, there’s a tremendous amount of money that will be made in the digital field. The time to make sure some of those revenues go to groups who put people ahead of solely a profit-oriented approach is now. Now is also the time to build-out an array of social networks, online video platforms, cooperatively-managed search engines, responsible mobile online marketing ventures, green digital structures, etc, etc. Otherwise, our programming will continue to be shaped by the forces from Sand Hill Road and the LA-NY media communities. Note the changing use of media as well, illustrating a dynamic we should take advantage of. Here’s an excerpt from Laurie Peterson’s recent [8/7/] article in Mediapost:
“Internet Ad Spending Set To Overtake All Other Media By 2011: VSS”
“SPENDING ON INTERNET ADVERTISING WILL reach $61.98 billion, and will surpass newspapers to become the nation’s leading ad medium in 2011, projects private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson in its 21st Communications Industry Forecast released today.
“We are in the midst of a major shift in the media landscape that is being fueled by changes in technology, end-user behaviors and the response by brand marketers and communications companies,” says James Rutherford, executive vice president and managing director at VSS.
At the same time, the consumer migration to digital media–which require less time investment than traditional media counterparts (think 3-minute YouTube clips versus 30-minute TV shows)–has spawned a year-over-year decline in the amount of time consumers spent with media, VSS researchers say. The tally came in at 3,530 hours in 2006, a per-capita decrease of 0.5%. It’s the first time since 1997, researchers say, that such a behavior has occurred.
Consumers are also migrating away from ad-supported media and spending more time with media they support, according to the VSS Forecast. Consumers spent an average of 1,631 hours in 2006 with consumer-supported media, such as the Internet and video games–a gain of 19.8% compared to 2001. Time spent with ad-supported media, such as broadcast television and newspapers, has fallen 6.3% since 2001 to 1,899 hours per person.
“We expect these shifts to continue over the next five years,” Rutherford adds,” as time and place-shifting accelerate while consumers and businesses utilize more digital media alternatives, strengthening the new media pull model at the expense of the traditional media push model.”
