geert lovink on Tue, 4 Dec 2001 07:27:02 +0100 (CET) |
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[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> new media is so last year... (chenoweth on the direcTV deal) |
(posted with permission of neil chenoweth) From: nchenoweth@ozemail.com.au Sent: Monday, December 03, 2001 11:16 PM Subject: Re: Fw: <nettime> new media is so last year... (chenoweth on the direcTV deal) I agree with Jimmy Choi Kam Chuen (see below) that Rupert Murdoch would have been a much more dangerous outcome with DirecTV. Neil PS There's a piece kicking about on Reuter talking about John Malone becoming the biggest cable operator in Europe, and taking over completely that big Dutch group that he has a 24 per cent take in now, the one that owns Austar in Australia. xxxxxxxxxxxxxx I see the future of media being determined at three levels. The first level is the advance of techonological expertise which continually reshapes the range of what is possible, eg reading the future as a function of bandwidth, the workability of conditional access systems to safeguard copyright, the limitations of 3G, etc. I think it would be very useful to maintain a survey of the profusion of platforms to keep track of what is technically possible, what outcomes can be produced, and what can't. For example, 3G is still technically challenging, and even if it performs to specification does not offer the bandwidth to deliver video. The faster you go, the smaller each cell becomes, to the point with ultra-broadband that the cell is about 50 square metres. So there seem to be some technical ceilings, at least for now. These will probably differentiate between text-based media and video based media. The bandwidth requirement for video on demand also appears to be daunting. The second level is the economic and financial process which will determine which of these possible futures gain currency. For example the US for historical reasons has difficulties moving to 3G. This opened a window of opportunity in Europe, which was essentially closed by the size of the 3G license fees raised by European governments which have crippled European telcos. This is part of a braoder collapse in the new-media economy. The tech crash reminds me of the ubiquitous final scene from the Alien movies where Sigourney Weaver ends up opening the airlock door to flush out the nasty alien. As the air rushes out, the only survivors are those who hold on tightly to handholds (and who are good at holding their breath). The tech crash has wiped out a generation of alternative media, leaving only the big media companies standing. The system has vented. It's not just that the media start-ups have been killed off, but that the possibility of future media start-ups has also been curtailed. In this post-apocalypse financial environment, there is a new, much more threatening, media business paradigm which needs to be analysed, based upon mega-mergers of old media companies. At a third level, some of the tactical outcomes are determined by personal interactions between a dozen or so individuals at the head of the world's largest media groups. This is not so much a traditional fight between media moguls, but the rise of corporate personalities, which I focus on in Virtual Murdoch. Part of my goal was to set up a working model that would offer some sort of moving prediction about what these guys will do next. Coming at it from another direction, I think two parallel approaches are required in looming at media. The first is to be tremendously cynical to the rhetoric of change. In the short term nothing will change. The business models do not work. Those in the corporate establishment who argue that we are on the brink of great change generally do so opportunistically as a means of securing short-term advantage eg in Australia the argument for changing cross-media laws (on the basis that technology has changed the nature of the media industry) is put most forcefully by Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch, who would use such change to consolidate their empire. But of course things will change. So at the same time we need a second level of analysis which works backwards from the future. Despite our cynicism, at some point in the future the rollout of broadband, and ultra-broadband, the development of electronic paper and so forth, will profoundly change the nature of media and information flows, and the media economy. Who are the winners and losers, and what are the political, social and cultural consequences? For example the ability to send television over the Net, to remove the geographical limits to media vehicles, needs to be analysed. I think that this is enormously threatening for local or national media. Video-on-demand, cable channels over the Internet, receiving US television directly from the US, all of these things pose major threats to local media, and to local cultures. Local media uses a cross-subsidy of local and overseas programming. If you fragment the audience and remove the most popular content, the financial base which allows a broad range of other programming to be produced collapses. The local producer is reduced to cheap programming like reality television and game shows. As a post-colonial culture Australia is particularly vulnerable. Early this century Australia was a major force in film production. This ended with the sale of the major Australian cinema chain to a US group associated with the Hollywood studios. The US-owned cinemas carried US films, and this killed off the Australian film industry for decades. Distribution dictated content. Europe and Britain have far stronger media cultures, which the ready availability of US programming will not necessarily overwhelm. However, my feeling is that this is only a temporary relief, that over time the process of media colonisation will continue. A feature of the new environment is the rise of format programming, like the development of the Big Brother concept, or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, or Weakest Link. These are concepts developed in Europe, and copied everywhere around the world (with stunning success for Rupert Murdoch in Europe). Actually the Australian-based Grundy Organisation has been doing that with quiz show for Europe and the rest of the world for decades. If we have a picture of possible long-term outcomes, what are the short-term goals to pursue? For example, how should one see the US legislative push to uphold copyright, to enable prosecution of sites that offer software to break encryption on DVDs, or prosecution of sites that point to other sites that offer such software, to arrest employees of companies that have developed such products . . . On the one hand, one may see this as the US during Prohibition, trying to fight the unwinnable war. At the same time, the security of conditional access systems are absolutely critical to the continuing rise of the US media giants. Hackers will be (arguably already are) portrayed as the major constraint on the world ascendancy of the US media economy. They are anathema to the US national interest and I think this fight is going to become much nastier. I would be looking for US legislation that quietly brings hackers into the category of terrorists. For the same reason, other societies instead might see hackers in a more positive light, despite the disruptions posed for their own media economies, because of the relief hackrs may offer by attacking the economics of the encroaching American media. Another approach is to look at long-term outcomes, and to see whose interest it is to stop them. For example, the possibility of television-on-demand over the Net (some time in the next decade) in theory will will wipe out cable and satellite pay-tv operators. These distribution networks control which cable channels are available and act as the middle man. If instead of buying the cable companies' base package of channels you can buy just CNN alone directly from CNN, in theory the cable company becomes just the carrier. It is just a telco. And yet, after the tech crash, cable companies have been re-discovered as the only viable business model for media. With no viable rivals, the moves towards video-on-demand, interactive television and television over broadband will be piggybacked on to standard cable and satellite television sets. We won't even know we're on the Net, because it feels so like watching television. If this is the case, the cable guys are not going to produce a future where they are irrelevant. They will structure a future where they remain at the centre of the universe. Another impossible outcome where there is such diversity of media that there are no mass advertising markets-actually no mass media-and the economics of the entertainment industry has collapsed. Film stars' pay has been reduced by a factor of 100. It's not going to happen. But it is fun to speculate how it will be prevented. > From: Jimmy Choi Kam Chuen > Sent: Friday, November 30, 2001 9:31 PM > Subject: Re: <nettime> new media is so last year... (chenoweth on the direcTV deal) > > My immediate response to Neil Chenoweth's article is that Murdoch as well as the Americans have to be stopped. According to his description which probably is true Murdoch is already a media giant not measured against any single American media company but against the whole lot of them in America. That is scary. We are not talking about a media baron but a king now. I say we have to watch for all of them and try every means to undermine or countervail the power of all of them. No exception to Mr. Murdoch who has invaded the media market all over the world and has been imposing his influence. Being a Chinese in Hong Kong I was up set by his "censorship" on his Satellite TV of stories unfavorable to the Chinese Government just because he wants to break into the Chinese market. > > Whoever is the winner of the media war between Murdoch and America, we end up as the loser. Mr. Chenoweth's article is an alarm for all of us. > > Choi Kam Chuen _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://amsterdam.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold