Wednesday, November 25, 2009

And They Lived Happily Ever After...


This post is a response to CBC’s THE END. CBC’s pop culture specialist Jian Gomshi compiled a three part series exploring the possibility of us nearing a world without radio, television, and print. Here are some of the reasons why…

RADIO

Conventional aka terrestrial radio is fading and being replaced by other means such as podcasting and satellite radio. Did you know: “Together. XM and Sirius Satellite Radio project 15 million North American subscribers by the end of 2006” Not to mention that sattelite radio is NOT free. It will cost approximately $100-$400 for the hardware and $13-$15/month to subscribe.

More music is being access through myspace.com opposed to radio as well. In fact, it is better to be #1 in myspace opposed to MTV. Myspace.com has 70 million members, and 1.5 billion page views/day.

TELEVISION

Televisions are being replaced by portable and/or more convenient devices like iPods, computers, and personal video recorders (PVRs). Did you know: Television had $8 billion lost in revenue due to the PVR. Advertisers are going elsewhere to adapt to the change and going online. In 2006, online ad revenues totaled $14 billion.

PRINT

The internet is posing challenges to the print industry and bloggers are partly to blame. Why? Well for one reason, there are over 35 million blogs and 75,000 news blogs are created every single day!

The New York Times now has more readers online than it does reading their printed version and that is with very little overlap.

Many books are also going online. Check this out:

The Open Content Alliance is working with Yahoo and Microsoft to digitize all the world’s books.

Now although radio, television, and print are being threatened I feel they have a large enough following of loyal people that they will not become extinct anytime in the near future. Nothing beats curling up with a nice [literal] book, or gathering on the couch to watch a loved television program, or even driving to work with your favourite [free] radio show. Yes, more convenient methods are on the rise for many forms of media, but a classic never dies. Am I right?

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