New Century Convergence

Back in the last part of the last decade, in the last century, the word convergence rose in prominence as new technologies tempted our imaginations to envision new ways of distributing content and making money. The last part of the last sentence is always of lasting importance; if we don’t make money, new ideas usually don’t last.

Now we are engaged in a great media war, testing whether the powers of our business models, however conceived and however dedicated, can long endure (my apologies to President Lincoln for the paraphrase). As we meet on the great battlefields of the current media wars, we have to think about the next decade, but also learn from the last. With our current convergent realities —that include portable devices as well as desktops--and younger audiences more comfortable online than almost anywhere else, perhaps looking backwards, in new ways, will help us move forward.

Suppose our starting point is now, and not 1995. Rather than find ways to push comfortable content from another century—TV as we know it—take the creations crafted for the small screens of pods and smart phones and package it for the medium to large screens of LCD and plasma sets. In order for this to work, producers who work for TV stations and networks need to provide context and quality gate keeping in order to add value to the proliferating amount of video and multimedia content being produced during the last years of the first decade of our new century. That is the task for real convergence, now and in the immediate future. The content is there and the amount available is growing and will grow even more dramatically, as prices for good cameras and editing software come down. We must find the most watchable and compelling “stories”, and then make certain that the best reach the widest audience. That approach will drive real convergence for the 21^st Century. Let me know if you’re willing to try.