The focus of our chats the past two days (HERE and HERE) has been the rapidly changing methods of news delivery systems. Today we will finish this topic with my predictions of where all this will end up.
The few newspapers that have got a grip on this revolution are obviously promoting their websites and devoting a lot of resources to make them viable. As we mentioned yesterday, newspapers and television news divisions are acting a lot like each other now, putting both print and video news content on their websites. And in some areas, the competition is heating up.
The newspapers bring with them a wide variety of topics and large numbers of reporters and columnists who can jointly provide a wide range of subject matter in one edition of the paper. The television stations have experienced mobile crews who have the ability and equipment to get to the local story and generate live video. While usually the tv station is reluctant to interrupt scheduled programs for a lengthy live report, they are putting it on their website and promoting it by running a crawler. Maybe you have noticed some of the stations pushing their web page during the evening newscasts. The current practice is to finish almost every report with a reminder that you can “learn more about this by going onto our website, www.news6live.com, and click on Cherry Pie” or something similar.
While newspapers and tv stations are migrating into the same format, there is a new player coming into the game. Cablevision, a cable television provider, is apparently the successful bidder to purchase Newsday, a large Long Island newspaper that has been losing money for several years now. And why would a cable system want to buy a defunct newspaper? Well, it’s my guess that they will be taking advantage of a ready-made news gathering machine and using it to feed a television news channel that will be “broadcast” solely on the Cablevision systems. Right now the traditional cable providers are being attacked by Verizon’s FIOS system that sends tv stations over the phone lines much in the way that cable transmits. Eventually, Cablevision will drop the expensive distribution of print news that calls for squadrons of delivery trucks and millions of dollars worth of paper, press operations and the related labor costs that do nothing to collect the news. Newsday will be nothing more than a tv channel.
The other trend in delivery is one that is happening right now, and rolling in fast. The future is now when it comes to displaying internet web sites on your regular television monitor. It’s all digital now, right? And new computers are being sold with the express ability to send their video signal through your tv. You’ve seen the plugs in the advertising. Couple that with the convergance of internet connections on mobile phone devices and you will very quickly be seeing live television literally everywhere you happen to be. No cable needed. Cable and satellite systems are limited to a few hundred channels. The internet, however…… well, you already know about that.
The television networks are already streaming their programs after first being shown over the air. It’s only a matter of time before they put everything online. And then they won’t be limited to one channel. They can use as many as they desire. Finally, you will be able to watch the annual Betty Crocker Bake-Off from start to finish, if you want to. We’ve got a good seat in the grandstands to watch this race, so sit back and enjoy the show.
First, though, we’d better get this equipment checked out. I’m going to get the coffee started.
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