Media entangled ... the saga goes on!

By bogaert
I participated to the ´Pan-European Forum on Media Pluralism and New Media´ at the European Parliament. It was a promising agenda with plenty of interesting speakers. The impressive hemicycle debating chamber was the perfect location for a good discussion. The first speakers gave a monologue on the recent trends and policy developments relating to media pluralism at national and European level. The content of the subjects were interesting, just ashamed that the way these were presented was vary old fashioned by people pitching behind the desk. I expected the use of new media during a conference with this agenda.
Hope came when the panel discussion started, a twitter-wall listening to the audience. None of the panel members paid any attention to the twitter-wall unfortunately during these panel discussions; instead each of them gave their point of view. The further the agenda progressed the clearer it became to me that all speakers from media companies shared a common pain. No wonder, as all of them were more from traditional media companies facing competition from new business models put in place by new players such as global content aggregators, telecommunication providers, and device manufacturers. New Media Forum
Lobbying for a change in legislation might be required, given traditional media companies are tight by a mixture different laws (e.g., privacy, diversity, advertising), but this should not be with the goal of protecting the traditional market model and/or market share. Some of the new business models put in place by new players on the market are appreciated by the consumer, and are therefore successful. Traditional media companies should in the first place think about their future role and re-invent themselves. Today’s successful players in the market have been innovative in either (a) product innovation, (b) service innovation, or (c) content innovation. Some players even went further and become innovative in different aspects or even in the entire value chain.
Conclusion … the contention between the traditional media companies and the new ones continues! The reluctance of the human being to change was highly visible, which confirms the findings of chapter 7 of my book.
Wake up, it's time to innovate!