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Media companies have historically been relatively unconcerned about and even disdainful of individuals in their audiences. Publishers produced newspaper in ways and at times that was convenient for themselves. Television channels offered programs on a take-it-when-offered basis—Too bad if you visited your mother and didn’t see it. Journalists and public service broadcasters conceived the public as an unkempt mass that need to be educated and led to think correctly and do the right things. Audiences were things to aggregated and sold as commodities, so media executives pretended audiences were a unified, stable group in sales pitches and that advertisers were purchasing the same group of people hour after hour, day after day, week after week. The reality is that audiences have always been individuals that changed constantly, but media companies needed to pretend otherwise in order to aggregate them and portray them as a unified group for sales pitches. A TV channel would tout itself as

A quiet victory of music consumers has occurred now that Sony BMG Music Entertainment has become the final major recording company to drop digital rights management protection on its digital downloads. Major recording companies starting placing protection software on downloadable files in 2005 and 2006 to protect the music files from being passed on to other listeners. The digital rights management software, however, often blocked consumers who had purchased downloads from moving files to portable music players or even to new computers and from making compilations discs of their favorite music. The software incensed many consumers because it forced consumers to purchase multiple copies or forced them to illicitly bypass the software if they wished to use music they had purchased on more than on platform. Many felt it was unfair that one did not “own” the download in the same way as a CD, a book, or a DVD and voiced their frustration in blogs, music forums, and to the record companies.

The issues in the Hollywood writer’s strike, which began Nov. 5, are symptomatic of a broader challenges that online and mobile media pose for all content creators. The fundamental issues for all media involve how to obtain revenue for content distributed by digital media and how to share revenue from those downloads. In the Hollywood case, the central issues revolve around new media residuals for advertising supported video downloads of content prepared for TV and motion pictures, made for Internet content, and other streaming video. Screen writers, who did not foresee the success of VCR and DVD sales of motion pictures and television programs in past negotiations, are determined to receive greater compensation for the growing business in digital downloads. The Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers argues that business potential of new media is uncertain and does not wish stipulate a monetary value for it. The Writer's Guild of America has asked for a $250 residual

The introduction and suspension of media services is becoming a regular occurrence and the combined effects of multiple false starts is creating turmoil in the marketplace and making consumers wary of new services. Let me give some examples. Wal-Mart recently announced it is halting its online video download service after only a year of operation because Hewlett Packard Co. has discontinued its underlying technology due to poor market performance. The New York Times has one of the most successful newspaper websites but has changed its business model several times, most recently abandoning Times Select consumer paid model for an advertising-based model. Sony created a CONNECT Player for its Walkman, PSP, Clie and VAIO that was so plagued by problems that it ended support for the product and advised owners to use another music player and library manager instead. These are only a few of the hundreds of starts and stops of services that have occurred in recent years. The primary reasons fo

The real challenges facing media companies today are not technology or opportunities, but how to monetize activities in digital video media. The popularity of video downloads and streaming video on internet and mobile devices is growing exponentially and motion picture and television production companies are rushing to create deals to participate in the phenomenon. The biggest challenge is finding workable business models. A combination of technology and capricious consumers are altering existing media business models and making success with new models difficult. The traditional business models of media are eroding as audiences and advertisers respond to changing media markets and today both legacy and new media are struggling to find effective new business models for their existing operations and new products and services. It is complicated because a fundamental shift in financing media is underway and many companies are finding it difficult to adjust their business perspective. Durin