DIY tv

Peter writes ...

Did you see The Money Programme tonight?

"DIY TV is here to stay because of one inescapable fact: anyone can have an audience of millions at the cost of virtually nothing."

See also, The People Formerly Known As The Audience.

1,000 Campfires

Peter writes ...

The music industry stepped up for its annual Brit awards on St Valentine's night but, somehow, it felt like the end of an era. Was it just me? Perhaps, it was that I had been reading this article in the Sunday Times. Or maybe it was that the double winning Arctic Monkeys did not turn up to collect. Their reason? "Rehearsals." It somehow seemed symbolic that it was they, alone of all the winning acts, that did not make it to the ceremony. After all, the Arctic Monkeys had an alternative birth.

I am too old to be asking these questions, but going on regardless, I reflect on other news stories these week, like the recent Unicef report and this on teenage victims of gun crime. If the UK is indeed the pantheon of youth culture, then one question might be, is this a good thing? Would it be better to be a lot worse at youth culture but a lot better at parenting? I am the right age to be asking this particular question.

Coming back to the Brits, it was Noel Gallagher who predictably enough had the best one-liners: “The reason Oasis are accepting the BRITs Outstanding Contribution Award is that I want to do it before I go bald. Simple as that.” But perhaps the most astonishing quote was to be found in that Sunday Times article. It is attributed to Ian Grenfell, MD of simplyred.com “We felt we’d rather die on our feet than live on our knees.” In it he articulates the frustration motivating Mick Hucknall's decision to live without a major record deal.

So, with Simply Red, we see one model emerging of how the future music business will be organised. It applies to those like Hucknall who already possess high brand value. Its key principle is disintermediation. The product grabs control of the sales channel and, in many cases, distribution too. Alongside this is a principle of product variety, the brand sells as much as it can e.g. CDs, downloads, t-shirts, tickets. Marketing is direct, and key gateways (such as radio and music press sites) are addressed as peers.

However, for the fledglings without brand, alternate strategies apply. The key in this case, surely, is to generate an effective viral action. The new artist seeks to light a thousand campfires of approval across the internet, each campfire igniting more interest and activity. One thousand campfires becomes ten thousand etc. Marketing is thus indirect, and key gateways are converted through a kind of tipping point pressure. To make this work, product focus is beneficial, at least in the early stages. The good news is that like their established rivals, the fledglings can also sell direct, and even make profit if costs are tightly controlled (no long sessions in residential recording studios).

What goes for the music business will be replicated in similar industries such as book publishing and video production. The only other thing you will need, then, I guess, is talent.

See also Martin Cahill's musing on the music business as an innovation process.

Anticipating Poppy's World

Peter writes...

These are musings on two bold initiatives that seek to place Manchester at the forefront of the digital world.

Media City:UK. Tomorrow's media will belong to the people. This will not be naive and silly, quality will still be quality, but access and know-how will be shared much more widely. With wider access and know-how, more people will be able to say more things well. These things will be said to audiences large and small: that's the point, the new technology will not reconstruct a mass media model. Some of it will be big or bigger, but much of it will be smaller. The term 'campfire media' is very eloquent, I suggest. In essence, it is describing 'The Long Tail' effect for media.

Innovation theory tells us that successful new technologies tend to be socially inclusive (the alphabet, the printing press, the Model T, the wide-bodied jet). You can see this hallmark in the campfire concept. So, what's the next step for Media City? Well, whilst the developers get on with their side of things perhaps the city's educators should set out to see that every child is media savvy: understanding of the technology, art and psychology of media creation. Perhaps 'computer literacy' as a major educational concern was only ever a stepping-stone to 'media literacy.' Discuss.

ONE Manchester: Whilst celebrating Media City:UK, we can also cheer the ONE Manchester bid and hope that it wins the country's Digital Challenge. Have a look at the video featuring Poppy (pictured) and listen to the council folk and citizens expressing their wishes for a digital future. It is, as Poppy says, her future that is at stake. So my best advice is that we get the highest speed access to as many people as possible. The rest will follow. For the truth is that electronic media profoundly affect the economics of organisation. This is what is so often missing from the analyses of a digital future. Proponents and sceptics alike too often fail to see the link between technology and organisation. This is why people struggle to make it 'real'.

With digital technology we can organise in different ways. For example, more people can find their entrepreneurial niche because more niches can be sustained (Long Tail, again). Large corporate bodies and public institutions can divest themselves of functionality and pursue network relationships (lots of references but I like Unleashing the Killer App.) So, we get more and more organisations working with more and more organisations. The networked economy is born, new business takes advantage, builds position, and defends position as first-mover advantage is somehow made to apply. But business is still business, the winners still win and become a new sort of giant; a networked giant. The winners become intersections.

Discuss.

If this is mass media ...

Peter writes ...

Jade Goody arrived as the Queen of the Unexpected Celebrities i.e. that sub-cult that rise through exposure on reality TV itself, rather than any other perceived talent. "I am the 45th most infulential (sic) person in the world," she was able to boast. Perhaps it was this new ego, and its likely shakiness, that fuelled her bullying of Shilpa Shetty. It was without grace. It was base. It was low.

But she wasn't the only bully, was she? There was Jo O'Meara, Danielle Lloyd and the Dickensian-monickered Jack Tweed. And then again, there was Endemol, Channel 4 and the team of University-educated programme makers and psychologists.

The horrendously boring show 'Big Brother' is centrally woven around a process of the construction of celebrity. Its livelier twin, 'Celebrity Big Brother' is concerned with the deconstruction of celebrity. Having made Jade Goody, here was the University-folks chance to unmake her. And then, on cue, Jade arrived with her family in tow, her urchin mother Jackiey being the first to be evicted. It was cleverly and cruelly handled by the show's producers; seeing that Jade had a maternal role in relation to her mother, they deprived her of this suddenly by evicting Jackiey, without goodbyes, without opportunity for the daughter to assess her unsteady mother's readiness for the outside world. Jade ended up crumpled and crying in the diary room.

Jade Goody arrived as Queen , to be waited on by the other celebrities, and she left begging for forgiveness. Along the way, bayed by the hyenas of mass media, the Prime Minister and Prime Minister-in-waiting found themselves ensnared in the fate of a few, well-paid people locked in a house.

I don't believe that any University-ethics committee would ever give permission for the psychological experiment that is Big Brother. But the fact that the "contestants" are well-paid, and that they do choose to enter, makes it all right. Doesn't it?

Does it?

If this is mass-media, then what have we to fear from campfire media?