The People’s Network

The People’s Network
: We keep looking at the impact of the Internet, weblogs, and audience content [does anybody have a better term for that, by the way?] on print media. But Terry Heaton [via Lost Remote] writes that all this will have huge impact on TV as more people get the tools of big media in their hands (See also Jay Rosen’s reference to Michael Rosenblum of TVDojo, a service that teaches people how to create high-quality video.)

column“>Heaton writes:

And for broadcasters to succeed, I believe we need to reinvent ourselves as multimedia distribution and production companies. The creation and transmission of video, formerly the sole purview of TV, is now spread over a wide variety of technologies. (Even television production itself has changed – what used to require many people can now be done by one.) …

And the biggest online competition a TV station faces downstream is not the other guy across town with the antenna. It’s the local newspaper. Incoming Associated Press chief, Tom Curley, says the A.P. will be working hard to turn newspapers into broadcasters by providing video for them to use online….

Video News On Demand (VNOD) will be the way people get their video news in a Postmodern world. The news wars of the 21st century will be online…

By denying the reality of the Internet, TV stations are abdicating their position as the purveyors of video news in the community. This is a death sentence for local television, because local news is the only video niche that cannot be filled from afar. And disruptive technologies may even change that! In some big markets, cable companies have had success doing local news, and I think the next player in this game will be satellite TV. The economics make sense, for video journalism is a lot less expensive to create these days than many think.

Right. Anybody will be able to create video, just as anybody can write online. (See also vlogs.)