The Changing Media Landscape: This Time It's Over-the-Air TV

It seems as if every media business model is being questioned. Today, the New York Times reports that over-the-air broadcasters are now demanding fees from cable systems that carry their channels (the cable systems already pay fees for cable-only channels). It's a big and complex issue, and, perhaps in a bit of brinksmanship, News Corporation has said it will remove its Fox stations from Time Warner if they don't pony up the cash. Apparently the existing contract ends on Friday 1/1/2010 so we should see some activity in the next few days (I did see a NAB ad on the local news last evening and didn't know what it was about until I read The Times.)

My guess is that we may enter into another episode that's not unlike the local newspaper situation: the power of the traditional/mainstream media is very much historical, and is based on the enormous capital investments needed for printing presses, transmitters, and, of course, content creation. We may be moving into a world where technology enables everyone to be a content creator if they want to be--and many do not want to be. But this growth of the possibility of widespread content creation (see blogs, Twitter and Facebook feeds, and tool such as Drupal and Joomla) seems to be shaking up one media business model after another. 

And just to liven things up, Peter Kafka writes in All Things Digital that 64 of Kindle's top 100 titles sell for nothing. (The secret behind the Kindle's best-selling e-books: They're not for sale)

Some are public domain classics (you can't go wrong with Dickens and Twain, but give W. D. Howells a try), but he speculates on the others. There may be another business model lurking here for some of those titles. Think product placement and marketing. The same issues as are at play in the over-the-air battle. Is it possible that a company that sells consumer products -- a Proctor & Gamble, say -- might give away free books and novels that either promote their products explicitly or that appeal to their target customers who then might be inclined to patronize the company. Gosh, what an innovative and 21st century idea! Only problem is, that P&G among others already did this. They were called soap operas.

Want to read a soap Kindle?