Rebuilding the pyramid

Until two years ago, media was rather neatly pidgeonholed it was either a newspaper or magazine, or a broadcasting station. But the Americ...

Until two years ago, media was rather neatly pidgeonholed it was either a newspaper or magazine, or a broadcasting station. But the America Online-Times Warner merger clearly shows that the concept is in for a revaluation. It was radical enough for Time to merge with an entertainment company. But in merging with an Internet service provider, this conglomerate has blurred the line between media and other information services even further. The deal is only the latest and the biggest in a spate of agglomerations that has swept the world over the last two years.

In publishing, the leading US imprints under the Random House banner went to the German firm Bertelsmann AG. In small-town America, local newspapers and broadcasting stations were bought over at an amazing rate, in a wave sweeping from coast to coast. On the Internet, the portals business sparked off a buying spree as providers tried to bring more and more services to a single Website. These days, the distinction between media and other services isso, well, indistinct that producers prefer to term it content8217;.

What are the implications of this trend? It depends on which side of the divide the question is posed from. For the corporate producers of services, it is a jolly good thing. It permits a higher degree of conglomeration, which spells more leverage in the marketplace and outreach, thanks to the Internet, on a scale that would have been impossible just five years ago. For the consumer, though, it is not necessarily a good thing. That applies especially to consumers of media in the original sense of the term.

There is always more than one version of the truth, and informed choice is a product of media choice. People who have access to several media products tend to make better choices. The inherent danger of media consolidation is that it will encourage the recycling of media products. An organisation which owns newspapers, Websites, magazines and broadcasting operations will find it more economical to source all its material from its ownnews agency. In other words, no matter what medium consumers tap, they will find the same content, endlessly recycled. Given the outreach of contemporary media, this organisation will be in a position to influence individual choice on a global scale. And given the fact that media these days is as much about products and services as more remote entities like government and the economy, the implications are of immediate financial interest.

This nightmare has been discussed ad nauseum over the last few years and was initially regarded as a conspiracy theory strictly for the X-Files fan club. But the media-related mergers and acquisitions of recent times may call for a revaluation. In our lifetime, we may see the very pyramid of power that was dismantled in the middle of the last century being rebuilt. This time, the interest will not be petroleum or minerals but the sunrise resource information. Fortunately, though, this is not the only possible version of the future. New technologies are making it evereasier for new entrants into media, in all its current avatars. There may, in fact, be more choice rather than less, and from refreshingly unlikely sources, thanks to the very technologies that the big brands are now scrabbling for.