A prediction: It's only a matter of time before FNC ends up on MySpace.com, CNN ends up on AOL.com, and MSNBC ends up on MSN, or ends up on Live.com.
And so now to a question: Will TV end up looking more like the Net, or will the Net end up looking more like TV? I think that the answer is the latter--we're a visual culture, not a reading culture. So TV will win.
How exactly will that work? I am not sure, exactly. But TCG recalls the old saying: "The more things change, the more they stay the same." And TCG points to this article from the November 17 edition of The Financial Times, which merit a careful looksee from all those interested in the future of the the cable game. The piece, bylined by Richard Waters and Raphael Minder notes a common thread stringing together two departures from the News Corp. and AOL. Both Ross Levinsohn, ex of News, and Jonathan Miller, ex of AOL, were Net people. And as the FT authors observe, "Both men have been replaced by more experienced executives from the television business, reflecting the growing importance of video programming to the major internet portals."
News Corp's Levinsohn, of course, rates as a genius: He purchased Myspace and some other Net properties for less $600 million, and now those properties are worth somewhere between $2 and $6 billion. As for AOL's Miller, well, let's just say this and leave it at that: he tried hard.
Bingo. TCG has argued many times that the Net and cable--including cable news--will inevitably converge. That's a cliche, going back two decades to the work of TV visionary George Gilder. But now we're seeing that the Net, huge as it is, is likely destined to keep a lot of TV-like features. So "life after television" will, in fact, be a lot like "life during television."
That's good, because TCG is conservative, and doesn't like to see too-rapid change. And apparently, the same is true for most Americans--which explains why the Net-TV fusion is evolving as it is.
