Peter Osnos is not really a Cable Gamer, but the publishing veteran has been around the media for his entire career, and he continues to be interesting. (Even as he, like so many media types, now finds himself working for a non-profit foundation, albeit a foundation with a strong orientation toward the media.)
In this column published by The Century Foundation, Osnos notes that book publishers are being more energetic in protecting their rights than newspaper owners. Indeed, the publishers recently won a big settlement against Google and its online book operation.
That's a strange turn of events, because book publishers are seen as a sleepy, behind-the-times bunch. But as Osnos argues, it's newspapers, not publishers, who are letting Google kill them, by putting their content online, for free, all searchable by Google.
Osnos concludes:
This is a complicated subject, as the hefty book publishers’ accord makes plain. But the issue itself is very clear: the collection of quality news is expensive, and it is seriously threatened. Google drives a very hard bargain in pursuing its business interests, but can be brought around by persistence and grit. There is a vast amount of money changing hands for news these daysA way has to be found—and fast—for those now making money from the distribution of news to pay for it.
OK, so that's newspapers. But now question for Cable Gamers: What about TV? After all, it's only a matter of time--and not much time--before Google, which owns YouTube, figures how to make TV video all searchable.
One who seems aware of this looming threat is Rupert Murdoch, who recently explained his view of Google to Australian reporter Terry McCrann. Murdoch tells the reporter that he likes the Google Guys but that his personal affection for them does not fully extend to their business relationship. Here's Rupe on Goog, explaining the need for the search company to have a significant competitor:
Then he gets serious. "It - Google's dominance - is a danger to us. We want to see Microsoft still strong. To get Yahoo, to at least have a base of perhaps 20-25 per cent of the search business. To hold on to it. To try to be a competitive factor.
"So when it comes up for our sites, to let out the search business, I would prefer two bidders," he says dryly. "Not one."
In making that argument, Murdoch echoes, interestingly enough, a similar declaration, made two years ago, by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to Business Week. Ballmer echoed Osnos, too, when he observed that Google's business model is to wipe out copyright holders, aka, the media: "And what about the rights holders? At the end of the day, a lot of the content that's up there is owned by somebody else."
And Ballmer continued:
The truth is what Google is doing now is transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders into Google. So media companies around the world are all threatened by Google. Why? Because basically Google is telling you how much of your ad revenue you get to keep.They better get some competition. Us. Yahoo! Somebody better break through or you can short all media stocks right now. As long as there are two, you can hold onto media stocks.
The key phrase, above, is Ballmer's argument that if Google doesn't get competition, then all media stock values will go down. So Murdoch and Ballmer agree: Google needs competition.
That's a big question, which will affect publishing, newspapers--and, yes, cable news--in the years ahead. Perhaps, in fact, the biggest question.
