The Last Gasps of Media Technology

I am probably among the early adopters of the view that many media formats are destined to buried soon and forgotten. I joined media industry in 2002 and it did not take me long to build this view looking at the way digital was progressing then. However, I am surprised and at times inspired by the optimism that some have about the 'indestructuveness' of the traditional media formats.

Maybe, the optimism is what may eventually give a new lease of life to these traditional formats but for how long?

I was reading this article in Ad Adge titled "Consumers aren't so keen on cutting the cord after all" which shows the situation in the US where despite many technological advances in alternative TV distribution channels 'Cable TV' is still very popular. Yes, subscribers are adding on additional formats but very few are giving up the cable as yet. My observation in India too is similar - households have taken on DTH and IPTV subscriptions but continue to have the traditional cable TV connection too. 

There would be many reasons for this - commercial, emotional, political, etc. The behaviour is similar with newspapers too. While, we would still be doing a lot of our news gathering on TV and/ or Internet but no one is giving up newspaper subscriptions at home. As a matter of fact the newspaper subscriptions are only increasing due to more and more number of newspapers now available.

I guess, it would be interesting to learn from the transition of the market from the landline phones to cell phones. Initially, there too a cell phone was only as an addition to the landline phones. Only, after the cell phone reached a certain level of  acceptability, then consumers started adopting cell phones as a replacement of landlines. The landlines penetration first saturated and then started moving downwards. Will the same happen in these media technologies too - only after a certain tipping point of adoption of the new formats has been reached then the downward slide will start? What, is the level for that tipping point - are we there yet or not?

The so-called dot-com revolution is also an example to study. In the late 90s the way the dot-coms took off it seemed that the whole world would be made into a big website and our lives would soon be mouse-clicks. But, soon there was the dot-com bust and companies returned to the brick & brick model. However, with time gradually but surely today we are far ahead of the curve on Internet acceptance than we were at the time of the dot-com bust and companies are again working on their brick & click models.

I am reminded of an article that I had read in the Harward Business Review about a year ago titled "The last gasps of technology". As new technologies are introduced in the market and threaten the traditional technologies - the article showed how the old technologies move into niches favourable to them and how they work on their output such that they become highly efficient though in a reduced area of application. What this causes is a sudden rise in the efficiency curve of the technology and thus is referred to as the "last gasp" after which either the technology eventually gets obsolete or remains but only in that niche area of application where the new technology cant beat it.

I can almost see that happening in media technologies. Look at how newspapers are finding their niches v/s the threat from television and Internet. Look at how the attractiveness of newspapers is increasing in some segments given what they offer and at what cost. of course! one never really knows if that is the "last gasp" or is it a "rejuvenation" which will bring the media back into our midst as ever.

Can we look around at the various media formats that surround us and ponder if any of them is actually taking the "last gasps" or is soon likely to.