Blogs, Twitter and old-school media

Nice graphical piece from one of our favourites, good.is. Apparently, a study byjournalism.org in the US has found that most of the thousands of stories that are passed around the internet via blogs and twitter each day are actually generated by “old-school media” – ie the press.

This should come as no surprise. There is a myth that the web is full of ‘free content’, that blogs and twitter can replace traditional media, which patently isn’t true. Someone pays the journalists who write these stories. That bloggers read the stories and then comment on them via blog posts, or tweeters distribute the stories by linking to them in no way replaces the origination of those stories. As they say over at Good: “We may like to share information via Twitter, but the information we share comes from the morning’s newspaper”.

There has been a lot of discussion around how to monetise online content, and with Murdoch’s empire erecting paywalls and the Guardian’s championing of free content leading to large losses for GMG, we seem to be on the cusp of working out a paradigm. Although no-one seems to have come up with a new model that isn’t advertising-funded or reader-funded.

Either way, this study seems to show that old-school media consumption is alive and well, regardless of who pays.

I’d like to see the figures from journalism.org – the proportion of stories shared that come from ‘old media’ – as the post and infographic on Good don’t furnish us with that information. But I would imagine any Twitter user or blogger instinctively feels the truth behind the claim.

TV, funding and the BBC

For a number of years now there has been a lot of hand-wringing at the commercial broadcasters’ over how to fund quality TV programming in a shrinking advertising market. I know this because I read the papers, but also because I have a friend who works for Channel 4,  and our conversation often swings around to this very subject after she’s had a few glasses of wine down the pub. Changing viewing habits, on-demand TV, PVRs, internet services, YouTube, the increase in the number of channels available to the consumer – they’re all whittling away at once mighty advertising revenue figures, and leaving broadcasters scratting around in the dirt for cheap (and in my opinion often dirty) TV.

Nothing you don’t already know there.

Against this backdrop, I noticed a piece in the Guardian on Wednesday (23rd September 2009) about the BBCs ‘arrogance’. It stated: ‘Meanwhile, the BBC is under siege from commercial competitors who argue that its dominance is distorting the market at a time when they are struggling to survive one of the most serious advertising downturns for generations’ and later: ‘Murdoch…used a landmark speach…to call for a “far far smaller” BBC’. You can read the full article here.

Well, hang on just a minute. Yes it is the worst advertising downturn for generations – but it’s not a temporary blip, it’s a long-term decline caused by changing technologies. It’s not going to get better fast. And I for one thank the lord that the BBC is at least somewhat insulated from its effects. After all, isn’t the licence fee a revenue stream? And doesn’t it work? Don’t we get four channels (and extras such as cbeebies, HD and News) of quality programming, a web resource second to none, and to crown it all the mighty iPlayer for only £140 odd a year? How good is that? Frankly Murdoch, if a ‘smaller BBC’ means losing out on innovations like the iPlayer, or the total awesomeness that is Radio 6 Music, you can stuff it. I’ll happily pay my £12 a month.

It also begs the question as to why other countries don’t adopt a similar model. I’m no expert in global broadcasting trends, but I had a conversation with a Canadian friend of mine who has been living in the UK for a few years now who was amazed at the quality of the BBC and by just how much we got for our money. I wonder whether it would make sense for  other nations to think about safeguarding their national broadcasting heritage by pumping in a bit of state cash. After all, what’s good for the banks…

Image thanks to fatcontroller