Media in the New Millennium

Posted by Jill Thompson

As we know the media landscape is changing and the traditional news outlets are grasping at straws to save ratings, advertising revenue and, well, jobs. We are seeing several daily shows and large broadcast events incorporating social media in an attempt to regain ratings and increase viewer participation.

Broadcast events such as the Super Bowl and the Grammy’s have had their biggest audiences ever and The New York Times attributes this to their engagement in social media. Brian Stelter of The New York Times sees this as an extension of the “water cooler effect”; that very natural trait that most human beings have to want to talk about, analyze and deconstruct events going on in the world – from the trivial to the significant – with their friends and family. NFL.com hosted streaming tweets and a visualization of trends on their website to stimulate online conversation and The Oscars presented an insiders view of the ceremony by featuring three of their insiders Tweeting throughout the awards on their site. With an online platform of “The water cooler effect,” people don’t have wait till the next morning – literally around the water cooler – to share information, comment, weigh in and generally feel like we’re actually a part of the big – and small – happenings of the day.

So can social media save broadcast television?

The answer is yes and no.

Yes.

For networks that are acknowledging and embracing social media, it is allowing the networks to almost double dip in their advertising.  According to The Nielsen Company, one in seven people watch a broadcast event and sit on the Internet at the same time.

And no.

The networks that are straggling behind in the new media realm are finding themselves to be the conversation and not as being part of the conversation. They are able to see the streaming rants, praises and general comments but are not contributing. The networks that once were the main source of the population’s news are now standing on the sidelines of the people’s news coming from Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites.

I recently worked on the NBC Olympic Twitter Project where I saw the kind of participation in broadcast that Brian Stelter discusses in his article. As I filtered through hundreds of thousands of Tweets a day, I realized that people will embrace a network that they feel is listening and appreciate a network that provides some kind of online vehicle for their voice – their opinions, insights, rants, questions – such as the NBC Twitter Tracker.  The Vancouver Olympics forced networks to acknowledge the power of social media because people were Tweeting the results of events before they aired. NBC realized that they couldn’t control the message and that they must simply embrace it by making they Twitter Tracker the most up-to-date news on the Olympics.

To me, social media seems to perfectly compliment broadcast television. The synergy of new and social media forces the normally one-way news to finally become an actual conversation. So what does this mean for the future of the TV industry? It means a future.

For great reads and where I got my stats check out these two articles:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/business/media/24cooler.html?ref=technology

http://www.briansolis.com/2010/03/the-future-of-broadcast-media-is-social/

Share on Facebook