MY MEDIA KILLS MASS MEDIA

The role of advertising towards the death of mass media through the rising threats caused by the emergence of the new media technology.

The new age has come and it is happening now. The technological revolution of the media industry has taken place so fast, threatening the subsistence of traditional media that existed over a long time ago. Advertising throughout time has taken a significant role in utilising the benefits of the media as well as contributed to its development. However, on a fast changing world like today, every birth of a new technology is an endless marketing opportunity; from new product development, market leadership, to utilisation of its features for advertising and promotion. And as the traditional media is facing a challenge of possible extinction, advertising contributes to its fast degeneration as it continuously increase its evolutionary process of adaptation to the new media features, exploiting it to the possible maximum level in order to maintain and increase its competitiveness to constantly generate revenue and survive the various challenges in the fast-changing market. Advertising in its nature is known to be the most powerful and influential agent of change especially in the modern times that even the power of the media can be overruled. Its so-called “free-agent mentality” makes it control its own destiny (Berger, 2001 p.361), evolve, influence its media and apparently indirectly control its life cycle. Will advertising as the main lifeblood of the so-called traditional media take its toll to put these wonderful technologies laid to rest finally?

The Tri-Media

Thousands of years ago, when ancient Egyptians developed a writing system, advertising began through sales messages and wall posters made of papyrus. Roman and Greek civilisation were also proved to have used the same to communicate and deliver messages to a number of subjects. It took several centuries to innovate the technique when the Chinese discovered printing, followed by the invention of the printing press for mass production. In our world today, print media is one of the most popular means of communication, providing information and entertainment to a wide range of audiences. Most published media are mainly for sale therefore it is not solely dependent on advertisers to fund its production.

In the 19th century, the experimentation that lead to the discovery of radio technology began and it took nearly half a century to develop the medium that became useful and powerful means of communication particularly during the civil wars which was mainly used for propaganda and entertainment. And since radio was mainly used for political rather than commercial purposes, some relevant advertising has taken place specifically in the United States when the first radio commercial was aired by WEAF station in 1922. The golden age of radio broadcasting and advertising has set off, followed by the discovery of television few years later. Following this revolutionary breakthrough, the television, radio and print media triad has consistently dominated the world of communication technology until today.

Television has been considered as the most powerful medium of communication in the last half of the 20th century. In the United States, it remains the primary form of entertainment, saturating the entire household and has become a mainstay in the lives of most people, as well as to the rest of the world (Lee & Johnson, 2005).Considered to have the broadest reach and with its versatile audio and visual feature, the medium became one of the most effective means of advertising where companies are spending millions of pounds every year to market their products on television alone.
The wonderful feature of television has inspired the people of today to consider it as the new single important invention of mankind (Harrison, 2004). In spite of its innovative attributes and feature advantages, it co-existed well with other traditional media.

Threats on the rise

Most people may have thought television has replaced the wheel as the most significant invention of all times (Harrison, 2004), and that radio has maintained its existence despite of television’s revolutionary features and phenomenal popularity, as well as the printed media consistently making itself one of the most indispensable forms of communication that was never overtaken by any product of modern discoveries. The invention of computer systems paved the way to develop a sophisticated digital technology that opened the window to a more advanced stage of communication and information technology following the development of the internet. Digital age has commenced and television for example, has evolved through the development of High Definition Technology (HDTV) improving its feature to meet ever increasing demand for perfection by today’s generation. Satellite technology played a significant contribution to both radio and television providing a faster and efficient transmission.

In 2004, Electronic Paper Display (EPD) technology was introduced in the market, a device that is a thin as a paper, capable of downloading data electronically. Amazon’s Kindle and Sony e-reader are newly launched products, devices that allow readers to download the electronic book from the website and store the data to the handheld gadget. Amazon’s Kindle sales boost up to 500,000 units since its launching in 2007 making a market of $200 million worth worldwide (Fortune Magazine, 2009). This is leading to a further development of a technology that is believed to replace newspapers and magazines in the future. This is not the first instance that publishers struggled against the power of information technology. Giant online search engines such as Google and Yahoo has significantly affected the broadcast and publishing industries through offering commercial advertisements through any internet-friendly gadgets resulting to a massive loss of revenue and fast increasing threats. At the same time, the escalating issues of global warming and environmental degradation may trigger the rapid diffusion of this technology to favour the preservation of nature and save trees from being cut down for paper manufacturing. It is in fact being predicted that paper will cost more than electronic papers in the future (Copeland, 2009).

Unlike the printed media, television and radio industry evolved into a higher level of development. The improved satellite technology enhanced its transmission with more speed and efficiency providing audience the convenience and superior experience. The innovation from plasma, LCD screen to High Definition Television or HDTV has brought television to a higher stage of its evolution, the development of digital equipments to improve its production quality, and most of all, the opportunities of producing quality programmes to attract viewer’s ratings for the advertisers. On the other hand, although most broadcasting companies have stepped into a wide world of cyber space by making their relay available online usually in a form of media streaming, the threats to its survival is somehow eradicated. For example, BBC and ITV websites feature their programmes online for playback and even via live transmission. This made them satisfy the need of their viewers to manage their own time watching a particular programme or show rather than sitting in front of their television set within a specific time. Absolute Radio launched an online player application in 2008, spending £15 million for its campaign (New Media Age, 2008). According to its Brand Director Chris Lawson, the strategy was about following where the audiences go instead of expecting them to come to them. The cyberspace has become the new battleground for the broadcast media and mostly for marketing. As the people migrate to the worldwide web, the marketers follow.

As of 2007, more than 206 million users had registered for MySpace.com. Over 2.7 billion searches on Google are being performed every month (Fisch, 2007). Facebook, with 42.1 million members and other networking sites such as Twitter are significantly increasing making it a famous venue to place marketing campaigns.

Without a doubt, internet has become the most significant invention of mankind after the computer. It developed as an integrated medium where an individual can get everything he needs from information, entertainment and communication all in one. Most importantly, it offers a personalised and customised option for a more individualistic yet massive communication approach. It is more convenient indeed to sit down in front of a personal computer whenever is convenient, perhaps after work and before going to bed or simply just anytime you want rather than wait in front of a television set for the programme to be aired. It is a powerful medium that everyone in the planet is going after as a portal to an almost unlimited source of information at the user’s own pace. This has transformed the idea of a “mass media” into an individualistic “my media” communication (Spurgeon, 2009). It is where the vast audience is going and again, advertisers follow.

Considering this act of audience media migration and substitution, this instance is not as bad as the print media being potentially eradicated. Television and radio programmes made available online at the same time offers wider options to the audience. The only question is, if advertising serves as the lifeblood of the media, and with advertisers shifting to place their commercials online, how can the media produce quality programmes without the advertiser’s money?

Coke and Mentos rocket fountain video popularised over YouTube in 2006 earned an estimated $10 million worth of media exposure (Spurgeon, 2008). This amount of money could have gone to television, radio and print media company but then, it may only be within a specific country. After a year since YouTube launched, its worth scaled up to $1.65 billion as acquired by Google in 2006. Today it became a phenomenon creating opportunities for every product marketing in a massive extent for not as high as the cost of traditional advertisement placement. Furthermore, Google Inc. is planning to develop tools to make online video advertisements available on their websites (New Media Age, 2008) that could possibly create great impact on traditional mass media.

Internet made advertising less expensive, accessible, even more powerful and effective to penetrate the market globally. Advertising is known to exploit every medium to maximise all marketing opportunities by targeting its audiences, in return provides funding to sustain the media production. Where ever there are audiences, there is advertising. Television became the most powerful and effective marketing campaign in terms of proximity before the internet. Great shows and programmes were created; famous personalities were developed and spectacular entertainment ideas were discovered as well as billions of revenue has been generated with advertising money behind it. The Coke-Mentos campaign model introduces the idea of the audience capable of actively managing the media through demanding new features and options suitable to their individualistic lifestyle (Spurgeon, 2009).

The dramatic shifting of advertisement placement from the traditional media to the new one is bringing a serious issue on how the television and broadcast industry will continue to serve its purpose when its means of support is venturing out to another medium. As we are living in an exponential time (Fisch, 2007), everything goes quickly in a colossal form.

Advertising is everywhere and technology will continue to make it easier to be in every possible place. Interactive marketing on the internet has exceeded the wonderful feature of television where companies can track their customers on the web, engage on a dialogue with them and even anticipate their thinking just by their buying behaviour (Berger, 2001).

The advancement of human technology becomes unstoppable and uncontrollable; and the survival of the fittest lie on everything that is new, fast, easy and spontaneous. Television and radio sets may be replaced by computers; however the content as well as the quality may not be the same without advertising money to sustain the production. Advertising being the major financer is not just changing the face of the media in the future but taking it to its way to extinction. As internet becomes the new arena, will advertising cost as much as of the traditional media so it could continue to survive at its best? Or, will the media keep its survival and manage to evolve into a more versatile form until another powerful technology arrives? Will the cost to view a television show or listen to a radio programme be as expensive as paying a subscription because of lack of advertisement? Or perhaps, if traditional media survive this shift and attract significant followers could once again earn advertisers’ support? Only time can tell and it is not far from now.

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