A CNN representative has told this year's News World conference that by year-end it will be supplying news to 30 million cellphones. While the advertising industry in Europe is not yet switching its adspend, online adspend is increasing, and one leading representative of the industry told the conference that she expected online advertising to increase tenfold within the next two years. The sense of crisis in the industry is so palpable, that one panellist went as far as to suggest that the very concept of prime time television is under threat. Maybe it is time to kiss the concept of prime time goodbye. The new world is one where choice is increasingly the order of the day.
Consumers consume news where, when and how they want.
This was the central thrust of keynote speaker Michael Bloomberg, famous for the news service agency of the same name. Bloomberg says customers cannot tell the difference between the various news offerings now coming their way, be these via television, print, radio or the internet. Increasingly, the differences between television and the PC are becoming blurred. The reader or user will decide how they want to consume news. They want to watch news footage on television of the Egyptian air crash, but read about how the economy is doing and what the outlook is for interest ratees.