Is the boob tube the noob tube?

WHAT will happen to the boob tube and traditional broadcast companies in the face of the mad rush to offer online video and mobile TV?

Remember what happened to the dinosaurs? Yup, they were huge and you might have thought they would rule forever, but even giants die out in the face of catastrophic change. These days, the choice is simple: Evolve or die.

The signs are all around us. Smart Communications is offering its mobile TV service.  Dream TV is following suit, as Alex Villafania wrote in his Infotech article.

At the same time, online video is becoming bigger than ever, despite all the attempts of Old Media to derail YouTube by suing it, or by teaming up with other online players and ganging up on it.  Actually, Mike Abundo has a post on his Emerging Earth blog for b5media.com, so read it and find out why he thinks online-offline alliances are a bad idea. 

I’m actually more excited over Joost, the new online video service from the makers of Skype and Kazaa, which is now in private beta.  Joost recently announced a partnership with Ministry of Sound TV.

The Joost tagline perfectly sums up the new philosophy — TV, the way you want it. Not TV the way network executives want it. Not TV the way advertisers want it. What users, particularly among the younger generation, are increasingly realizing is that they don’t want TV the way it is today. Even if they do like certain exceptional TV shows — I love “Heroes,” for one — they don’t want to watch it on their TV sets, but on their PCs or mobile phones.   

We want to watch it when we want it — and without all the commercials the TV networks keep stuffing down our throats. Sure, it’s free TV and they have to earn money through advertising, but when you’re starting to have as many ads as the actual content on the show, then you have to find another business model. And viewers have to find a way to fight back.

I once publicly advocated against piracy, but now I see disruptive technologies such as BitTorrent and YouTube, which anyway can also be used for legally available content, as weapons to force greedy dinosaurs to change. If they don’t want to embrace the online world, let them die. If they don’t want to change their outmoded business models, let’s force them to change. Apple doesn’t want to offer its iTunes online store in the Philippines and the rest of Asia? Screw them; we already know how to get the content if they won’t want our business.

I empathize with game developers and will not advocate gaming piracy, but it’s harder to swallow that we have to protect the so-called content producers and artists who have made TV a wasteland. Let’s support the indie scene, from digital cinema to video podcasts to independent online directors, instead of pampered network executives and their pet stars who are trying to buy their way into online success.

The irony is that once upon a time, you needed to be rich to buy your own TV network or put up your own newspaper, yet it’s now these Old Media giants who are bleeding money and fighting desperately to remain relevant in a world that is embracing online media. And yes, to old fogeys who are still starstruck over TV, it’s new media which is reaching out to more Filipinos here in the Philippines and abroad — and our readership/viewership isn’t dwindling. 

Heck, we’re the ones making money and producing new content, instead of being on survival mode and creating content based on what we think will stop readers from leaving us in droves, or what will please advertisers, or what will give us the edge in the network wars.

So let the dinosaurs make believe they still rule the earth, while you, the one who matters most, the one that relic Time magazine declared Person of the Year in 2006, blog away; create your own videos and upload them; nurture thriving communities; and express your opinions online. And drive another nail in the coffin of those who refuse to change.

You know the truth, the truth that those clinging to their privileged positions are still trying to deny. The power no longer resides with the rich and powerful of Old Media.

It is back where it truly belongs, where it has aways belonged. In the people. In you.

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