Fragmentation or Focus?

In media and communications, you can't help but be bombarded with doom and gloom messages regarding media fragmentation. Fragmentation, in this instance, refers to the fragmentation of the audiences for various media and the impact it has on the ability of the media outlets to make money selling advertising.

You see, back in the good old days, you could count on millions of consumers showing up at places and times determined by networks, publishers and the marketers who funded them. It was so comforting and reliable. But with the relentless and growing wave of technology (beginning with the remote control), those huge flocks of consumers began behaving less and less like sheep and more and more like what they were: individuals with their own likes, dislikes, tastes and interests.

So, in the minds of those entities who take it upon themselves to determine what we see, hear and read, fragmentation is an abomination to the model they created and perpetuated for so long.

Truly, they built it and come we did. And happiness and satisfaction was in abundance. But, as is in nature, capitalism and businsss change is inevitable and the model began to evolve. As individuals and societies grew wealthier, enterprises developed and adapted to relieve them of their wealth. And as the number and variety of goods and services increased to compete for the attention of the consumer's dollar, the attention of the consumer began to focus on where their money was going; was it going to what was best for them? To the best value? To the most entertaining? In short, the consumer began to focus on what they needed and wanted as opposed to what was simply available.

So, in a round about way, I've finally gotten to the idea of focus rather than fragmentation. The world of media has not become fragmented — it's become much more focused; focused around the indvidual as opposed to the entity, focused around context as much as content. Because of the internet, TiVo, VOD, mobile communications and any number of other technologies, the individual cannot only find exactly what they want but get it exactly when they want it. They can move with soul singularity of purpose or gather and congregrate around a shared idea. Or create the idea and advance it.

But what is not needed in many – if not all — of these instances is a commercial sponsor. Perhaps the opportunity for the old-model players mentioned earlier in this post is to adopt and outside looking in view of the world as opposed to an inside looking out; you are whining about fragmentation while the world around you is embracing the freedom offered by free-flowing information, entertainment, commerce and communication.