Broadcasting’s spiraling vortex of ruin

Cory Bergman November 25th, 2006

Quite the quote from Bob Garfield, editor at large of Advertising Age, in a story he wrote for Wired Magazine about online video:

Without being overly simplistic or melodramatic, the state of the Old Commercial Broadcasting Model can be summarized like this: a spiraling vortex of ruin. Fragmentation has decimated audiences, viewers who do watch are skipping commercials, advertisers are therefore fleeing, the revenue for underwriting new content is therefore flatlining, program quality is therefore suffering (Dancing With the Stars. QED), which will lead to ever more viewer defection, which will lead to ever more advertiser defection, and so on.

Perhaps a little melodramatic, but he does a nice job summarizing the challenges of monetizing online video in the story.