Inside the TV Wars: Mergers, Monoliths and Shady Backroom Deals

Our media powerhouses aren’t ready to evolve, and they’re prepared to sabotage content, creativity and innovation to avoid doing so.

The real fight to watch isn’t on television -- Conan vs. Leno, Olbermann vs. O’Reilly. Rather, it’s about television, and the future of online video -- a fight that pits cable and content companies against consumers.

Instead of being glued to our favorite shows, we’d be wise to pay attention to the various battles, mergers and backroom deals happening between big media corporations who are trying desperately to cling to a sinking broadcast media model -- and pull the public down with them.

Cable and broadcast companies see the writing on the wall, and it no longer spells "media empire." Although a majority of Americans are still watching television -- clocking in an average of five hours of viewing a day (Nielsen Wire, 5/20/09) -- people are increasingly switching off the tube and using their computers and laptops to watch their favorite shows, as well as to find alternative programming. Options like TiVo and DVR have given us the blessed ability to skip over advertisements. And advertising companies are jumping ship, heading over to the Internet or simply not placing ads in a market that can no longer guarantee as many eyeballs.

Thanks to the Internet’s open platform, anyone can create and share video, meaning we’re no longer tethered to traditional media gatekeepers who decide what’s entertaining and who gets the spotlight. We’re also realizing that we can cancel our hefty cable subscriptions and still watch the Daily Show online -- for free. It’s a Pandora’s box that media corporations are trying to sit on top of while the public wrenches the lid up from below.

http://www.alternet.org/media/146003/inside_the_tv_wars%3A_mergers%2C_monoliths_and_shady_backroom_deals