There is a good chance that at the beginning of this year’s Fall the Dutch Media Authority will decide in favor of a popular Dutch weblog to become a public broadcasting organization. Every five years existing public broadcasting associations are given a chance to magnify their television airtime by showing the Media Authority an increased amount of members. At the same time transmitting wannebees are offered the possibility to become authorized broadcasters on the populous Dutch public service television channels for at least the next five years.
One of the criteria to pass the test is to have at least 50,000 paying members on the deadline, which was some weeks ago on April 1st. This year two initiatives have conquered the status of nominee broadcaster: Wakker Nederland (Awaking Netherlands), spin-off of the Dutch right-wing newspaper Telegraaf and PowNed, initiative of the recalcitrant weblog Geen Stijl (No Style). In September the Dutch Media Authority will examine their bids by judging on a second criterion: Do they add something new to the existing media landscape?
The Dutch media landscape itself has been formed in the past century by organizations with strong religious or political roots. In the last fifteen years new broadcasting initiatives were approved by the Authority because they appealed mere age groups (youngsters, elder) or interest groups (durability). At first sight, PowNed can’t be pinpointed on any clear target group or movement. The weblog attracts a variety of political opinions, left-wingers and right-wingers, well and less educated individuals and different social groups. But all members have one thing in common: they all are connected and engaged individuals. Or, in PowNed’s words: We attract a networkers generation. And that is going to cause a new revolution in the media landscape.
PowNed is planning to work with an open source community. Content items will be checked, commented on and enriched quickly by its engaged audience and therefore broadcasting programs on television can be offered as a result of thoroughly chewed discussions on the internet. In this case watching television becomes delayed viewing! Another interesting thing is that it makes them less dependent on television as the main broadcasting medium to get a sufficient amount of viewers. A few trial programs that were launched on television gained much more attention by delayed viewing on the internet.
Advertisers who bother about the effect of their ads in a time where time shifting techniques make it possible to skip messages, will be confronted with a new dimension on delayed viewing: Not only techniques will have an effect but the use of different media in the process of creating content will fragment viewing even more. Sometimes internet will follow television and sometimes television will air the result of internet content. Where to put your sometimes time-sensible ads? The most obvious solution seems to put your message in the content itself, but that could cause the end of independent journalism. And how to measure those oh so important viewing ratings. Nielsen AG is now reporting on Live Only viewing and Live + 7 days viewing to get ratings as close as possible, but needs to prepare deciding on measuring AV content on the internet when its sources become vast extensions to the TV content.
At least one conclusion could be drawn quite easily. PowNed’s bid has indeed the potency to turn the media landscape upside down.
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