Only is the new 4 Letter word

In response to Ouimets blog about the CBC myspace and some of the resulting comments I felt compelled to point out something that should be obvious.

If you're in media, any media (film, tv, radio, print, web...), you can no longer afford the word 'only' when referring to any chunk of your audience or potential audience. As the 'million channel universe' and the world of 'everything on demand' unfold the audience will become more and more divided.

It's simple, if you have access to all of the programming ever produced anywhere in the world how good will something have to be to get your attention? What's more, because we have been advertised too so heavily most people have become fairly jaded by it. Word of mouth is already the only consistently reliable form of advertising. If a friend, family member, co-worker etc., tells you something is good you will be much more likely to investigate. This is only going to become more true as time goes on.

This is not some far fetched fantasy of the future, it is now. Every day, largely through the internet, more and more programming is available to people worldwide and unless Canada is going to build a system of filters and firewalls similar to China's the CRTC can do very little to regulate the flow. If the CRTC says to Internet Broadcaster X - you can't do that in Canada, Internet Broadcaster X just gets a new web site in the US, or England, or..wherever moves the site to the new server and resumes as usual.

Audiences must be carefully cultivated, moved to loyalty and jealously guarded. The CBC is probably in a better position than anyone in Canada to do this, but you can no longer afford to say it's only ___ viewers.

Why no (N)

We get the Saturday edition of the Toronto Star every week, so we get the Star Weekly (the Star's low budget version of the TV Guide). When the Star lists programs it uses a (N) to indicate a new episode. If the (N) is not there you can assume it is a rerun. Now, I don't know who pissed of who at the Toronto Star. My memory could have failed me or I could not have paid close enough attention but I do not recall seeing a single (N) next to a single episode of a CBC program this year including episodes I knew for a fact were new. Which means that people who rely solely on the Star Weekly for guidance in such matters do not know that any new episodes of any programs have aired on the CBC - in terms of ratings, that could be a problem.

Time for a shareholders meeting!

In the discussion of the future of the CBC there has, appropriately, been alot of focus on the Heritage Committee. I have weighed in with some opinions (obviously), we've heard from Ouimet, Michael Geist, Charlie Angus, Tod Maffin, and many others. As interesting and enlightening as many of these discussions have been, they are not enough.

On October 19 I said that I was going to try to find CBC viewers and fans, one at a time if necessary. So far, so good. the Button is finding it's way around the net. 947, as of this moment, MySpacers have befriended the CBC. There has been an interesting survey, and a few conversations.

Now, while keeping all of this up, I'm pushing the new google group. This has been tried before, with limited success but this time, I hope, will be different. While people who work at the CBC and follow it closely are more than welcome - this time I'm aiming it at CBC shareholders: from casual viewers, listeners and web surfers to the arts community and content creators.

These are the people that ultimately own the CBC. They have a large stake in it and more than the Heritage Committee, the CRTC or the board of directors they have the power to reshape the future of the CBC.