Broadcast is Dead. Long Live Broadcast!

I realized pretty quickly that quoting Mark Twain would be beyond cliche. But, did anyone hear this story on NPR the other night? There was a quote from political consultant Bill Buck who said YouTube is “a tremendously valuable way, not only now but into the future, for getting out whatever message you want to get out.”

What-ever.

Bill Buck’s company produced attack ads for multiple candidates (with the same talent: cute little girl, soccer mom, young active male) targeting the candidates’ stand on stem cell research. It doesn’t matter here what your political stand is on the subject. What matters is your communications stand. Since when did multiple customers have EXACTLY the same objectives for their communications? Yeah, I get that they are staying “on message” but how unauthentic is that?

Buck says “I think YouTube is revolutionizing political communication.”

Hell-low?? Could we wheel in the perspective here?

Flashback. 1960. Kennedy-Nixon debates. Television changes the face of political communication.

Flashback. 1980. CNN changes the face of television news (and subsequently political communication.)

Flashback. 1996 (Or 2000. Mainstream media took a while to get it.) The Internet revolutionizes political communication.

That’s only one side of this story really. So YouTube is, at its best, what? Another media outlet on the Internet channel? At its worst, (or its best, depending on your perspective) its like a big community bulletin board. That’s Big like international big.

In the U.S. we’ve had that before. Big community bulletin board, WITH regulation and contracts to back it up, where anyone could show video they produced. It was called “public access television”.

Internet video could be the answer (a revival?) to community communication empowerment. GoogTube, AOLVideo, Brightcove are all most excellent. They are a great location for a soapbox, a really tall soapbox, for people to shout their views. Or they could be the next public access television.

As of August 2006 YouTube had over 16 million videos posted. So now we have a kazillion channels to watch. Admittedly with metadata so you can “find” what you want to watch. But what are people watching? And what’s the point?

Maybe I’m being too serious about this. But if I’m going to communicate something shouldn’t I know who, why and what? And if I DO know the three Ws do I really want to be buried in millions and millions of choices? If something is worth saying to someone for some reason don’t you want to be sure the other person gets the message?

And so now we have a new “Broadcast”. Or a new “Narrowcast”. Whatever.