Talking to a group of British TV executives at theRoyal Television Society’s Cambridge Convention, News Corp. President Peter Chernin told them they must embrace new media or risk perishing.
Chernin emphasized the major change where big media companies used to call all the shots, to now, where anybody can be empowered to develop content.
He commented, “To dismiss user-generated content as crap and blogs as unauthoritative is not only unproductive, but a waste of time.”
Concerning workers at their companies, Chernin said it was wrong to think of anybody in a company as simply a "support" person, and others as creatives. He said everybody in a company should be treated as a creative.
One major point Chernin added as far as content goes, was what he called "the bland, safe, central, middle," content, was never going to return - it's gone and "never coming back."
The new, yet old words connected to the new realities are innovation, creativity, risk, and trying new things.
He said traditional media companies still have strong brands, and if they leverage them rightly and in new ways, they can retain and grow their existing businesses exponentially.
Those trying to maintain the status quo will have difficult years ahead of them
Now that he's said all of this publicly, I hope he and News Corp. actually live it. I applaud Chernin for recognizing the value of user-generated content. It will be interesting to see what kinds of viral campaigns the New Corp. family of companies creates over the course of the next year to leverage that content.
Posted by: Susan Gunelius | September 18, 2007 1:10 PM | Permalink to Comment