Online Not An Automatic Solution

Traditional media outlets have to do more than just represent themselves online and need to fully engage with the possibilities available, according to the chairman of GCap Media and the IAB, Richard Eyre, panelist at yesterday’s MediaTel Question Time.

Eyre said that despite the obvious advantages of the internet, it is imperative that traditional media outlets take a pro-active approach to the platform.

“I don’t think that the internet is the automatic solution for a lot of traditional media. I think in a number of cases they think ‘that’s it’,” he said.

He added: “When you’re getting online, you are getting into this unbelievable land of facts and fantasy… the scale of the opportunity is so vast that anyone who puts something on a website has got to recognise that they are competing with all of that extraordinary creativity and wonderful content, and so, just representing yourself online isn’t it.”

Meanwhile, Mark Cranmer, CEO Of Research International, said that the internet will force a reappraisal of traditional media’s economic model.

“There’s a lot of irrelevance and there’s a lot of assumption in the current media framework, and the audience will not put up with it,” he said.

But I think that in 50 years time we’ll still have a thing called radio, we’ll still have a thing called magazines, we’ll still have newspapers, and we’ll still have commercial television, and I think they’ll be funded by people who have the options to pay-for them and I think they’ll be subsidised by commercial partners.”

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