The USIM Gazette received very favorable responses from our corporate, client and vendor readership regarding the September 2008 issue of the e-zine. Most comments addressed the high quality of the writing, the carefully reasoned discussions and the variety of the media-related articles, so we take great pride in what we have done and hope that future issues will continue to provide readers with useful media-related news and views.
I would like to return the favor by extending my appreciation to the corporate Executive Review Team who read the articles and, where necessary, provided insightful suggestions. On average, they have over 35 years of experience in media management, advertising, public relations, marketing and consultancy, which has yielded a better product and facilitated my expertise in public relations, marketing, advertising and communications.
The media and subset industries such as communications, entertainment, advertising, multimedia, publication, broadcast, news and music are in flux. Part of the tumult is attributable to an elemental sea change as certain industries, namely newspaper publishing, enter their twilight. Economic conditions are squeezing profits of media such as advertising, and all players are scrambling to readjust to the capricious rules of the new game.
However, there is a bevy of other drivers roiling the media, most of which are still submerged in more visible social and economic megatrends. I call these other elements minitrends, which eventually will gain more buzz and traction.
The first emerging minitrend is increased media consumption. For example, The Nielsen Company recently reported that American households now watch more TV than ever before, and Nielsen has been tracking the metric for nearly 60 years. See the “snack” titled, Gazette SoundByte - TV Viewing At Record Levels in this edition of the USIM Gazette for more information.
Another budding dynamic is fragmentation, due to the rapid propagation of media outlets such as cable, news, radio, Internet and mobile. As a result, the media supply isn’t matching the media demand—there is a bigger pie but there are more mouths to feed.
The concept of new revenue models and convergence—another set of rising interrelated minitrends—are investigated in detail in Tomorrow’s Technology Now? Trends Shaping Tomorrow’s Media Technology Today – Part 2, in this edition of the USIM Gazette.
Another emerging factor is increasing Internet bandwidth. Technology is the primary connectivity enabler, as service providers add more infrastructure including routers, switches, fiber wiring, circuits, network hardware, software and specifications to magnify their data transmission capability for delivering Internet Protocol datagrams— dial-up, DSL, cable modem or dedicated high-speed interconnects. Increasing Internet bandwidth can allow users to eventually receive any form of online content—from music to standard video to high-definition video downloads—with no perceptible latency.
Continuously striving to produce quality service is one of the positives firmly under our control. U.S. International Media employs some of the most experienced media professionals in the business, good assets to have to help weather the stormy business climate ahead. We understand our clients’ needs and the media, because we always put clients first, our integrated media plans are founded on state-of-the-art research, and we cultivate vendor relationships that result in preferential pricing and innovative added-value programs.
The December 2008 edition of the USIM Gazette features articles that delve deeply into the forces changing media today and in the near future, including media convergence, the evolving TV network business model, media book reviews and methodologies we employ to ensure that our website is the best it can be. Rest assured that your USIM Gazette will continue to bring you the informative, well-written content you have come to expect. We appreciate your enthusiastic support. Continue to forward your articles and article ideas to us. For submission guidelines, see the article titled, "How To Submit Articles to The USIM Gazette," in the May 2008 inaugural issue.
Darrell Woody
Editor-Digital Communications