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Web No Threat to TV....

Web no threat to TV, says UK expert

By Ben Fenton, Chief Media Correspondent

A leading UK media academic has warned broadcasters and national newspapers not to be fooled by “hype” about the internet.

Patrick Barwise, emeritus professor of management and marketing at the London Business School, defined as “Bollocks 2.0” claims about the threat to traditional media from innovations such as social networking and internet television.

“Television is not a market going into catastrophic decline,” Prof Barwise told an audience of broadcasters, regulators and analysts at LBS. Advertising was bad, but “it is not falling off a cliff”, he said.

This was in contrast to regional newspapers and classified advertising, where a genuine collapse was taking place, he added.

Television, however, was the medium for display advertising used for brand-building, which is “far more resilient”.

There was a danger of overreacting to the current state of the advertising market, which was “not a cause for headless chicken behaviour”, he said.

Prof Barwise criticised the “obsession” with the threat posed by the internet.

“People who should know better are talking about a digital revolution, about whether or not we will all be watching ‘linear television’ in five years’ time. They have signed up for what I call ‘Bollocks 2.0’.”

The term “Web 2.0” is commonly used to describe the second generation of internet applications that allow users to share information online.

Broadband was an inefficient way of distributing content, Prof Barwise said, while digital broadcasting on satellite, the airwaves or cable met the same needs at “much, much greater efficiency levels”.

Detailed research on the use of personal video recorders had reached surprising conclusions, he said. “There is next to no demand for on-demand. The argument is wildly out of proportion about how important this is for television.”

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008