Digital media 'the future'

Broadcasters and media owners are losing control of their audiences and risk failure if they don't adjust to the changing landscape, warned an industry expert this week.

Speaking at the Measuring Media in the Future conference organised by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising on Tuesday, Professor John Naughton said: "The ball game is over.

"We're moving from an economic system dominated by push media and moving to a completely different world which is a pull world - where consumers are empowered by digital technology and only get what they want."

Naughton was referring to the growing popularity of Personal Video.

Recorders, and predictions that in the next few years an increasing amount of media - including TV programmes - will be accessed and watched via the internet.

"This is a pull world, and if we want to thrive in it then we have to find a way of recognising that fundamental shift," he said.

He focused particularly on broadcasters and their reticence in adopting to the changing landscape.

"The dominance of the old TV model is ending and it's being replaced by something else," said Norton, who is chairman of RAB-eye and author of the book 'A Brief History of the Future'.

"Television is as interactive as a trouser press," he said, and questioned whether the senior executives in the television industry had the necessary insight and understanding of the growing digital technologies to make their companies adapt.

"The industry does have a lot of young people in positions of no power who do understand it," he countered.