THUNDER BAY – Canadians are one of the world’s biggest consumers of Internet. It is therefore likely that in Canada the latest news from the United States on how digital media has continued to grow at the expense of traditional media will not come as a surprise.
Media Daily News is reporting, “Father Time wasn’t kind to traditional media in 2010, judging by the latest data from eMarketer: The average amount of time spent with magazines, newspapers and radio dipped compared to 2009.
“While magazines and newspapers took the biggest hits, even small declines are ominous for radio, as they continue a trend already in evidence in previous years. These losses are especially noteworthy in light of the overall increase in media consumption, including the Internet.
“Senior analyst Lisa Phillips summed up the changes: ‘Mobile devices will claim more and more media time per day, while TV, print and radio will slowly lose ground to digital media. Those trends have been most apparent with print media in recent years, but are now beginning to show up in TV and radio usage as well’.”
If you watch teens closely for what they are doing in terms of their choices for media, their musical choices are increasingly being made on their MP3 players. Their time is dedicated to their Youtube, Facebook and other online options.
It is likely that the move by Netflix to online video streaming movies for $8.00 per month is going to have many Canadian households choosing to watch commercial free movies or the entire season of a television show off of the service.
Canadian Zip.ca which promised a similar service in 2009 but has yet to deliver is likely to struggle until they too have the online viewing set up.
Teenagers and young adults are setting the trend for their media decisions, choices which will last a lifetime. Those decisions will direct their choices and the direction for most media for decades to come.
The keys are going to be, faster, more fun, more interactive, and likely for political choices more like The Comedy Network’s Daily Show, or The Colbert Report. Edgy, funny and fast-paced seems to be a direction for many.
The issue of online privacy has been in the news in Canada. The Privacy Commissioner has taken Facebook to task over concerns about privacy.
Perhaps what the government is lagging behind on are that the kids don’t really care. They share details with their friends that only a generation ago would never have been thought of as the thing to do.
It is an area where likely the federal government is once again lagging behind the people and will likely be in a position where it will end up appearing as “Daddy Government” to a growing generation of youth who increasingly see politics and politicians as irrelevant in their lives.
They say history always repeats itself. Perhaps what is coming is another replay of the 1960s? With youth rebelling against the “system” and the “man”.
Groovy?!
James Murray