Working in Movement

When Newton Minnow called television the vast wasteland in 1961, it really wasn't so vast. There were three networks, a few independent stations and some educational channels in the U.S. But today there are literally hundreds of channels; probably there will be thousands pretty soon. That's vast, and now the wasteland thing probably wouldn't be a good metaphor for what's out there. Some distributors still seek the biggest, widest audience. But there are lots and lots of narrowly defined distributors out there with their own channels, and now there's even a move to put some programming exclusively in the on demand services. Looked at in one way, there can be lots of little wastelands. But from another perspective there may be programming addressing almost any subject, if not every need.

Disappearing channel scarcity talks a little about this and asks some good questions like "What happens, when Tivo has Java and TCP/IP and there's a million channels?" And it kind of addresses the wasteland thing:

The number of channels for just about anything keeps going up. The number of GOOD channels, where good means a built in high traffic audience that is non-discerning, keeps going down. The number of good newspaper PR outlets is down to a handful. The number of retailers with shelf space that really matters is tiny. Yes, you can get your thing out there. No, you can't expect that distribution (or carriage, as they say in TV) is going to make you successful.

Godin, the author of the post, doesn't define what he means by successful. He's a marketing guy, so I'm guessing that he means attracting the people you want to talk to or whatever you want to do with them. But he's right that carriage is no guarantee of success. Maybe it's just a bigger wasteland, but then again maybe you can find information or entertainment that you want or need.

Teal sunglasses extends the subject in a comment.

We're moving from a time of few channels not to a time of many channels, but to a time of NO channels. Look at the iPod instead of XM or Sirius as the model. You won't subscribe to a channel -- you'll subscribe (or buy) individual programs, and download them to your devices.

Already TIVO kind of provides this sort of thing, a way of finding the (highly subjective) gems among all the other stuff out there in the wasteland. When TIVO and like devices get things like Java and TCP/IP, thing will get really interesting.