Old Media doesn’t understand New Media. This trite statement has been floating around the web ever since it stopped being used exclusively in university laboratories and went mainstream. I’ve been along for the ride the entire time, although from my first session on Prodigy until now, I’ve never had an Old Media encounter of my own to talk about. Now I do.
I started kingoftv.net one year ago so I could exercise a few creative muscles and put all my hours in front of the television to better use. Somewhere along the way, I decided to treat this more like a job than a hobby, and I believe that has directly resulted in the steady traffic increase I have seen since the beginning of 2009.
As part of my effort to be more professional with the site, I have endeavored to seek out many resources to both verify the facts I post, and ensure that I’m using authorized media in conjunction with my content. That means going directly to the networks in many cases to get images that are approved for use by the media. Each network has their own method for sharing their media, but it generally involves some kind of sign-up process where I share information about this site and myself. I haven’t signed up everywhere yet, but I can tell you that FOX and ABC make it pretty easy to get in. At first glance, I thought NBC Universal would be very similar, especially since their process was almost identical to the others.
The difference came yesterday when I received the following message.
“We were unable to process your application for NBC Universal Media Village.
The one positive thing I can say is that this response did arrive within the promised 24 hour time frame. Otherwise, this form response shows me exactly why NBC has found itself playing catch-up. It’s time for NBC Universal to wake up and smell the bits and bytes that are driving the conversation. We live in the age of Facebook and Twitter, where viewers no longer wait for print media to tell them what to watch. A quick search for #community on Twitter shows just how many people have already shared their thoughts about a show that just premiered two days ago. Admittedly, I am much more like a columnist than a reporter, but sharing my opinion doesn’t mean what I do here isn’t journalism.
I believe embracing the kind of attention the web brings and helping it flourish would be a winning strategy, but NBCU doesn’t seem interested. Or more likely, they just don’t get it. That’s the kind of mindset that will lead them to a third straight year at the bottom of the ratings.