Talkback: The medium's not so massive

Television remains the most powerful mass medium in the advertising arsenal but the constant redefinition of the word "mass" reminds us of the apocryphal frog, paddling merrily along, oblivious to the steadily-escalating water temperature.

Almost constantly, it seems, we encounter new situations which threaten to diminish television's ability to gather a mass audience in one place at one time. Sky's rumoured free-to-air offerings are sure to splinter available viewers. Coming soon are three current affairs shows at 7pm, delivering newsbites to a shrinking audience.

Scheduled for November, the personal digital recorder, a technological scourge that enhances our ability to record programmes but makes it criminally easy to fast-forward through ads. And lurking in the wings, TVNZ's free-to-air digital channels, fragments of audience served a la carte.

And those are only the self-inflicted perils concocted by the television industry. Across the gulf of cyberspace, minds superior to ours regard this medium with envious eyes and, slowly and surely, they draw their plans against us.

The internet, which has already changed everything, is about to do the same again, with the Napsterisation of television.

Can't wait for the fourth season of The Shield? It's already out there, along with the latest episodes of most popular TV shows airing anywhere in the world, available for download to anyone with BitTorrent and a broadband connection. It may be piracy now, but most programme producers see a new pot of gold at the end of this distribution channel.

Today's mass medium isn't your parents' mass medium. Heck, it ain't even yours. The top-rated programme in 2004 was the NZ Idol Grand Final, which saw 24 per cent of viewers over the age of five glued to the small screen. In comparison, the top-rated programme of a kinder, gentler 1992 (pre-Sky Digital) was the second Bledisloe Cup Rugby match, which drew 42.5 per cent of the New Zealand population.

Audience levels are eroding before our very eyes but the superheated advertising market means that broadcasters can raise rates with scant regard to such things as performance. In a post-NCEA environment, achievement is in the eye of the beholder.

And yet television advertising is a means to an end, not a product in itself. We've always regarded the medium as relatively affordable in New Zealand compared with other markets, where TV has become the province of big spenders such as telcos and financial services giants.

Is TV still affordable for you? Do we need to find some garlic butter to complement our gently-simmering amphibian or is there still a prince in there somewhere?

* Michael Carney is media strategist at independent media planning and buying organisation MediaCom and editor of their weekly Marketing Digest newsletter. For a free copy, email Michael Carney at the link below.