Daily Techno-Babble

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If recent comments by Virgin Media CEO as reported by several online media news sites are to be believed then it is disturbingly clear that Virgin’s CEO of Media is a complete idiot. Yup you read that right, an idiot. Clearly he he has no idea what he is talking about with the statement that Virgin (in the UK) would begin to punish public broadcasters (like the BBC) that don’t pay for access to faster bandwidth (required to support online streaming content) by relegating them to what he describes as internet “bus lanes”. Seriously, I honestly cannot believe someone could get to be this high up in a major media company in the year 2008 and make these kind of statements. Idiots like this are why internet users to pay attention to the whole net neutrality issue…or end up losing access to quality services simply because the local cable ISPs don’t like the competition.

Of course idiotic statements are nothing new coming from the mouths of CEOs. But it never ceases to surprise me how fast these supposed “ivy league” educated individuals can insert their foot into their mouths over simplistic issues such as this. What Neil Berkett fails to understand is that no matter what he (or any other media CEO/Group) does the only reaction will be the creation of an alternative market which will satisfy the demands of the end user. Like all new technology, streaming media is finally hitting that point where it has gone from cutting edge (aka rarely used) to the acceptable mainstream. This change is causing old-school media companies that depend on revenue from traditional broadcast systems (aka Cable TV) considerable panic. And it will only get worse. As more and more users begin to try online broadcast services (iTunes, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, etc) cable providers are going to only become more and more aggressive with their efforts to stop, or at least delay the progress of this technology. The funny part of all this is that no matter how hard they try the effort will be a total waste. One only has to look as far as the digital revolution in music to predict how this will all end up. So maybe Virgin’s Neil Berkett needs to take the time honored advice “lead, follow, or just get out of the way”.