Oh My News

The news that citizen journalism site Ohmynews.com's reporters will rub shoulders with pros in the International Herald Tribune is the news some of us have been waiting for. I returned to journalism only three years ago after a decade out. I'd like to have been back earlier but the barriers even to re-entry are high: cliques, outdated ideas and smugness, attitudes that are now having to change.

Ohmynews analysis of citizen journalism's growing success is that it allows newspaper websites to compete with broadcast rolling news and to fill the gap left by afternoon and evening papers. Citizen journalists can file any time of the day and as long as there's a rewrite desk, the sites keep bang up to date at little additional cost.

Twenty two years ago I worked on a TV programme that handed editorial control over to citizen editors. The Friday Alternative went out on Channel 4 but commissioning editor of the day Liz Forgan axed it after only one year. In the interim little has been done to extend the media franchise to the public. TFA was a brave attempt and many weeks a bad programme but we were all learning. Channel 4 axed it and went on to win a reputation for stylish innovation. Some of the TFA staff went on to become bastions of TV and to preside over its demise. Could these events be connected?

Doing the Small Deals

The future media landscape will be populated by smaller deals. I say this having talked yesterday with Jim Deans who runs GDBTV. Most Telcos gearing up for IPTV, Jim points out, have gone for the big blockbuster packages to tempt in consumers. But there's practically no differentiator in blockbusters. Cable companies use them, broadcasters use them, and now Telcos.

There may be more user-interaction with a Telco IP television offer but content-wise there's not enough focus on local.

GDBTV expects to launch 300 local channels across the UK between now and year's end (there's even two for Brighton). That's at around £20,000 for the year (set up and bandwidth). Jim is competition for the Telcos. A GDB set top box allows niche content to be delivered through the unmanaged Internet to people's TV sets.

Telcos are going to have to go for these sites and for the niche subject programmers but they're not going to be offering a lot back in terms of audience exposure. That's why a lot of small deals need doing.

I can relate to that. I'm currently out persuading media majors to outsource their content production. I'm a small outfit. Doors are opening. Small deals are in.