I get to be as self-indulgent as I want without wasting anyone's time. Guilt-free solipsism -- excellent!

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Anyone else watch the MTV Video Music Awards? 3 precious hours of my life sucked into a furiously whirling vortex of crap -- and what's worse, not even entertaining crap. It'll be months before I can watch mindless entertainment drivel again. Put me off my food, it did.

Anyway, I was overwhelmed even more than I usually am by the degree of product placement, cross-promotion, SIN-ER-GEE on display. Viacom (MTV, CBS) have always been egregious about this, but the new champion is AOL Time Warner. Proof: the usually reprehensible Matt Drudge has done society a favor by uncovering the fact that the AOL startup page features AOL Time Warner stars 78% of the time.

It's all about synergy, folks. You will consume the content that they own. You will consume the content they own. If you choose not to, all that corporate consolidation, all those oligopolies so patiently and stealthily assembled, all those focus groups, payoffs to radio programmers...all will be for naught.

They're investing more money on fewer "properties", leveraged across more media outlets. Madonna's CD on Warner Brothers, reviewed in Entertainment Weekly and Time, her personal life front page of People magazine, her concert simulcast on HBO with a pre-show chat session on AOL, starring in films released by Warner Brothers, which you find out about via Netscape Mail or a piece on CNN, and you can buy your tickets from AOL Moviefone. And believe me, I left some out that I guarantee you have already ocurred to AOLTW brass.

Their investment in the Madonna property can be amortized and exploited across multiple business units. So much more efficient for AOL. But our artistic and cultural diets suffer enormously.

Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times


| posted by Alex at 5:13 PM