A couple of years ago I ran into a former sportscaster on Global TV who, along with his partner, pioneered the modern look and feel of a half hour, late night wrap up show in Canada. It was a mix of fast paced highlights, humour and general good fun. The production quality was excellent.
I asked him why Global had given up on the once hugely popular show. He shrugged his shoulders and good naturedly said: “Well, you know, there is TSN and Sportsnet and that’s all they do. We just couldn’t compete.”
Of course, he was right and it is the nature of things. When humans focus on ONE thing they tend to get very good at that ONE thing. I tell my students if you want to run a successful business, you must focus on your core competencies—everything else must be out-sourced.
Great athletes or great scholars are often not the easiest people to talk to—they have terrific focus but perhaps not the best social skills.
I was watching the recent election of President-elect Obama (mostly on CNN) and I realized that maybe the time has come for ABC, CBS and NBS to give up their nightly news programs! The sets, the colours, the props, the on-site reporters, the in-studio commentators, the SMART boards were so much better on CNN, I couldn’t believe it. When I flipped the channel to watch some coverage on other networks, it was like stepping back in time about 15 years—they were dull and ordinary in every way in comparison with what CNN was doing.
Then CNN demonstrated the use of stereo space by beaming in one of their on-site reporters and, later that evening, they holographed Will.I.Am (he created the video in support of Barack Obama: YES WE CAN) into the studio. You can see it on You Tube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deoOTqT-SMI.
(You can also see CNN’s first use of the technology when they beamed in Jessica Yellin. It’s posted at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2un9AxQCQU&feature=related).
Stereo space is an extremely important extension for the Internet—if you read Neal Stephenson’s SNOW CRASH (written by the way in 1989 and 1990), you will understand the import of this technology. One day, you will meet a colleague in Tokyo when you are in Toronto in the metaverse using a form of this technology.
But apart from the fact that this is pretty cool tech, what it really says is that NBC et al have no shot long term to keep up with the focus on news coming from CNN and other specialty channels.
If I was giving any advice to these networks and assuming that they absolutely had to have a nightly newscast, I might want to make a deal now to repackage CNN for a half hour show on my network rather than try to compete with them. Or they can just focus on what they do best anyway—entertainment and drop their newscasts!
When we re-established the Ottawa Senators in 1990, we wanted to focus on our core competencies—everything to do with player development and everything to do with season ticket holders and sponsors. Everything else—media broadcasts, food and beverage, security, cleaning, arena management, etc. was outsourced. As I have said elsewhere on this blog, it is probably even more relevant today than it was in 1990.
Dr. Bruce