Charles Shiflett Column October 30, 2005

You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!

If you think the world has changed a lot during your lifetime, then just hang around for a while. For
those of you around my age (45) and up, you'll fondly remember the good old days when we had a
grand total of four television channels. If you didn't get it from ABC, CBS, NBC, or PBS… then you just
didn't get it.

On the positive side, with very little programming variety it was easy to carry on a conversation with
friends and family about the television shows of the time. Mention an actor's name and almost
everyone would immediately know who you were referring to.

The same was true for radio in the 1960's… talk radio was almost unheard of and FM was still yet to
embraced by the mainstream. Many AM stations tried to please everyone by offering local news along
with a mix of music styles.

Our local station in Cedartown might jump from Conway Twitty to the Jackson 5, then to the Beatles
and back to Dolly Parton during one set. It was hard to listen to, which is one reason I became an avid
music collector.

In most towns, a fairly significant percentage of the population would subscribe to the local paper. The
mainstream media was tightly controlled and there was very little difference in the message regardless
of the source.

As we moved through the 60's UHF television stations started to pop up and began to feed us a daily
dose of reruns and old movies. Suddenly cable television began to rapidly spread across the nation
and satellite technology allowed UHF stations like channel 17 in Atlanta to go national. Some of you
may remember the old Now Explosion music shows on 17 that were a precursor to MTV.

The burgeoning rock music industry was a natural fit for FM radio and soon Z93, 94Q, and 96 Rock
burst upon the metro Atlanta airwaves.

Major advertising executives were perplexed. With all these new media outlets fighting for advertising
dollars, they calculated that there was no way the nation's advertisers could keep them all afloat.
Were they wrong!

Fast-forward to today… cable and satellite providers offer hundreds of television channels. Radio has
grown and evolved into numerous market segments. Satellite radio is quickly spreading, offering even
more choices.

The Internet has given newspapers and magazines a run for their money as circulation numbers
continue to drop for many major publications. Cell phones have opened up our horizons to numerous
new emerging technologies.

It's a long way from the 1960's when local telephone calling zones were small, and if you called
anywhere else it required a family meeting to determine if the call could be afforded.

And what about the advertising industry now? It's bigger and better than ever, and surprisingly there
are enough ad dollars to prop up all these media choices we have. Though it has made it tougher on
small businesses, as it requires deep pockets to cover all the possible marketing options in hopes of
reaching today's highly segmented population.

So where are we headed? More quickly than most of us realize we are heading toward a convergence
of technologies and media outlets.

Your cell phone will soon become a merger of a wireless Internet capable computer, an IPod, and a
satellite radio. It might be able to pick up satellite TV broadcasts along with recording those television
and radio signals much like a Tivo unit.

Maybe we'll stop calling it a cell phone and call it a life unit because it could contain your life in its
memory. Have an accident and the ER technicians will pull up your medical history in a flash. All of
your banking, financial, and insurance information would be there too… all protected by a fingerprint
activated security firewall. It's a little scary.

As technology marches on, existing media outlets will have to change or they will be left behind. The
Internet until now has been a novelty to many newspapers and magazines, though that is rapidly
changing. Instead of offering teasers on their web sites of stories available in the print edition, some
papers are moving toward an online paid subscription format giving full access.

AM and FM radio is in the process of adapting to new digital transmission technology that will allow a
single station to broadcast multiple streams on one frequency. In the near future 96 Rock might offer
several rock formats simultaneously on its side channels with an interference-free digital signal.

The interesting sub-story to all of these exciting technical changes is the quickening Balkanization of
society. It's getting harder to carry on that conversation at work because we're all watching or listening
to different things.

Our children are quickly replacing the old societal interaction norms. Instead of being focused around
their local communities, they are building their social circles nationally and internationally around
those with whom they share interests.

Totalitarian regimes, like that in communist China, are fighting a losing battle trying to control the flow
of information available to their citizens.

Yes, times are changing at warp speed and you ain't seen nothin' yet! And you can post that on your
Blog.