Media and new technology have been co-existing in a ' uncomfortable ' relationship for the past 5 years. A sort of arranged marriage if you like which offered promise and excitement through the prospect, but never really delivered on these wedding vows. The main issue all along has been consumer acceptance , the technology has , so far not actually delivered what consumers actually wanted.
This year see's the marriage start to blossom with promise , Sky+ continues its growth , mobile finally has a working delivery for TV through handsets and BT/ NTL and Sky's push into broadband gives us hope that on-demand may start making inroads and become the ' de-facto ' delivery for programming.
Programme schedules will be flipped on their side as consumers finally let their viewing habits be merged with profiles to lasso all the diverged delivery methods into one personalised channel. In terms of fragmentation , with audience sessions for MSN and Google in the 70 million for the UK in one week ( compared to the Sun newspaper equating to 50 ) with the prospect of the traditional radio and broadcast traffic being squirted to users through these various pipes , I say convergence is starting to ring the church bells.
