Note to media, showbiz: The status quo is history: Most media companies continue to be encumbered by the legacy processes, infrastructures and rituals that hold them together but must be literally torn apart and reinvented if they are to thrive in an interactive digital universe that remains virtually unregulated. They're having to rethink strategies that seemed like good ideas five years ago now that digital cell phones and portable video game consoles are emerging as powerful "third" screens for information, entertainment and communications in a Wi-Max, 3G world.
As they continue to dismantle the unwieldy portfolios they assembled during the wild dealmaking of the 1990s, media and entertainment concerns are torn between investing their swollen cash balances on select assets or stock buybacks to boost stock prices that have lagged 3% on overall 5% blended growth and improved return on invested capital last year.
At the same time, the next generation of media leaders must be more driven by vision and enterprise than by the empire-building instincts of their famed predecessors.
The truth is, digital conversion no longer is a blue-sky stretch; it is a mandate. [Será?]
