ITV to shed jobs – Internet to blame?

Walking down the corridor the other day, we had a conversation with the owner of a business that shares the same office complex as us. We asked them how they were doing with getting their website up and running.

“It’s not how we get business, it wouldn’t work for us” was the reply. Ever heard that before?

Indeed we hear it all the time and I’m not talking about the last few months, no, this sort of talk has been about for years.

I have a problem with predictions and the that problem is, they are nearly always very, very wrong. The predictions about the Internet have been amazingly wrong and for a long time. It’s similar with predictions about business; for example the current ‘credit crunch’ which so far absolutely nobody has managed to predict correctly.

So, back to the Internet then.

Back in 2000, Forbes said that although advertising on the Internet was growing at a massive rate, it wasn’t a threat to traditional media (http://www.forbes.com/2000/03/31/mu5.html). In fact, they say the following:

Even then, the rest of the media may continue to thrive without much of a threat from online advertising, industry analysts predict.

And so, less than ten years later, ITV is laying off 600 staff because the Internet is screwing their business model. Not only that, they’re getting rid of Friends Reunited, an Internet business that made its owners a pretty sum.

If you think the Internet isn’t for you, you’re wrong. Some see it as a big, brave new world of technology which doesn’t attract their kind of customer, they’re wrong too.

The Internet is just another outlet, just another type of marketing and just another way of selling stuff so there’s nothing to fear from being part of it and everything to fear from not. If you believe that your business can survive the next ten years without being a part of it, you’re a braver man than me.’