The Internet takes over

Habib Kairouz of GigaOM explains what the Internet has done to many industries.

The first wave of commercialization on the Internet had a tremendous impact on our lives and has disrupted most — if not all — industry value chains. The print industry was in the eye of the storm, with decline in readers and advertising budgets forcing many major magazines and newspapers to shut down, while the survivors continue to scramble to deal with the disruption.

And then, its major affect on television.

A 2010 Forrester study showed that for the first time, Americans now spend as much time on the Internet as they do in front of the TV. Is it inevitable that like print media, consumers will turn to the Internet for their TV and video content and eventually drain the profits from TV’s ad-driven business model? According to Pew’s annual State of the Media report, local TV news is still the No. 1 news source for the majority of people, and it still leads in revenues. The Web came in second. While safe for now, the TV industry is on high alert, dragging its feet, but substantially better prepared to protect its turf than its print brethren were.