Murdoch vs. Galileo

And that’s the way it is….. 

On August 25, 1609, four hundred years ago, Galileo Galilei demonstrated his telescope to Venetian lawmakers.  A few months later he would publish Siderius Nuncias, his support for the Copernican heliocentric theory – that the earth was not, in fact, the center of the universe.

This may have been reality, but it was so disturbing to The Vatican that they placed Galileo on trial for heresy.  

After a long and protracted trial, Galileo was indeed found guilty of heresy and sentenced to prison. He was forced to publicly recant his earlier writings, and did so, stating that indeed the earth stood rock solid at the center of the universe.  To which he added the words, ‘but still it moves’.

The Pope, Urban VIII simply could not accept the truth that lay before him.

What does all this have to do with the web?

Or CBS?

Or NBC?

Or The New York Times?

Since Gutenberg first laid paper to inked typeface, the world of media has been what we might call ‘mediacentric’. That is, the universe (to some extent) revolved about The New York Times or CBS.  They created and produced the content – the rest of us spun around them, hanging on their every word   or TV show.  And advertisers paid them for the privilege of living in their universe.

Now, a shattering change is upon the Vaticans of Viacom, NBC and The Times.

The world of the web, it turns out, is not mediacentric.

NBC is no longer at the center of the universe.

In fact, nothing is.

The world of the web has no center.

It is everywhere and everything and everyone.  As Clay Shirky wrote, Here Comes Everybody.

In a world in which anyone can get online and publish, there is really no longer a need for a New York Times.  

In a world in which anyone can get their hands on a HD camera and FCP editing software and then upload their video to the web, there is no longer a need for an NBC.

If Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd and a few others got together and put their work online, I would gladly pay for it.  But why should Rich and Dowd and others  support that $850 million building on 8th Avenue and the massive amounts that the Sulzberger family suck out of the business. For what?  How much does it cost for Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich to actually write the content that is the heart of the NY Times?  And how much do they get compensated for their work.  The Times needs Rich and Dowd. Rich and Dowd don’t need the times. The center is gone.

If the folks who make The Office produced the show and put it online at TheOffice.com, I would pay to see it and so would millions of others. See it any time I wanted .  A subscription to The Office.com plus their advertising would generate more income than NBC pays them – and why should they support (which they do) that building at 30 Rock and the endless levels of bureaucrats and overpaid executives who contribute nothing to the content.  The center does not hold. The center does not even exist.  NBC feeds off The Office. NBC needs The Office. The Office does not need NBC, or should even want it.

When Galileo announced that indeed the earth was not the center of the world, Pope Urban VIII was so annoyed that he hauled Galileo to Rome and put him on trial for heresy.  Last week, Rupert Murdoch, as close as we will ever get to a Pope, went to Beijing and announced that he was annoyed with the Internet and declared war on it and all the people who were refusing to live by the old rules, which placed NewsCorp at the center of the universe.

But Newscorp is no longer the center of the Universe. If it were, then taking Myspace into that hallowed space would have guaranteed its success. But it doesn’t.  There is no longer a center.  The center is everywhere and nowhere.

The idea of an earth spinning out in space around the sun was no doubt difficult for Urban to even understand, but it didn’t matter. It did not matter whether the Pope understood or approved or didn’t approve.

In the end it will not matter one whit what Rupert Murdoch or Les Moonves think or want.  

The world of the web moves on with them or without them.