Is The Live Media Event Dying?

Steve Rubel wonders if the live media event is dying because we don't have the same need to see events live anymore.

Thanks to advances in digital technology we don't have the same need to see events live the way we once did. We're too busy. And we have lots of tools to time and place shift these events. We have DVRs, Slingboxes, podcasts and RSS. Sure, there are exceptions. Millions watched when Taylor Hicks was crowned American Idol. We still gather to watch the World Cup or the Super Bowl live. But these are communal experiences. They're more rare these days.

I think he might be correct on the prospect of live media or entertainment consumption dwindling away in favor of the convenience of place and time shifting that is now becoming more and more available. I think he is incorrect in where he places the "need" in the diagnosis.

How we consume media or entertainment has shifted many times through the ages. I don't think those shifts occured because our needs changed. I think they have shifted because technology keeps advancing, providing new options that allow a shift in preferences not a change in needs. Yes, adding new options to the viewing spectrum often replaces an older method as business models fail in the inevitable cycle. Of course if you really want to get down to it, humans have very few needs and they are all primal (food, drink, shelter, etc...) Most of what we refer to as a need is often really a desire. Confusing the two allows us to avoid responsibilites for our choices.

People don't stop attending live events because their needs change. The stop because their desires change when new options become available. A shift in desire requires a choice. Needs don't shift and remain constant. If we have a need in this equation it is a need to be stimulated (choose your poision-sports, music, dramatic arts, etc...) beyond ways we can stimulate ourselves.

Technology's advances seem to have an interesting symmetry with how the pace and structure of our lives keeps quickening and morphing. If you really examine the issue, it is a bit difficult to determine which is the chicken and which is the egg, and that really isn't the point. While it may not be the numbers some would like, there will always be some who choose to share entertainment communally. And increasingly there will always be those who choose to consume it away from the communal context.