If Content Is Not King, Then What Happens To The Kingdom?

For a recent consulting project I bumped into the brilliant Andrew Odlyzko's article Content is Not King.

I can't help but want to send the link to a few people over there at CBS (and a few other media companies as well) as they once again attempt to apply the mass broadcast model of content creation and dissemination (with advertising of course) to the phenomen of Web 2.0.

Ok so we know, consumers have become producers. But I think in the minds of the media companies, they have taken that very literally giving consumers the role of traditional producers and production companies. Consumers are now their content creation team while not controlled, certainly edited and filtered and of course, brought to you by product x, y and z.

What they are missing however, is the point. It isn't about content. Well, certainly it's not just about content. It's about new forms of communication and ones that use not only text, but pictures, icons, photographs, video etc. It is a new language that's empowered by digital.

Will media companies ever see it this way? I doubt it because if content is not king, then what exactly happens to their kingdoms?

Sadly, I never got to ask Andrew as the only conversation i was able to have was apologizing for being sick and my project deadlines were such that I was unable to engage him again. But I still wonder what he would have said about it. But my bet is that doubt he wouldn't have thought that CBS are on the right track.