BBC NEWS | Technology | Digital media ‘empowering users’

By Peter Feuilherade
BBC Monitoring

A different mantra is replacing ‘content is king’ as the new slogan of the media industry, delegates at a London conference on new media have been told.

As more media become increasingly available in digital formats, and traditional models of media packaging and distribution start to unravel, ‘the customer is king’ is fast becoming the industry’s new catchphrase.

During a session at the Financial Times Digital Media Conference on what media consumption in the UK might look like in 2012, several speakers predicted a big rise in the sharing of information among online communities with common interests.

Consumers are exercising more control, said Microsoft’s Neil Holloway, Already in the US, 70% of personal video recorder users are skipping adverts, he noted.