ABC TV news is free. It always has been, it always will be. Same thing goes for ABC Radio. But news programs on the ABC don’t rate very well. They don’t rate very well because:

• The ABC hasn’t got enough money to pay for the hottest weather girls (no offence Jenny Woodward, I love you)
• ABC news programs don’t undertake large-scale branding campaigns and if they try, they are dwarfed by the commercial networks
• The programs they put on before the news programs don’t rate very well
• Commercial news tends to be more ‘tabloid’ and appeals to a broader audience

This makes sense. It’s rational. People don’t doubt the quality of the journalism on the ABC, or the talent of the reporters, they just prefer other news because it’s more exciting. And if they’re in front of the idiot box at 6pm they’ll just flick to whatever channel they usually watch. Which is why Channel 7 and Channel 9 news on Sunday nights are consistently some of the highest rating programs in Australia.

Which is cool, except that more and more people are getting their news online these days. At the moment online news channels fall into pretty much the same sort of categories as TV news. You’ve got the ABC, and you’ve got the commercial networks. Except that online, the newspapers and the broadcasters and the ABC all compete for eyeballs. Which kind of flies in the face of media-ownership laws, but no-one seems to care because it’s the Internet.

I’d argue that because it’s the Internet there are an infinite number of potential news channels. Actually, that’s a lie, there are 6 billion potential news channels. Presuming animals can’t write news stories. Although bears can play ice hockey, so who knows, maybe there will be a bear news channel soon. Either way, it won’t be long before citizen journalism actually really properly happens in a meaningful way. Follow the Twitter feed of any major news story and you’ll get information more up-to-date than any major news source because chances are, you’ll be reading eyewitness accounts straight from the plane crash/riot/party room, whatever.

Murdoch’s idea that people will pay to get online news from News Corporation is completely misguided. It’s a simple case of supply and demand. Demand for news is high. Very high. But supply is infinite. People might read News Corp websites at the moment, but if news.com.au has a subscription cost and smh.com.au doesn’t, people will flock in droves to the free choice. It’s not a matter of choosing a ‘tabloid’ over a broadsheet either. Online newspapers are virtually all pieces of populist proletariat shite. As soon as one publication charges money, people will flock to the one that doesn’t. And there will always be an entrepreneur or a government department somewhere along the line with a free news website. (Or a free celebrity gossip website, or a free sports website, or a free travel website; you get my drift).

Journalists argue that unless publishers make money, they won’t get paid and the quality of journalism will suffer. That’s a bit like the warning at the start of the DVD which says that if you watch a pirated DVD you’re hurting the future of the film industry. It’s like a record company saying that pirating music hurts artists. It’s a load of bollocks. News, and opinion, like art, is in the hands of the creators. Before there were big movie studios and big record labels everyone flocked to the town square to be entertained by a talented groups of poorly paid artists. The town square is now online, we’ve actually come full circle. News is the same. I can now get my news straight from someone who was there and my opinions from whoever has a blog at hand. Credibility of the sources is quickly decided by the public. I don’t need Bill O’Reilly, Laurie Oakes or Richard Wilkins to enlighten me, I have Mike Wilson, Alizera Sedaghat and Perez Hilton.

You could argue that. like movie studios, Government news channels and commercial networks still have a place producing ‘blockbuster’ journalism. You could argue that without professional reporters there would never be another Watergate, and you’d be right. But the revenue to pay those reporters isn’t going to come from individuals. Individuals as a group just don’t care enough. It needs to come from taxes. But to avoid the government having a monopoly on the news (which would be cool if you could trust your government, but populations inherently don’t) there needs to be publishers from the free market.

Free-market publishers can make their money any (legal/ethical) way they choose. Donations and subscriptions from happy customers and subsidies work OK, but they’re not ideal. The best way we’ve figured out so far is advertising. It’s a pretty sweet deal to be honest. People are, in general, pretty happy to sit through some ads if they know they get a good content pay-off. Hell, if the content is that good people will happily head to JB HI-Fi to buy the whole DVD series. The problem is, news just ain’t that entertaining. No one is going to want to pay for it, unless it has a direct bearing on their wallet, as is the case with The Wall Street Journal.

The Punch, News Corp’s blog, did a pretty good job with their Liberal Party coverage today, but they were still beaten to the punch by the Twittersphere. I found out Turnbull hadn’t lost the leadership from @warlach, not David Penberthy. Unless News Corp has a monopoly on news, something they’ve always wanted, something they’ll never ever get, no one is going to part with cash to get it online. And as long as we have other free Internet distractions, and I’m fairly certain we will Rupert, you’re stuck with an advertising model. Learn to love it.

Last night my friend, let’s call her @trudy_adams, was headed to a comedy gig in Brisbane. Being a young early-adopting Twitter user she did of course tweet her intentions and happened to mention the name of the performer. Within a few minutes a bar next door to the comedy venue had started following her and given her a special offer if she popped in for a drink before the show. She was chuffed because they’d taken the time to give her something of value. They won themselves an extra customer for the evening.

Cost to both parties: nil.

This was not a major corporate chain with a team of social media strategists working behind the scenes to squeeze dollars out of sentiment, this was just a small business owner overhearing a conversation by a potential customer and engaging.

It had never occured to me that starting a social media marketing agency was a dumb idea. I’m reasonably cluey, not too bad at making business decisions, and have done OK for myself over the last decade since I stopped working for The Man, but it didn’t occur to me a firm which focussed solely on helping companies create meaningful, profitable relationships with their customers via social media was doomed.

You can be a gatekeeper to a new technology for a while, but you’ll quickly end up being a troll trying to eek out a living guarding a bridge to nowhere, oblivious to the fact that a new bypass has opened up just down the river.

Social media is just another bunch of communication channels which work the same way as talkback radio and letters to the editor do. The only difference is that everyone gets to be Rupert Murdoch and the old people aren’t invited. It’s not rocket science, it’s just the way people communicate now. If you’re interested in it and you’re adept at expressing other people’s opinions in 140 characters or less, you’re looking through a small window of opportunity here to pimp yourself out as a social media consultant. You’ve got about 8 months left to hold seminars and help newbies guide the way, but by 2010 all the road maps will have been re-written and marketing managers, PR firms and advertising agencies will be bypassing your little bridge in the woods as they travel down the newsest section of the information superhighway, on which Twitter will have been relegated to the slow lane and Facebook will be a distant speck in the rearview mirror.

Make hay while the sun shines of course, just don’t try and build your house from the crop. Remember what happened to the little piggy.