Old Thinking for New Media…and New Thinking for Old Media

When we put new formats together, a lot of it was actually about “old” thinking. The technology was strikingly new—but the programming was in some cases…old. In this case, much of it was about bringing back the joys of radio which had pretty much vanished, at least on the music side. I think this is critical in today’s break neck speed of life. Instilling OLD thinking in new Media and NEW thinking in OLD media for the best of all worlds is something that escapes many. If you think about it—what the old media needs is stunning new ideas that connect, whereas new media often needs the old “passionate” thinking to balance out the often soul less and cold pure technology inherent to much of new media. I see that in music too. Some of the greatest and most timeless recordings ever, were made on 1, 2 and 4 track tape. Banging it out the hard way. A few of today’s artist could benefit from whatever “it” was that made this music so powerful and lasting. I talked to one band that made spectacular records back then. On 8 tracks. Recently they utilized futuristic technology, recording parts from different parts of the world and joining them together via sound files and technology. I kinda think that they need to inject some “old” thinking into the equation, because the result was a high tech, modern….disaster. 

Not all old thinking is good…much is, old and deserves to stay that way. BUT—there are some concepts and angles that are perceives as old, but in fact are TIMELESS, but simply categorized as old and invalid because they haven’t been utilized much in recent times and have been thrown out with the notion that ALL old ideas are obsolete in today’s era. As exciting and powerful as NEW ideas are…there are often opportunities to inject old thinking into new concepts. Take XM’s 60’s channel. That was PURE 1965 thinking, but performed on a modern platform. We COULD have done 60’s in the modern style and it would be pretty charmless. But that’s only one example of uniting the ‘character’ of many old ideas with the modern vision of today.

Media is timeless—you can cherry pick from all eras. Some things WERE better before…And at the same time, there is a fountain of new ideas that will excite and stimulate that are yet to be discovered. I really think New Media needs some old thinking to put soulfulness and magic into their mix, while Old media needs spectacular denial free new ideas to cut through the ever growing clutter. Denial is the key word. The Old Media guys tend to be so engrained in the way it’s always worked…new media guys often reject some of the old values that may be unfashionable in the board room, but enlighten and satisfy consumers. Hotels are like that. Some modern hotels lack character. Some old hotels, are…old and ratty. But the old hotel with all the modern conveniences and charm…or the new hotel that has old character and vibe—that’s the magic combination. Old Media integrating new ideas…or new media integrating (the good) old ideas—That’s the plan.

Old thinking into New Media…and New thinking into old media.