Soon everyone will be “always on”, mobile and hyper-connected, and everything will available all the time. How will content be created, distributed, marketed, consumed, and paid for? Who will do what, for whom, and how will the traditional players such as broadcasters, record labels, publishers and distributors adjust to the new landscape? If new players, starting with telecoms, device makers, advertisers and brands, indeed move into the content business, what will be their challenges and opportunities?

Given the challenging financial climate, how do we reconcile the need to reward enterprise and secure sustainable revenue streams, with the expectations and demands of the “freeconomics” generation? What kind of legal, regulatory and cultural framework do we need to ensure that this new eco-system of creators, consumers and intermediaries generates more benefits for all involved?

Speakers: Gerd Leonhard, media futurist, author and blogger; Richard Titus, Controller of Future Media, Audio, Music & Mobile, BBC; David A. Smith, chief executive of Global Futures and Foresight (GFF).

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Innovations in the marketplace require contractual clarity, for the fairness of all involved. But before the 1970’s, no one was thinking about their digital future. Who could have imagined new distribution pipelines, created by third parties who would parse out a digital song file and sell it at the click of a mouse.

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While founder Chad Hurley is still bullish on YouTube’s ad potential, he told us that this one, big online video answer everyone was looking for didn’t exist. Instead, YouTube would be rolling out a range of options starting in the next few months.

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Up until the Walkman’s innovation, people shared the experience of music. They bought records and played them for their friends. But once they had a portable player, with earphones firmly nestled in their ears, sharing music was no longer important. And by the time downloading was introduced, listening on your own was well established.

Let’s face facts. Americans want to be entertained. The average American family is watching American Idol, Hannah Montana, and buying Guitar Hero and Grand Theft Auto. The record business is being given a real run for its money. Those shiny music discs are just no competition for what is considered entertainment these days.

Many in the business are trying to solve this difficult problem. But to solve it, you need to understand what the problem really is.

From KCRW’s On The Beat, find out why the music business needs to adjust to meet the market rather than hoping the market will come and meet them.

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The UChannel, Princeton’s eclectic education video blog, has a great summary:

Radio as a medium of culture and information is about to undertake a paradigm shift. It’s not that radio needs a new story, it has one already. The question is how are we going to adapt to it?

Future radio offers radical new ways of engagement. The opportunities offered by high speed connectivity between portable handheld devices, the wide take up of wi-fi internet broadband, the nascent vitality of social networking sites and the inevitable process of human viral networking will increasingly define the future radio landscape.

Future radio will be a multi-media, downloadable, time-switchable, podcastable, portable, interactive, international and consumer-led process.

Are we ready for it? Can we afford it? Can we afford not to afford it? Do we have to let go of all we hold dear? And how do we ensure that a remarkable radio heritage is not lost in the process?

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