The Superbowl - Bucking the Trend

The superbowl represented a huge validation of traditional media, and it bucked the trends all around us to move away from shared interests and common messaging.    All we hear these days in a media sense is more news about a fragmented audience, and the need to market to the individual.  The social media powerhouse emergence - got a spare $100B for your own? - is the cause or effect of all this depending on who you listen to.  Amazon and the long tail, iTunes and the evolution of Genius and Ping to find those who may share some interests - it's all fascinating, but it's all about the movement away from a common shared perspective that we have as a society.

That's what made the superbowl so stupefying in a media sense.  yes, we know the commercials are $3.5M for 30seconds, but that was before they knew what the audience would be.  The actual numbers behind this shared cultural experience are breathtaking.

• 111,300,000 viewers in the US - the most watched program of all time.  (Keep in mind that you can count on your hands the number of TV programs that have exceeded 100M in history)
• Canada had 8.1M viewers, and more than 18M watched some part of the game.

Despite all the tie-ins to new media during the ads that were seen, the very fact that more than 1 in 3 individuals in North America shared the same program this week should be cause for celebration for anyone vested in 'old' media.  It isn't dead, and remains a force to be reckoned with.