Furthermore, such a movie could be uploaded onto the website, YouTube such that it is downloadable, anywhere in the world.

Such a possibility, said Weate, challenges the old paradigms of movie production and distribution, in turn creating a challenge for the sustainability of the broadcast industry as it is currently structured.

Television, radio and the print media, said Weate, are all converging online. And the availability of cheap broadband access in the developed world is such that online media is increasingly popular. Indeed so popular, that terrestrial television is to be switched off by 2012 in the UK.

Against the backdrop of the increasing popularity of online media said Weate, the classical distinction between “hot” media as represented by radio and “cold” media as represented by television is blurring. With online media, said Weate, everything is “hot”. “Hot” and “cold” of course, refer to the theories of the 20 th century media scholar, Marshal McLuhan who had postulated that radio, because of its capacity for instant mass arousal is a hot medium whereas television because it lacks such mass rousing potential, is a cold medium.

According to Weate, the nature of financial investment required for setting up television and radio stations is such that necessitates corporate or government ownership. On the other hand, globally, there is growing distrust of big business and government, which makes user-generated content as is obtained from blogging, particularly appealing across the world. The blog, he said will continue to challenge conventional news media including broadcast media.

Knowledge and information in the age of broadband, says Weate is collective and liquid. It is no longer tied to any place. Interestingly, whereas the children of the '40s and '50s grew up in the radio era, and those of the '70s and '80s the television era, the online medium is particularly appealing to children growing up today and will become increasingly important as time progresses, further challenging the old paradigms of media.

Other drivers, he said, include third generation mobile technology, commonly referred to as 3G. 3G makes it possible for mobile telephone networks to transmit, video and data alongside their traditional voice. Yet other drivers of technology convergence, said Woherem, include data encoding protocols, which make it possible for data to be recognisable by different products; and mobile technology, which continues to facilitate mobility and the ubiquity of content.

Against the backdrop of ongoing convergence in the ICT industry, he added, the broadcast industry is gradually converging with the ICT industry. Internet Protocol Television, IPTV, which has recently been redefined as Interactive Personalized Television, is gaining global spread and popularity. IPTV is available via mobile handheld devices including mobile phones.
One of the key implications of this is a gradual evolution towards a single regulatory framework for ICT and broadcasting.

The distinction between technology products like television sets, mobile devices, computers, game consoles etc will continue to be blurred, he said, as these tools continue to amass similar competencies. Mergers and acquisitions are also expected to become rife in the ICT as well as broadcast industries as convergence becomes increasingly pervasive.

Regulatory reforms, however, will be imperative, as Nigeria's regulatory framework would need to be restructured in such a way as to support the robust evolution and growth of a converging industry.

But increasing convergence will raise a concern for security. How will the security of data be ensured in a situation where material is generally available and transmissible not only wirelessly but increasingly online? This is a question that is increasingly at the fore of discourse centred around convergence, across the world.
Increasing convergence also raises critical concerns for career development in the ICT and broadcast sectors, said Woherem. In the future, there will be three broad career areas in the converged ICT/broadcast environment.

Nollywood added Woherem is awesome and its immense potential needs to be strategically nurtured and harnessed if it is to help secure Nigeria a place in the converged technology future.
Speaking in much the same vein, Remi Ogunpitan, Managing Director of Storm Media and Entertainment Group, explained that the new model for broadcast, media and entertainment business needs to be carefully evaluated in order to appreciate the changes taking place in the industry.

The industry, he says is now modelled in such a way that takes into account, developments in production, technology and new delivery platforms as well as new types of content producers and of course, new practices.

Echoing Jeremy Weate, Ogunpitan affirmed that the broadcast model is radically changing from a top-down one way flow of content from media house to audiences, to a user generated flow of content, with the most pertinent example being YouTube.

In addition, he affirmed that the presence of ever-cheaper broadcast and music recording equipment together with the ready availability useful software makes the production of content for music and entertainment easier.
In responding to the challenges, Ogunpitan advocated the adoption by the broadcast industry of a new business model as prescribed by the International Association of Broadcast Media. The model, he said, is flexible, but also quite all-inclusive. And as stated by Dr. Woherem earlier, in this model, said Ogunpitan, content is king.

branding and promotional imperatives. The sum total is that the world is on the verge of a transition to a radically new way of communicating, a communications model that will increasingly rely more on user-generated content than the old models of broadcast media or newspaper-house generated content. In that model, the entire world becomes the communicator's constituency, out-growing the small distance-challenged constituencies of old.

In the emerging model as well, the ability to develop and deploy interesting content will separate those organisations that will flourish from those that will fall by the wayside. The time to begin to recognize change and adapt to it, is now.

Okoruwa works for XLR8, a firm of communications consultants