Fake Steve on TV networks

I’d read this guy even if he **wasn’t**  Fake Steve Jobs (FSJ). He’s a fantastic writer, with excellent insights into the (finally) converging media and technology worlds. At the recent All Things Digital conference, apparently both Real Steve Jobs (RSJ) and Bill Gates admitted to reading FSJ occasionally. Occasionally my butt. I’ll bet RSJ has FSJ on his RSS, and is thinking “damn I wish I could say some of those things out loud”.

FSJ posted two columns recently that I thought were excellent examples of his insight. They’re kind of companion pieces, so I’ll link to both his story about Disney and his more general rant about TV networks in general

Daring Fireball posted a quote about how the TV networks are merely distribution engines whose time is done, but I like this bit better:

I stood there yesterday looking at these stuffed shirts [the Disney board of directors] and then thinking about that crowd of teenagers I was watching in Glasgow earlier in the week [the opening of the Apple Store] (yes, I was there; I go to all the store openings) and I could not imagine two groups of people who could be less able to understand one another. And I just had this amazing huge epiphany. I mean these people running networks have just sat up there in their board rooms and conference rooms and private jets for so long that they’ve become completely untethered. They have no idea about how young kids today want to consume media. Let me correct that. The issue is not how kids want to consume media, but how they are demanding media should be delivered.

Ta-dah. Thanks FSJ. You rock like a chair. Um, not that I’d like to sit on you or anything.