The FutureMedia festive lecture

TALKING SHOP: Gary Carter, co-CEO of international operations at Endemol Shine Group, delivers the opening keynote speech at C21’s FutureMedia conference in this special holiday edition of Talking Shop.

“It is clear that television, probably the dominant mass communication medium of the last 100 years, will not be the dominant medium in the world of those born in the last 25,” says Carter, who was promoted to his new role last week.

“But if we are not living through the death of television, we are in a period in which the impact on that industry of the arrival of digital mass media – principally the internet and the mobile mass communication technologies – is starting to be clearer, and so are the implications.”

Speaking at the start of C21’s three-day Content London event at Bafta in November, Carter questions the notion that television is in the midst of a ‘golden age’ and the usefulness of thinking in such terms.

“The idea of a moment of cultural perfection is to misunderstand the fluidity of culture itself and is a hindrance to innovation,” he argues.

This thought-provoking 20-minute address offers plenty for the industry to ponder heading into 2015 and beyond.