VCRs, the Walkman, now Murdoch and Hefner?

Hugh Hefner and Rupert Murdoch suffering from the same headache. Who’d have thunk it?

The internet age is posing a massive problem for these two icons of the golden age of capitalism. On the one hand Murdoch is railing and threatening a clampdown on free online consumption of news from his expensively acquired outlets arguing that it amounts to theft. On the other Playboy is facing a similar dilemma, the public’s appetite for nubile starlets and quality writing (essentially the Playboy proposition) is not diminished. What has happened is that the internet offers the same for free from a million different sources, updated daily and accessed and erm … consumed in the privacy of one’s own home/office/mobile. Going to the corner store for a session of awkward glances and guilty looks while praying the dominee is not going to come in for Grandpa sachets is just no longer worth it.

In the same way that the end of Nat rule ironically signalled the end of Scope magazine (remember those scratch-off nipple-covering stars?) the liberal nature of the internet is jeopardising outlets that rely on payment for exclusive enjoyment. Murdoch is facing the same dilemma. It’s not that people do not care for news and opinion any more, it’s just that paying for a newspaper that gives rapidly outdated news just isn’t working in the information era. And making users pay for news on your outlet is not a winning proposition when one can access the very same news by merely googling their subject of interest.

The reality TV era also makes it difficult for the Hefner lifestyle to stand out as a compelling entertainment proposition when there are so many other shows that showcase more luxury (Cribs for example), ambition (The Apprentice), raunchiness (Girls Gone Wild), glamour (any number of celebrity-centred reality shows) and success than the Jack-Of-All-Trades escapades of one man.

It will be interesting to see whether these giants of a rapidly declining era can find fresh inspiration (after years of profiting from the same model) to survive and even repeat their success in the information age.

I won’t lie; I am desperate for one of them to succeed.