|
The Business and Consumer Environment
|
The bad economy has weakened consumer demand.
-
For a period in the mid 90's, consumers maintained demand by taking on debt. But this increasing rate of debt could not be maintained as unemployment rose and wages decreased.
|
Most of the "promise" of new interactive or "multimedia" technologies has not been realized.
-
The CD-ROM and video game markets have grown some, but the more richly interactive visions of a "wired world of everywhere" never materialized. While there was a brief period in the middle 90's when consumer demand seemed to be ready to embrace the technology, the lack of innovative and captivating applications quickly diminished this demand. Consumers now are happy to accept the broadcast programming that has proliferated since the early 90's.
-
The media landscape in 2003 is dominated still by the mega-corporations that have ruled since the wave of consolidation that swept the telecommunications and entertainment industries in the 90's. Standards - a huge concern through the early and mid-90's - have been effectively settled by default.
|
