The Midnight Sun of AOL Time Warner

Sheer size alone should carry them through.

In the barrage of media coverage of the AOL Time Warner merger, the Financial Times summed it all up by pointing out "that sheer size alone should carry AOL Time Warner through." In other words, whatever the new media landscape will be, by its weight alone, the new conglomerate will dominate the development. It will be, by definition, the status quo.

Convergence, the fusing of Internet and Television thus becomes a reality, not but because it is "inevitable" or "technically superior", but simply because with $360 billion in market cap and 100 million paying subscribers (all services combined), things, even on a global scale, do not simply happen anymore. They are made deliberately and predictably. It is like an elephant jumping onto small pond and predicting that the water will rise. The future becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And what is being prophesied?

Certainly not the triumph of new interactive media over all mass media, as most commentators enthusiastically wrote. Such a reading is as absurd as saying that with Clinton, Blair and Schroeder, the old 68 revolutionaries have finally won power. While it is true that some of cabinet ministers did smoke and, yes, even inhale, on their march through the institutions they lost so much of their possibly radical past that when they finally sized power they were virtually indistinguishable from the establishment they once appeared to be fighting.

Only a few years ago, the Internet was seen as threat to the old established media. And now that the biggest Internet company is taking over the biggest mass media corporation, it becomes clear that the key to success was not rebellion but conformity: the nearly complete adaptation of the dominant culture of mass media. For AOL, the Internet has always been a middle-of-the-road delivery channel. Ease of use, technically but also as far as content is concerned, has been the overriding concern. Consumer marketing, not user empowerment, made AOL big, and with access to Time Warner's cable companies, it will finally get the fat delivery pipe 13 million homes to pump in high-density entertainment services and a meager "back channel" to collect all those credit card numbers. In the hands of AOL, the Internet turn into a shopping channel on steroids. And with Time Warner to promote the oh-so exciting new possibilities of "interactive" media, it's assured that everyone will like their steroids. The prophecy of the AOL merger is that everything will stay the same, only much much better. Prozac for the masses.

In the new empire, the sun will never set, it will shine upon us, everywhere and anytime, through any channel we open. And the light going to be so bright, we will have to wear shades, even at midnight.