The hype in the press and among so many professionals is that media fragmentation is making the market more diverse and complicated as broadband, digital TV and mobile all begin to divide up the audiences across the spectrum. Some countries are more affected than others but it is hard to argue that the rise of ‘new' media (why do we still refer to is as new?) has meant that individual audiences have broken down and become more spread out. Even the traditional media have helped lead this - just look at ITV in the UK who have four main channels to break their audience up across.

Despite the fragmentation in terms of format, it is media convergence that the world should be worried about. Virgin Media and Sky are perhaps the best possible examples. Sky has grasped the era of fragmentation and used its strong brand proposition to place everything under one roof. By expanding into providing broadband and telephony the suits at Sky have seen the enormous advantages of providing multiple forms of communication under one name... and with Virgin Media replicating this by bringing together the mobile phone, broadband and TV channels under their brand, it is clear that in the future there will be fewer players in a more fragmented market.

The funny thing is that with all this converging fragmentation (!) I am yet to see anyone read their mobile instead of a newspaper when commuting in the morning, and no-one I know has ever bothered to watch a TV show on their iPod...