Often, faltering traditional media companies blame the Internet for their woes, but does the problem actually lie in misunderstanding the nature of their business?

Here’s an excerpt from the article What Many Media Companies Don’t Get About Building An Audience.

Most firms believe that they are in the business of distributing content through discrete channels, and that mischaracterization often leads to poor strategy and execution. (Read on for some of the latest examples.)

If you make television shows, films or music, your business is actually the audience business. The same goes for books, magazines and newspapers. Michael J . Wolf, former President of MTV Networks, put it this way when I spoke with him. “Television companies are in the programming business and the brand business. When you look at a network like Syfy, or Cartoon Network, or Nickelodeon, they mean something.”

Let’s hope more media companies will quickly learn what kind of business they’re actually in — before they go out of business.