...if my calculations are correct...

People who (unlike me) have made it past the “Big Bang” chapter of A Brief History of Time tell me that, way into the future, we’re heading for a Big Crunch

I’ve got news for them. It’s already happening.

I’m not talking about the moment the Universe will contract in on itself, like some cosmic Rosemary Conley hip and thigh diet.

No. I’m talking of a sinister foreshadowing down here on Earth. Like that moment in a Keanu Reeves disaster movie when he notices a little blip on a seismic read-out and his friends in Government tell him that, if he wants to avoid snarl-ups on the turnpike and panic buying of Wonderbread, he should shut the flip up.

I’ve done the math. I’ve spent evenings hunched up over a green screen. And, if my calculations are correct, and current trends for consolidation, convergence and contraction continue, we’re sleepwalking our way  to certain catastrophe.

The big lie I’ve uncovered (and that I risk my life in blogging to you) is that, while we’re being fed talk of long tails, fragmented audiences, multi-platform and greater choice, the big crunch creeps ever closer.

Last week, the BBC’s Head of Music – Tim Davie – talked of simplifying its output, of how the best of 6Music will be grafted, like a GMO, into the DNA of Radios 1 and 2.

Of course, that’s nonsense. As more than enough of us have already blogged Radio 2 simply can’t become the Swiss Army Knife of the airwaves. It’s having a tough enough time trying to shoe-horn in The Organist Entertains alongside Radcliffe and Maconie – so there’s simply no way it can make room for the excellent Guy Garvey’s Finest Hour, or Adam and Joe.

But it’s not just the BBC who are attempting to starve us of choice in the name of consolidation.

The painful contractions continue. Take Trinity’s acquisition of GMG Regionals. Trinity have 120 regional titles, GMG Regional had less than 4% of local press.

Georgina Harvey, managing director of Trinity Mirror Regionals, called the GMG titles a “perfect strategic fit for Trinity Mirror’s business and a match made in heaven”. Heaven, in Harvey’s case, translates as “more money, less original content.”

as pure as the PR driven snow

Take a recent story in the Formby Times about snowdrops.*

How local is a snowdrop? Well, according to Trinity, not very. Exactly the same story appeared in the Wirral News. Oh, and the Crosby whatever, and theSouthport thingy. And, tragically, theLiverpool Daily Post.

Only the place names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Admittedly, it’s only a press release filler. It’s not like they’re doing a story about daffodils, or another, more serious seasonal flower. But however you look at it, it’s cheap. And it’s cynical. And it’s not local.  And next year, it’ll be in the MEN too.

This is what consolidation means. This is heaven. It means one size fits all. The Big Crunch isn’t pretty.

Want a family holiday? A generation ago, there was Airtours, Going Places, Lunn Poly, Direct Holidays, First Choice, AT Mays, Thomas Cook, Thomson….

Now, post-big crunch, there’s two players. Thomson and Thomas Cook. Sure, the brands remain, but it’s another smoke screen – they’ve all been mopped up by the big two. The world, for most travellers, gets smaller.

what car? good question

And what about when you get there? Want to hire an economical city car? What about a Citroen C1? A Peugeot 107? Or maybe an (admittedly reckless) Toyota Aygo?

Choices, choices.

But no. Save for headlight-twiddling design touches they’re all exactly the same car – a joint collaboration which results in not one, but three shit cars. See where I’m going with this?

This is what consolidation means. This is heaven. It means one size fits all. The Big Crunch isn’t pretty. (have I already said that?)

But whatever big business does, they’re only doing it with our consent. Because, increasingly, enough of us are happy to accept consolidation in its other form: convergence.

Happy with your iPhone? Sure. Of course, the battery could be better. And the camera’s not great. And, yeah, it’s a shame about Flash.

And, yes, an iPad isn’t as good as the electronic ink of a Kindle. So why are we as keen to believe that multifunction’s better than single function? Or that Trinity Mirror/Thomson/Toyota’s ‘leveraging synergies’ is the only path to evolution?

(* Depressingly, intelligent people were seriously complaining about why a lack of camera could be an iPad killer. What? Just because something’s possible, doesn’t mean it should be green-lighted without thought.

Similarly, just because it’s ‘possible’ to use the same Press Release across 40 local papers without using a single local journalist, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. Unless you want to cheapen the whole experience. It only takes one clever editor to say, ‘actually, it would take us ten minutes to ask our readers to email or twitter in their favourite snowdrop sites’. That way, Trinity wouldn’t be outed as being anything but a hyperlocal publisher, by mistakenly including the word Wirral in its Formby re-write. And readers might still believe that their cherished local press still feels genuine.)

Let’s just take a step back from the keynote speeches and hype.  Let’s hear it for divergence, for a change. Darwin knew a thing or two about it. You could read The Origin of Species on your iPad, if the glare didn’t turn you blind first.

Our mums knew better. They flirted with washer/driers. Then they realised that, actually, they were shit. The sum was lesser than their parts. Unreliable, glitchy and cumbersome, the washer drier was all about compromise. So they ditched them for a decent washing machine and a reliable tumble drier.

So what’s wrong with consolidation and convergence? Well, if cost cutting, compromise and convenience is your bag, nothing.

Me? Call me crazy, but I’ll still take two bottles into the shower, thanks. I’ve heard  Wash & Go makes you bald. All those chemical compromises…