THE 21ST CENTURY: ADVERTISING AND THE MEDIA

"IT MIGHT sound a bit surprising but I think the next big innovation in advertising is going to happen in print," says Peter Amell of the Amell Group in New York, who handle accounts like DKNY and Chanel. "With advances in chip technology, I think you're going to see microchips integrated into magazine advertising in the very near future. It's something we're looking at doing with our client Samsung and it's going to give interactivity a whole new meaning in the magazine sector."

Magazines are about to enter a golden era. Or else they're pretty much finished. It all depends who you talk to.

"Forget it, magazines are totally over!" says Faith Popcorn.

But Mathias Horx of Trendburo begs to differ: "Magazines will continue to have a place, because there are certain qualities they have that are going to be very difficult to replicate with a computer."

"Until you can come up with a format that is capable of marrying text with pictures in a format that doesn't need an external power source and costs around pounds 2, you won't replace the magazine as we know it," says Robin Derrick, the art director of British Vogue.

Looking at the forecast for magazines, all the European editions of Vogue might merge into one uber-Vogue that will vary only slightly, with each language having regional inserts. Higher paper costs and a more unified market might see many titles follow a more centralized route. Magazines will not be replaced by the Net, they'll be enhanced by web-sites that will strengthen their profiles.

In broadcasting, the BBC will go commercial before it's privatised and will become an enormous success when it launches a service in the US that fills a huge quality gap in the market. Microsoft and NBC will launch a specially tailored European TV news network, before launching a host of interactive networks delivered to people's home media hubs.

"Everyone is terrified all this new media is going to replace the printed word," says Peter Amell. "Media never replaces media, it just keeps adding to itself."