Last week the Financial Times in the UK featured two striking videos interviewing Barry Diller speaking on media and corporate governance in the US.

Diller's views are free of a lot of the guff that usually surrounds those subjects. I recommend you watch the videos if you are in the media or Web business, or run a company.  It is not what he says, so much as how he says it. However if you know about Diller's career, you are more likely to value what he says. 

Here's what Diller has to say on audience attention spans:

For decades Diller has been one of the smartest and best paid executives in the US. From 1974 to 1984 he was the head of Paramount Pictures. From 1984 to 1992 he ran Fox, Inc (owner of the Fox movie studio and the Fox television network) for Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. As trivia, that's when Fox greenlighted The Simpsons.

What makes Diller particularly interesting is the fact that early on, ie from the mid-1990s, he crossed over from old to new media. In the current decade he has been Chairman and CEO of IAC / InterActiveCorp which has established, developed or acquired a collection of internet businesses, including:

• Ticketmaster
• Home Shopping Network
  
• Match.com (a dating site)
• Entertainment Publications
• Ask.com
  
• Expedia (and other travel-related web businesses spun out in 2005)

So what are the thoughts of Chairman Diller today? Both video interviews are at the Financial Times, UK website. If your bandwidth is too low for video, then you can read the interview transcript here.

In the first of the two videos Diller speaks on some current issues in the contest between interactive media ventures versus traditional or establishment media. In the second video Diller says America's competitive edge is threatened by the level and nature of corporate governace trends and attitudes.