Media is fragmenting. That much is obvious.

Figuring out how best to work with it is not easy, particularly given that social media is an ‘industry’ laden with windbags who create such confusion that brand communicators fiddle around devising discrete social media strategies, rather than realising that social media of just another kind of media.

That (evocatively) said, coming up with an all-embracing communications strategy is no mean feat these days, given the breadth and diversity of media options open to PRs, and the assortment of progress being made to better understand whether and how audiences are influenced by them.

So it was heartening to hear from Channel 4 News this morning that the inevitable convergence of media into something modern, more engaging and more measurable that Speed has been trumpeting for the past few years is finally in motion. It is real.

Today’s media is fragmented beyond all prior imagination. Just take the major broadcast news organisations operating in the UK. They have their showcase TV news programmes – lunchtime, early evening, late evening. And the breakfast news and chat shows. And the news is online. And its circulated on Twitter. And the journalists tweet. And they get interviewed by other media outlets. And they use other social media platforms too. And their content can be second-sourced by print and other online media. There are options everywhere.

This was one of the things picked up at a Gorkana Breakfast Briefing earlier today by a panel of senior people from ITN. According to Ed Fraser, online editor for Channel 4 News, broadcasters are beginning to understand far more about how people want news delivered, about how they might engage with the issues and about how news producers can be more competitive. And he pointed to a time when the televised evening news as we know it may not exist. “Five or 10 years from now, we’re probably only going to be watching Channel 4 News online. We’re definitely seeing a convergence,” he said.

In Ed’s view, the range of options currently available for the audience to consumer (please will someone come up with a better word than that?) news will have to settle down. That process is underway, and as broadcasters keep toiling to understand the audience better the media formats available in the future should be those that the audience really wants to use.

I asked the panel about this. What I heard was that lots and lots of work is going on to pinpoint who’s watching and how they might want to watch, read or listen in the future, but there is no one-size-fits-all way to gain the insight. Which is a symptom of media fragmentation and the assimilation of technology into how news is delivered.

Toby Castle, head of home news for ITV News, said ITV mainly gets to understand its audience through conventional TV network means: who’s viewing, what they’re viewing, and when. Julie Hulme, home editor for Channel 4 News, said its audience leans towards ABC1s, a proportionately high ethnic minority viewer base and 16 to 34-year-olds. Ed mentioned the work that Channel 4 Online is doing to engage with viewers, get direct feedback during news programmes being broadcast and gather insight from correspondents’ Twitter followers. Channel 4 is also soon to launch a social customer relationship management initiative to spreadhead its work to learn more about its audience. Jamie Scott, executive producer of entertainment at ITN Productions, cited use of metrics like Google Analytics in understanding viewer behaviour towards its YouTube channel.

Bit by bit, the media seems to be understanding audiences better, gearing up to reshape how news is delivered in the UK and converging all the different outlets currently on offer into a smaller number of  potent outlets. And by striking at the heart of what the audience really wants and feels, surely stands a better chance of making better money out of it too. Which is good news for PRs.