The convergence party hasn't been cancelled, only postponed.
Despite the end of the telecoms, media and television bubble and concerns about a consumer recession, internet penetration has quietly risen, the move from analogue to digital TV has steadily progressed and interactivity has developed, feeding off the low-hanging fruit of premium rate telephone lines and SMS text messaging as consumers vote and play games within interactive TV.
In addition, DVD penetration is now approaching 50% of homes in the US, and DVD players are a catalyst for the integration of domestic TV and sound systems - and in future PCs.
The telefusion stallion may have lost a shoe but it hasn't gone lame. But the problems we have in the UK are funding, a restrictive legislative environment and content owner caution about the security of and potential cannibalisation from interactive broadband services.
On the funding front, companies have been running out of juice. Granada and particularly Carlton have been weakened by pouring £1bn into failed ITV Digital. Cunningly, management decided to change the name from ONdigital four months before its demise, maximising collateral damage.
BSkyB - to finance free decoder offers and conversion to digital - had to cut its dividend and built up £1.6bn of debt.
Cable is in a far worse state, and still has more debt than many countries in the developing world. Post high-yield bond refinancings, cable is being run on a care and maintenance basis, falling behind BSkyB on innovation - such as personal TV recorder boxes - let alone trying to leapfrog with video on demand. Cable build-out has come to a standstill.
Once NTL and Telewest are on a level and stable financial playing field, I believe they should be allowed to merge, so a new national, triple play local loop service can be branded and sold.
Meanwhile BT has £13.5bn of net debt, and has sufficiently upset Openworld subscribers on the issue of quality of service that a number banded together to form a protest website. BT has maintained uneconomic wholesale pricing for ADSL, or asymmetric digital subscriber line services, stifling the third party market, which has protected its higher ISDN and leased line pricing.
This brings me to legislation. BT has now belatedly reduced its wholesale pricing of ADSL, both for fast internet and video on demand - just as third parties are finding it impossible to raise money to enter the market.
Although there has been a recent acceleration, we are way behind countries like Germany and the broadband Elysian fields of Korea, which has 7.8m connections out of a total 14.4m households - a 54% penetration rate.
On the digital terrestrial front, the BBC should be playing an active role, in marketing and financially, in driving digital TV and radio. It is interesting to note that the Norwegian public service broadcaster, NRK, is proposing to give away free digital set-top boxes to every home, believing that the saving from cutting off analogue earlier will pay for it.
Furthermore, following the passing of the communications bill, Carlton and Granada should be allowed to merge. In any event, you have advertisers such as Unilever and media buyers like Carat and Universal McCann in favour.
If it doesn't happen, Carlton in particular has no plan B and would have to substantially reduce its dividend again. Carlton and Granada's management are putting up a united front, but it will be interesting to see what happens after a merger.
ITV chairmen are like a rearview mirror - relationships between them can appear to be closer than they actually are.
· This is an edited extract from a speech given to the Royal Television Society last night by the former Merrill Lynch media analyst, Neil Blackley, to mark his 'retirement' from the City
