If you’ve ever dreamed of being a media mogul on the scale of Ted Turner or Rupert Murdoch, you may never have a better opportunity than this exact moment in time.

A “perfect storm” of technology is conspiring to create the greatest media opportunity for the average person since the cable revolution over 30 years ago. It was a technological “disruption” that enabled Turner & Murdoch’s fortunes, and today it’s deja vu all over again.

The watershed moment of the television media revolution was back in 1976 when Ted Turner figured out that he could take his little, low powered Atlanta UHF station signal (WTCG-TV-Channel 17 — later WTBS), and, by beaming it to a satellite, could broadcast his signal (and sell advertising) nationwide to homes and businesses all across the U.S.

In 1975, when I was in grade school, if you would have asked me to name a TV network I would have answered you “ABC, NBC, CBS.” If you asked me the same question a few years later when I was in high school, my answer would have changed a little bit. I would have said something like “ABC, NBC, CBS, ESPN, MTV, HBO and Prism (those from Philly will understand)…” including the newly created cable networks that I then found myself watching a lot of.

3 years from now, if you were to ask any high school student to name a media network, they’re going to answer you “ABC.com, HBO.com, AmericanIdol.com, RapMusik.net and Gamers.tv.”

Here’s why…

In the 70’s most tv’s received their signals from antennas that picked up the over the air broadcast signals. Today very few people get their TV signals directly from broadcast, instead their signal comes from either coaxial cable (i.e. Comcast), satellite dish (i.e. DirecTV) or fiber-optic cable (i.e. Verizon FiOS).

In 2009 there will be televisions, like this one from GE, on the market (not in a lab but actually on store shelves) that come “Internet Ready.” These TV’s will be able to access video from any website in the world, without needing to go through middlemen like Comcast, DirecTV or Verizon (though you will still need an Internet service provider.) This is a similar kind of technological leap forward as in the 1980’s when new televisions enabled consumers to “cut the cord” from their rabbit ears, antenas and set top boxes and started coming “cable ready.” This Internet Ready development means that soon anyone with a video camera, Internet connection and something to say can have their content broadcast to TV’s worldwide, virtually for free.

While today the TV market is closed to the average person (since you have virtually zero chance of getting your channel picked up by Comcast or DirecTV), that’s all about to change. You won’t need Comcast or DirecTV because you’ll be able to take your channel directly to the people. Anyone with an Internet Ready TV (or today has a set top box device like Apple TV or SlingBox) will be able to access and watch your slate of programming on any TV in their home or office. (Not to mention computers, iPhones, Blackberry Storm’s etc.)

No longer will network carriage be the barrier between tomorrows TV programmers (called podcasters and video bloggers today) and their media mogul aspirations.

That barrier will now shift to marketing. Because unless you can effectively market your channel to drive viewership, you’ll be no better off than you were without the distribution in the first place. This is where the critical mass that is coalescing behind The Blogger & Podcaster Media Network (disclosure - I’m the CEO) gets so interesting. Here you have a media network that was started on a shoestring, and is comprised of thousands and thousands of “little guys” (small and medium sized bloggers and podcasters) who, by working together, can own their own media network and have it massively promoted, without it costing them one plum nickle. If you do the math, when The Blogger & Podcaster Media Network reaches 100,000 members (of the over 112 Million bloggers and podcasters worldwide and growing by 172,000 daily according to Technorati) it will have an audience that far exceeds every U.S. cable channel, and will be neck and neck with the biggest broadcast networks - CBS, ABC, NBC, and old school media conglomerates like The New York Times.

No longer do you need tens of millions of dollars to be a “broadcaster.” Those that have the ability to put together appealing content, and market it ,will find themselves in the enviable position of being the Turner’s and Murdoch’s of the upcoming “post-cable” generation.