the medium is the message - revised version

Marshall McLuhan's much quoted phrase "the medium is the message" is out of date isn't it? The new version should read - "the format is the message". With so many media, and all the new sub-species on the web, the impact of a story depends more than ever on the format: some web-based stories need a picture; indeed without illustration the story is near meaningless. Others, particularly the whole page centre-spread in The Guardian, may be told only as a picture, with barely any text. Yet others need to be told in short form on the radio, while others may flourish as downloadable "extended version"s on the net. It all depends what the story is - and what the format is.