How a tiny startup fixed the future of TV

Until recently, the relative resiliency of traditional pay TV and the rapid growth of streaming have obscured the inevitability that TV will go through a similar transition. But we’re on the cusp of it now. Traditional TV is, finally, rolling over, and streaming profits won’t likely be big enough to make up the difference. Many of the downstream ef... See more

An aggregator like Facebook or Airbnb brings all the relevant goods, services, or information that a consumer might seek into one place, and it gathers all the consumers there, too. Netflix is a one-stop shop for film and television. YouTube is a one-stop shop for user-generated video. Uber is a one-stop shop for car rides. These aggregators amass ... See more

When I ask LaBerge if this feels like an inflection point, the moment Disney Plus really took over Disney, he says yes. But not in the way I’m thinking. The future isn’t necessarily one behemoth app for everything, he says. “It could all be one app, and it could also exist outside of one app — the way we’re designing it, it won’t matter.” You and I... See more

For context, the cable networks business is one of the most profitable industries in the U.S.; it represents the vast majority of major media companies’ profits; traditional TV networks revenue growth is, for the first time, stagnating; and traditional TV is far larger than the streaming market — roughly $100 billion in TV network affiliate fees an... See more

Distributors will certainly play a role in the future of TV, but we believe that three potent forces will be far more powerful in shaping that future: consumers, advertisers and content owners.

There is a lot of excitement about traditional TV companies transitioning to streaming, but an unavoidable conclusion is that the streaming business is structurally much less profitable than traditional TV.