8 Reasons Why The TV Studios Will Die
Recently, I have met with many people including top executives from most of the largest studios as well as people from some of the top internet companies that are building studios, top investors in the VC world that are turning towards the studio business …
Context & Ripple Effects
Writing in December 2007, Dembot grounds its argument in first-hand meetings rather than abstraction: conversations with top executives at most of the largest studios, with internet companies that are building their own studio operations, and with venture investors now directing money toward the studio business. Those last two points are the load-bearing ones — new production capacity and new capital are arriving simultaneously, from outside the traditional system.
The piece stands alone in this corpus — no syndicated pickup and no recorded public reaction — which makes it an early, unamplified entry in what was then an open argument about whether the majors' gatekeeping role survives the internet. The prediction that studios will die remains unconfirmed; what is confirmed in the reporting is the influx of rivals and funding.
First-order effects
- Internet companies building in-house studios become direct competitors to the major studios for content and talent, contesting the studios' role as the necessary intermediary between creators and audiences.
- Venture investors turning toward the studio business give would-be rivals committed capital to finance original production without studio financing.
Second-order effects
- Studios still hold premium libraries and established distribution relationships, so the rational counter-move is tightening exclusivity around that content while the newcomers build production from scratch.
- Competition for programming from funded internet entrants strengthens the bargaining position of creators and rights-holders against the incumbent studios.
Third-order effects
- If internet-funded production keeps scaling, the studio's historic function — financing and distributing scarce video content — risks commoditizing, shifting industry power toward whoever owns the direct audience relationship online.
- Whether the majors respond by becoming digital distributors themselves, rather than defending old channels, is the open variable that decides between industry consolidation and fragmentation.
The trend: Video production is migrating from centralized studios toward internet platforms backed by venture capital, with ownership of the audience relationship displacing control of distribution as the industry's core asset.