Yet, at the same time, the race is on to rebuild the bundle.
The heavy ad load had a toxic effect on the TV ecosystem.
It drove away viewers, particularly younger viewers who fled to streaming content that was increasingly ad-free.
A billboard above the El Capitan Entertainment Centre in Hollywood touts Disney’s streaming bundleAaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
This is because online grid and cable television was crafted with commercial breaks in mind.
No amount of advertising on streaming platforms will recapture the dollars migrating to digital.
The cable bundle, for all of its flaws, gets a bad rap today.
Creating great content is an expensive, long-lead investment.
One longstanding complaint about the just-one-bill cable model is that you end up subsidizing channels you dont want.
But the simplicity and convenience of having everything in a single package generally made it an acceptable trade-off.
Youre comfortable paying for the whole thing because the totality of the choices makes it worth it.
Today a lot of the best media still comes to us as a bundle.
Spotify is a bundle.
Even Netflix now resembles the very model it set out to disrupt, complete with live sports and advertising.
Its why streaming services which lack our breadth of content are increasingly looking to bundle their offerings.
The golden age of streaming has produced amazing content, but at a steep financial price to media companies.
And now, the industry will have to adjust to a new normal.
That means fewer, better ads that are more fairly priced.
It means new ad currencies that accurately measure engagement across platforms.
