THB #585: Linear Is Making Money, Like It Or Not

I am so sick of listening to media going on and on about how Linear television is an anchor around the necks of the major content studios.

It’s not that Linear (and Broadcast, which is directly connected to Linear… but also Streaming) hasn’t shrunk or will not continue to shrink, though it has been a lot slower in the last couple of years than most of the “experts” expected. And there does seem to be some plateauing, which I attribute not to consumer preference, but to the still patchwork access to high quality home internet service as well as a lot of households that still like the habits associated with cable/satellite and not yet fully embraced by streaming. But I digress…

I made this little chart from the more recent quarterly reporting of the major players who still report DTC and Linear separately, focusing on just the money from those 2 segments of what are all diversified businesses. That leaves out Comcast and Sony. I added Netflix for perspective.

It’s not exactly brain surgery…