TV Is Disrupting the Internet

[Commentary] The solipsism of the tech community sees the CBS and HBO migrations to stand-alone streaming services as a satisfying disruption of the TV business. But that's a striking inversion of what's actually happening: TV is disrupting the Internet.

A funny thing happened during the Internet's seemingly epochal displacement of mainstream media. While digital media was becoming overwhelmingly ad-supported -- a mass-media model reminiscent of the three-network era -- television gained a subscription revenue stream. Paid television -- that is, cable subscriptions -- became the most powerful growth driver in the media world, producing a new kind of high-value, culture-shaping programming. Meanwhile, digital media, from Yahoo to BuzzFeed to the websites and apps of magazines and newspapers -- and including even Google and Facebook -- found itself overwhelmingly reliant on advertising income.