School’s Out Peaceniks! So, below, for your grading pleasure, please find my final thesis project for 1H 2025.
Change is now so constant, if you are not continually updating your point of view, you’re falling behind. That “wake up stupid” mantra is precisely why, during the first six months of 2025, I reworked my entire thesis on The Media Universe. This shift in thinking has shown up in our work in different ways.
I completely redrew my Media Map a few weeks ago — adding new sectors, regions, and forty new companies — including projected shapes for Comcast/Keepco and Versant as well as for Warner Max and Disco Nets…
MEDIA: WHERE ARE WE?
Happy Monday Peaceniks! Ready for adventure? Here’s the (really, really) new map…
This coincided with two new reports which were our team’s entire focus this spring.
The first — Media’s Generation Gap — is a study of generational content consumption. Our finding: Media is now split into two parallel, yet distinctly different, ecosystems: one for audiences Millennials and younger and another for GenX and older.
MEDIA: THE GENERATION GAP
Age is different from generation. Demographics do not age, generations do.
The second report is our YouTube Landscape. At the end of last year, I predicted that 2025 would by the year of YouTube on TV. This year, YouTube has been — by far — the biggest television channel in America. This study shows why, and how.
That analysis led me to predict numerous times that TikTok and Meta will be headed for the big CTV screen. Which has all-but been confirmed by them.
I’ve written about how my team develops the narratives of our infographics, newsletters, and presentations. We are constantly researching and evolving our point of view, then twice a year we publish our thesis for the moment: A reflection of the where our industry is and where it is headed, now.
The reports above detail much of the thinking and data supporting our new core thesis (which we delivered at StreamTV this month and that is posted below). HOWEVER, they are a reflection of hundreds of interviews and countless hours of research which framed and directed our work and are woven into the fabric of the thesis.
Case Study: Channel 4
Case Study: CBC
Case Study: BBC Studios
This Thursday, despite being on holiday, I’ll drop an update on the BBC Studios Case Study, on The Media Odyssey podcast, with an exclusive interview of Jasmine Dawson of BBC Studios and Amelia Dimoldenberg, creator and host of Chicken Shop Date!
Case Study: ITV Studios
Case Study: ZDF Studios
This is the space in the post where I normally, concisely (sometimes), synthesize my thesis into a few jazzy infographics and a paragraph of BIG BOLD STATEMENTS!
But since I am actually on vacation this week, I’m going to point you to my actual presentation of our thesis — PowerPoint and all.
It’s been a crazy busy 1H 2025 for me. I also know that recent layoffs and looming bullshit have made 2025 pretty crappy for many of us. For annyone affected by the trickle-down chaos, here are case studies and best practices for just such times.
I hope the sun of 1H 2025 has shown on you. I hope you get to enjoy some downtime this Summer. And I hope 2H 2025 brings only good things.
ESHAP