MEDIA UNIVERSE MAPS 2020-2025

A HALF DECADE OF MEDIA MAPS

Welcome to the Map Page! The first week of every month, I post my latest Media Universe Maps here.

NOVEMBER 2025 MEDIA UNIVERSE MAP - LOW RES

More than five years ago (2020), I published my first Map of the Media Universe. Above, you’ll see the latest edition: October 2025. (This is low res. The new high res version is below the paywall — along with downloadable Maps from all five years.)

This👇 was the first ever Media Universe Map…

And five years, that map changed my career forever.

Soon after the Deadline piece, someone called me a “media cartographer.” And the title stuck.

There were myriad reactions to the map. Many were something like “WOW.” Many took issue with me comparing the valuation of Big Tech companies, who dabbled in Media at a loss, using profits from things like search, iPhones, and Office; to Big Media like Disney, Paramount, Warner Media, and Fox, whose sole business is show business. They called it “unfair.” As if the power structure of the Media industry has ever truly been “fair.” Many others saw this map as some sort of prediction about the future of Media.

In truth, this info-graphical representation was the fairest way I could find to portray what was actually happening in Media at the time. Then, as now, the map incorporates publicly available data to scale the relationships between all the companies who control the Media Universe. It’s neither fair nor unfair… it’s math.

The first map was also not intended to predict anything. It was meant to provide a real-time portrait of what had already happened: Big Tech — way back in 2020 — was already the dominant force in Media; and the Users now use Big Tech to control their own, personal Media ecosystems. Fragmentation was/is now the norm; and personalization is/was now required. The old economic models no longer held water, and the vessels of Traditional Media were heading into a perfect storm of new tech and complete consumer control.

Here’s the Map from 2022.

A space-walk down memory lane. Note the relationship between Netflix, Comcast, and Disney. Look at Paramount’s valuation. Look at Meta’s market cap — a telling feature of advertising’s Impression Recession.

The 2022 Map is the first time I predicted NVIDIA would be the next Trillion Dollar Big Tech Death Star. NVIDIA is now worth $4+ Trillion (10X since 2022) and the most valuable company in the history of the world.

Here’s the map from the fall of 2023, when ads were on the rise and FAST was Media’s new, favorite, shiny toy.

In 2024 — literally everywhere in Media you looked — advertising was fully back, baby. And, as expected by anyone who knows anything, this disproportionally favored Big Tech over Big Media.

In 2024, I spent a good deal of my energy and words trying to convince Big Media that the only way to take on Big Tech was to think like big tech (data-first) and act like Creators (fans-first). I implored Traditional Media see social video not as competition, but rather the next generation of broadcast. Last year, I predicted that this year, YouTube would become the most important TELEVISION platform on the planet. Turns out I was right.

Making these maps the last five years, by hand, in PowerPoint, month after month; digging into the earnings of the companies on the map; tracking the economic trajectories of all the players on this field; offers powerful perspective. It allows one to see the minutiae and the major movements, simultaneously.

As I try to demonstrate here every week, just because someone reads the headlines, doesn’t mean they know what’s really going on. Over the last five years, so much oxygen and mind-width has been spent on the Streaming Wars, that many who work in Media have missed the rest of the major trends and movements that most affect their businesses — or entirely misunderstood what they actually mean.

At this very moment, there are rapidly moving currents, flowing beneath the surface of our Media ecosystem, which are now the driving forces for the audiences, engagement, and economics of the Media Universe. These are the core fundamental elements of Media’s New Normal. They blend the surviving traits of Traditional Media, with the radical personalization of bleeding edge Tech, and the powerful fandom of the Creator Economy — into the one, new, prevailing business model for the User-Centric Era that I call:

Traditional, Streaming, and Creators no longer suffice as a descriptors for what’s happening in Media today. The Affinity Economy doesn’t care who signs your paycheck, or where you make your content. Instead this new content industrial construct is powered by the economics of community and the finances of fandom. It’s a complex, multi-layered, infinitely-fragmented biosphere that generates value from engagement and passion, rather than reach and frequency. It is the new playing field for all content-based competitors — Creators and Companies alike — and it comes with a whole new, constantly changing, set of rules.

All the data I see, as we barrel towards 2026, shows me that the disruption we’ve experienced so far this decade will only pick up steam - that the change is accelerating. For some that is terrifying. For me, to be perfectly honest, it’s exciting. I use these maps to tell the story of change, as it happens. I hope you’ll check back here each month for the next chapter in this ongoing Media narrative.

Thanks!

ESHAP

[The high-res Maps are below the paywall. If you don’t see a paywall, thanks for being a Premium Peacenik! If you do, consider a FREE trial!]