It’s no secret that the transition to streaming-based economic models for the music, movie and television industries has been disruptive to those businesses. But the force of that disruption has not hit all parties equally or equitably.
The media companies that own music labels and publishers, and the film and TV studios have faced challenges adapting, but at least some of the problems they face have been of their own making. The music companies were rocked, starting with Naptser in 1999, by technology changes they could have, and arguably should have, seen coming. Streaming has been a lifeline since then but they’re now dealing with slower subscriber growth amid market saturation in the major territories.