The wrap-up

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Every industry has an inflection point. The question is what happens next.

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Industries grow. They mature. Growth slows. And without meaningful innovation, decline often follows.

Look at three once-dominant advertising businesses.

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Yellow Pages. The decline accelerated around 2007–2008. Once essential to local businesses, printed directories have largely disappeared from everyday life.

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Newspapers. Advertising revenue peaked in 2005. Many newspapers have closed, consolidated, or dramatically reduced their print schedules.

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Traditional Television. I put the turning point around 2018. The decline hasn't been a straight line, but the long-term direction is difficult to ignore.

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Streaming television tells a very different story.

Audiences and advertising opportunities continue to grow.

Streaming approaches near-universal household penetration, percentage growth will naturally moderate.

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Don't mistake slower percentage growth for a shrinking opportunity. A streaming service with 64 million subscribers growing just 4% is still adding more than 2.5 million subscribers.

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Here's what I find interesting.

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People didn't stop looking for businesses when Yellow Pages declined.

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They didn't stop consuming news when newspapers declined.

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And they certainly haven't stopped watching television.

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What changed was how they consumed it.

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Over the past three posts, I've shared my perspective on what's killing local TV.

Cord-cutting, streaming, and changing consumer behavior are real challenges and many post write about them.

What I dont see often and a core belife of mine is that I believe the decisions made inside the industry have accelerated the decline.

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Innovation isn't simply finding new products to sell. It's finding ways to make your core product more valuable.

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I still believe television has a future.

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I'm just not convinced the traditional television business model does.

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The question isn't whether television will survive. It's whether the companies that built the industry will successfully evolve with it.

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Or has that opportunity already passed?

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