Why Is the Internet Becoming TV?
26th December 2025
The recent ?announcement? that Netflix formalized a deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s television and film studios, as well as the HBO Max streaming service, got me thinking about an essay that Derek Thompson published on ?his ?Substack titled ?“Everything is Television.?”
“A spooky convergence is happening in media,” he begins. “Everything that is not already television is turning into television.”
Thompson then gives three examples of what he means:
1. Social Media is moving from offering connection to streaming videos (in ?court documents? from this summer, Meta admitted that only 7% of activity on their Instagram platform involves users following people they know).
2. Podcasts are migrating inexorably toward video format.
3. Even AI is shifting toward visual media with the launch of new products like ?OpenAI’s Sora? and Meta’s Vibes.
Television, of course, can mean many things. “When I say ‘everything is turning into television,’” Thompson clarifies, “what I mean is that disparate forms of media and entertainment are converging on one thing: the continuous flow of episodic video.”