THE year in media, both in the streaming business and in broadcasting as a whole, saw and will continue to see wholescale changes, many of them negative, some positive. The main story in streaming and in television is the new preponderance of artificial intelligence as its use by the film and television industry threatens not only employees but also the older established moguls and brands’ control of the industry as Silicon Valley makes more and more inroads into Hollywood through its technical dominance. 

In 2025 we are likely then to see both a more closed and conservative space, due to deregulation and conglomeration, in corporate media and streaming. The counter to streamer agglomeration will be Global Television which, as I indicated in my survey of the Best Series of 2024, still manages to produce socially relevant series but which increasingly is under pressure to fold itself into the streaming giants (Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney+, Max) on whose platforms these series appear as they circulate around the world. 

So, here come the machines and the mergers, there go the jobs.