What will TV be like in three years? Insiders predict future

Illustration by Elham Ataeiazar

The media industry is in the middle of change. There’s little doubt legacy cable TV will continue to bleed millions of subscribers each year as streaming takes over as the primary way the world watches television.

Still, the details of what’s about to happen to a transitioning industry are unclear. CNBC spoke with more than a dozen leaders who have been among the most influential decision-makers and thinkers in the TV industry over the past two decades to get a sense of what they think will happen in the next three years.

CNBC asked the same set of questions to each interviewee. The following is a sampling of their answers.

In three years, will legacy TV effectively die?

Peter Chernin, The Chernin Group chairman and CEO: It will continue to be in decline. It will be crappier. Budgets will get cut. More scripted programming will migrate away to streaming. There will be more repeats. But it will continue to exist. One of the really interesting questions here – this will be fascinating – the core of linear TV is sports rights. The NFL deal starts next season and is double the price of the previous one. That will suck even more money out of programming budgets. Then you’ve got the NBA deal, those renewal talks will happen this year. That will probably double in price. So you’ve got increasing prices of the most high-profile sports and declining number of homes watching. That will eat away at everything else.

Peter Chernin

Getty Images for Malaria No More 2013

Kevin Mayer, Candle Media co-CEO: It only has a few years left. It’s nearing the end. For entertainment that has no need to be viewed at any specific time, that’s already done. It’s already largely shifted to streaming. Next will be the end of scripted programming on broadcast networks. There’s zero need for that. That’s going to come to a close in the next two or three years. When ESPN finally pulls the plug, the bundle is effectively over. And that will happen relatively soon. Linear TV is in its final death throes.

Barry Diller, IAC chairman: It’s dying, but while syndication is around, even if its diminished, it will still be here. The tail end of these things lasts much longer than anyone predicts.

Ann Sarnoff, former Warner Bros. chairwoman and CEO: The linear bundle will definitely be around in three years, but the number of subscribers will continue to decline, and the average age of the viewers will continue to increase steadily. One big X factor regarding how the cable channel universe evolves will be sports and how big a role streaming services play in sports. The fragmentation of sports rights is good for the leagues but confusing for consumers. The most passionate sports fans will subscribe to everything and find their sport wherever it is, but fragmentation creates a delicate tightrope for the leagues to walk in terms of maintaining mass appeal and engagement, which have driven a stellar sports advertising business.

Bill Simmons, The Ringer founder: Three years feels way too short to me. I think it’s going to play out like it has with terrestrial radio and digital audio. Five years ago, you could have said radio would absolutely be dead soon, and nobody would have challenged you. But it’s still limping along even with much heavier competition from podcasts, streaming, TikTok and everyone else. Even with ad markets dwindling and the advertising being much more localized, it’s not close to being dead yet. It’s like when Michael Corleone says how Hyman Roth has been dying of the same heart attack for the last 20 years. That’s radio. And linear TV will be the same way. It will have a Hyman Roth death, not a Sonny Corleone death.

Bill Simmons at the 2017 Code Conference on May 31, 2017.

Asa Mathat for Vox Media

Jeff Zucker, former CNN president: It will continue to exist. Obviously it will have fewer subs than it does today. News and sports will keep it alive.

Richard Plepler, former HBO CEO: While linear is obviously not the wave of the future, cash flow is cash flow, which means it still hangs on to some form of life.

Bela Bajaria, Netflix chief content officer: Since I started in this business in 1996, people have always talked about linear TV dying. Definitely the pie will be smaller in three years. But there are so many people who watch linear TV, especially sports and news. It will be smaller, but not gone.

Kathleen Finch, Warner Bros. Discovery U.S. networks chief content officer: Linear TV will absolutely still be here. When you look at the size and scope of the linear TV business, it’s huge. People still like to sit down as a group in front of the TV. It’s very communal. And advertisers love it — whether they’re selling a new movie coming out or launching a car sale. The linear TV business will be healthy for a long time. Obviously people’s habits are changing, but as a business, it’s a large, robust, high-margin business. One of the other things so important about linear is it provides the financial ecosystem to feed a lot of streaming platforms. In our group at WBD, it makes about 4,000 hours a year of content, and it’s a huge amount of content that we make to feed the networks. A lot get a second life on streaming – or a first life based on what we determine. To fund the content just for streaming is a bit of a challenge. But because we really have a great margin with a dual revenue system, we super serve that audience on linear.

Byron Allen, founder, chairman, and CEO of Entertainment Studios and Allen Media Group, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, on May 2, 2022. 

Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images

Byron Allen, Entertainment Studios founder and CEO: I think linear TV will exist for a very, very long time. I believe that all of these various platforms – they’re not instead of, they’re additive. Look at human behavior and how we consume content, we’ve only made a richer landscape. When there was the industrial revolution, it was fueled by oil and gas. This is the digital revolution, and it’s fueled by content. Local TV will still be here and much needed. You need local news. And let’s not forget the networks — ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, the big four broadcasters — have locked up the true religion of America, the NFL, for the next 11 years. So you will be watching those networks for sports. Not just on streaming. I think that contract tells you the bundle is here for a while.

Wonya Lucas, Hallmark Media president and CEO: I don’t think this is the death of linear. I just don’t. I think that linear will still be alive and thriving. I do think there will be some shakeout in terms of which services survive and which ones don’t and which ones are bundled together, and there will be some consolidation. I don’t think everyone can have independence. But I think when we start bundling the cost of all the streaming services, you’re looking at the same cost of a cable package at some point.

Chris Winfrey, Charter Communications CEO: It won’t be effectively dead, but it will be significantly more expensive and have fewer subscribers. A lot of that has to do with the rising cost of sports rights. The new NFL rights extension deal will generate about twice as much cost per year starting in the 2023-24 season. That cost is now being distributed over an increasingly smaller base of subscribers, which is pushing up the overall cost of content. But in the next three years, there will still be customers who can afford it. It’ll just be much, much smaller and more expensive. Eventually there will have to be a restructuring of the business.

In three years, which major streaming services will definitely exist?

Ex-CNN boss Zucker: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple and the Disney suite [Hulu, ESPN+ and Disney+]. The fifth could be a combo of the remainders: HBO Max, Paramount+ and Peacock.

Jeff Bewkes, former Time Warner CEO: Netflix, Amazon, Disney, HBO Max. Maybe one more that doesn’t make much money or is about break even and hovers near death.

Chernin Group’s Chernin: All of them with the caveat that there may be some combination of Paramount, Peacock and HBO Max. The big guys don’t want to buy any of them with exception with HBO.

IAC’s Diller: There’s only one streaming service that’s dominant, now and forever, and that’s Netflix. But many others will exist.

Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC/InterActiveCorp and Expedia Group Barry Diller walks to a morning session at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 07, 2021 in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images

Jeff Hirsch, Starz President and CEO:  Disney, Netfilix, Warner Bros. Discovery, Amazon … and of course, Starz.

Candle Media’s Mayer: Apple TV+, Disney+, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Max, probably. Paramount+ will be folded in, Peacock will folded in. Maybe they’ll be combined with a smaller service like Starz.

The Ringer’s Simmons: You have Hulu, Peacock and Paramount out there as candidates to get swallowed up by a bigger streamer, but who’s doing it? Apple never does anything. Amazon doesn’t need to do anything. HBO/Discovery just went through two mergers in six years. Netflix never does anything. Disney/ESPN seems more likely to shed stuff than buy stuff. So unless Comcast goes on a crazy spending spree, I don’t see anything changing — I think everyone will still be around, just with less employees and way less original content.

Netflix’s Bajaria: Netflix, of course. Disney+ has such a strong library. Many of the others will be interesting. You’re already seeing Showtime and Paramount+ come together. Does Hulu stay in Disney, or does Comcast buy their share out? Does Warner Bros. Discovery stay with Discovery+ and HBO Max, or does it merge with another company? There will be a lot of movement and changes in the streaming landscape. 

Will there be a cable-like bundle of several major streaming services?

Candle Media’s Mayer: Yes, I think so. I don’t know if we’ll see bundles between entertainment companies, but there will be some version of a bigger bundle of content you’ll be able to buy at your choice.

Aryeh Bourkoff, LionTree chairman and CEO: It’s more about self-bundling content and other offerings to generate platform and brand loyalty from the consumer. What I think you will also see is the eventual release of exclusive premium content to multiple platforms to better monetize the best content, but the most successful platform relationships will be self-bundled.

Ex-Time Warner boss Bewkes: I doubt it. I don’t see why you’d need it. Any aggregator’s role would be taking any of the leading streamers and attaching what are laggard, subscale channels. I’m not sure it’s compelling.

Randall Stephenson, then-chairman and chief executive officer of AT&T and Jeff Bewkes, then-chairman and chief executive officer of Time Warner, a few days after the AT&T acquisition of Warner was announced in October 2016.

Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

IAC’s Diller: I do think there will probably be a more efficient way of buying more streaming services, but I don’t think it will be analogous to the cable bundle. One central warehouse who deals with all players and sends one bill — that I don’t think is going to happen. I think it will be somewhat chopped up. But there may be multiplicity, where there may be a much easier way to access a group of streamers than dealing with them individually.

Naveen Chopra, Paramount Global CFO: I think it’s very possible but not necessarily inevitable. On one hand, bundles have tremendous value in terms of increasing acquisition costs, lowering churn and the convenience for consumers. It’s something we definitely embrace. We’ve done a lot of bundles and partnerships that we’ve been very successful with, whether that’s with Sky in Europe or Walmart or T-Mobile in the U.S. A broader bundle that incorporates multiple streaming services could offer some of the same benefits. But there are two really big things you have to solve in trying to effectuate that kind of bundle. The economics is one dimension, and the other is the user interface and customer relationship. Today, streaming services have independent user interfaces and streamers like to own the relationship with the customer. So, you have to give up some economics to be part of that bundle and still have a way of sharing information and enough control over the UI to help build and maintain audiences around the content. There is some experimentation going on with all of these things, and with all sorts of challenges. But I definitely think there’s a possibility of a cable bundle with streaming. It takes time to evolve.

Ex-Warner Bros. boss Sarnoff: It’s hard to understand the economics of how that will work. Can there be an aggregator so people wouldn’t have to subscribe to a bunch of different offerings? The problem is always who goes in the middle. That’s the thing: most media companies have wanted to move away from someone controlling their audience, like cable operators, and determining the value of the programming. Bundling makes sense from a consumer perspective, but as a supplier, it’s much more complicated. Paying one rate is simpler, but there’s an imperfect value equation in there for the content supplier/programmer.

Ann Sarnoff attends the 32nd Annual WP Theater’s Women of Achievement Awards Gala at The Edison Ballroom on March 27, 2017 in New York City.

Mike Pont | WireImage | Getty Images

Chernin Group’s Chernin: I don’t know. A full-blown stand-alone bundle is hard to do. There’s not an obvious aggregator who is going to benefit. Whose best interest is it to subsidize losses to bundle these things together? It’s pretty tough to figure out the economics. The big guys won’t want to take a discount. It would take very complex negotiations.

Mark Lazarus, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming chairman: I think bundles are definitely in the future. It’s sort of already headed in that direction. What’s not there is the ability to replicate the cable bundle user experience. It’s cumbersome, to have to go in and out of every app. It’s buffering. You can’t flip between any two channels, which is instantaneous. It needs to get to a point where the user interface or user experience lets you seamlessly enter or exit content if we’re going to live up to consumer expectations.

Starz’s Hirsch: Yes. In 18 to 24 months, you’ll start to see a repackaging of the linear business into the digital business. The value of aggregation is really important. You’ll start to see more people partnering up. Right now, everyone is seen as a channel. Ultimately, the big folks will become platforms, much like Amazon is doing today. The big guys are going to become platforms. You’re seeing it now with Showtime as a tile within Paramount+. Other companies’ content will become branded tiles within the larger streaming platforms.

Starz CEO Jeffrey Hirsch

Source: Starz

Which companies will dominate as the main hub of streaming?

The Ringer’s Simmons: I believe Apple will be the dominant platform because of its connectivity to user behavior through Apple TV and our phones. They make it so goddamn easy; their main page allows you to order movies, see all the new releases, see where you left off on any show or movie you were watching on every other platform … it’s amazing. That’s the only streamer that acts like a one-stop shop for everything I care about. And they will get better and better at perfecting that. Plus, you can keep logging into your different platforms on there through your iPhone. It’s really smart. All roads lead through Apple.

Chernin Group’s Chernin: YouTube, Amazon and Apple.

Candle Media’s Mayer: There will be three categories. The cable guys could repackage streaming offerings. They’re already doing that with their linear offerings. You’ve got the telcos (T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon), and then you’ve got the big digital players — Google, Apple and Amazon.

Kevin Mayer, co-founder and co-chief executive officer of Candle Media, chairman of DAZN Group, speaks at the Milken Institute Asia Summit in Singapore, on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022.

Bryan van der Beek | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Starz’s Hirsch: You’re seeing Amazon become a platform, and Warner is now starting to become a platform. In the next three years, we’ll also see compression technology that will allow wireless companies to be true aggregators of streaming services — T-Mobile