About
I build brands that hold attention and create leverage.
I run The Streaming Wars…
I run The Streaming Wars…
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Articles by Kirby
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7K followers
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Kirby Grines shared thisOpenAI and Sora exposed something most people don’t want to admit. AI products don’t scale just because people use them. Sora had demand. It had attention. It even had a path into Hollywood. Still got shut down. Why? Because every use made it more expensive. No compounding surface. No durable distribution. No leverage. So they flipped the model. Killed the product. Bought the room. TBPN doesn’t need millions of users. It needs the right ones showing up every day. Founders, investors, operators. The people who decide what gets adopted. Most companies are still trying to generate more. More content. More features. More usage. OpenAI just moved upstream. Control the conversation… and you don’t have to fight for attention later. If that’s true, most AI product strategies are already broken.
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Kirby Grines shared thisVideo subscriptions hit a ceiling. So the industry poured ad dollars into streaming without fixing how those dollars get valued. Now buyers are putting money into impressions they can’t price with confidence. That’s the issue. Streaming services still can’t connect exposure to outcome in a way buyers trust. - No consistent attribution. - No unified measurement. - No feedback loop that actually closes. So performance gets guessed, not proven. Meanwhile, social video prices every impression against real outcomes in real time. That’s why dollars are concentrating there. Not because of content. Because of certainty. Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Most streaming ad inventory is being sold on assumptions that wouldn’t pass scrutiny in any other performance channel. At some point, buyers stop accepting modeled performance as performance. And when that happens, a lot of “premium” inventory gets repriced fast.
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Kirby Grines shared thisCollege sports building something much bigger than selling games. Schools now operate as studios, producing original programming, monetizing it across platforms, and turning athletes into distribution engines. At the same time, conferences are starting to think about how to package all of that into something that looks less like a rights deal and more like a long-term media business. It’s all about expanding the total surface area of what can be owned, sold, and scaled. WHY IT MATTERS: ❏ The commercial model's expanding beyond live rights into always-on content and sponsorship inventory ❏ Audience development is becoming decentralized, with athletes playing a larger role in distribution ❏ The underlying asset base of college sports is getting broader, which changes how it can be valued and packaged PS: Go Blue
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Kirby Grines shared thisOne of the most frustrating trends in the market right now is everyone slapping “AI” on their identity like it explains anything. It doesn’t. It explains nothing. It strips out your product story and forces buyers, who already struggle to differentiate vendors, to do extra work just to figure out what you do and why it matters. That’s the problem. Clear positioning moves deals forward. Vague positioning creates drag. ❏ “AI company” positioning increases confusion and slows buying decisions ❏ Workflow-level clarity is what actually separates vendors in crowded markets ❏ Tying AI to real operational outcomes is what makes the product make sense WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT If your messaging leads with AI, fix it. Start with the workflow. Map exactly where your product sits and what changes once it’s in place. If you can’t point to a specific step getting faster, easier, or cleaner, the story isn’t ready. Cut anything that sounds like a headline and replace it with something a buyer can repeat internally. If your product can’t be explained in one sentence without saying “AI,” that’s the problem. Pressure test your positioning against real scenarios. Show how the product works in practice, not in theory. Buyers don’t buy potential. They buy what they can understand and defend. Stop treating AI like the differentiator. It’s not. The differentiation is whether you can clearly explain how work gets done better once your product is in place. ❏ Lead with the workflow, not the tool ❏ Make the value easy to repeat internally ❏ Prove it in real scenarios, not abstract claims Also, I’m hosting a grab-and-go breakfast at the Wynn during NAB, alongside Akta Tech, where we’ll show what AI actually looks like inside in-market media workflows. If you’re a media operator or exec, comment “burritos” and I’ll send the details.
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Kirby Grines shared thisNetflix has consolidated its Central and Eastern Europe operations into a single office in Warsaw that combines content, engineering, and business functions, effectively turning the location into both a regional production hub and a contributor to the company’s global product infrastructure. The move formalizes a multi-year buildout and reflects a shift toward integrating creative output with platform development, allowing Netflix to align production workflows, technology systems, and regional strategy within a single operating model. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑺𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑾𝒂𝒓𝒔𝑎𝑤 𝑻𝒂𝒌𝒆: ❏ Bringing content, engineering, and operations into one location reduces friction and shortens decision cycles across production and product development ❏ Warsaw contributes not only content volume but also engineering talent tied directly to platform systems, increasing its strategic importance. Local markets become global inputs ❏ Fewer hubs with broader responsibility create clearer accountability and tighter alignment between regional execution and global priorities. Consolidation increases efficiency
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Kirby Grines shared thisGlobal streaming crossed $150B in subscription revenue for the first time, according to new Ampere data, with total streaming revenue hitting $177B once you factor in advertising If it looks like scale, and acts like scale, it probably is scale...but it's NOT. What’s happening underneath is a shift in how that money is being made. Subscriber growth has slowed in mature markets, ad-supported tiers now make up a meaningful share of revenue, and price increases are doing more of the work. The result is a business that’s still growing, but for very different reasons than it used to. WHY IT MATTERS: ❏ Revenue is being driven by pricing and ads, not subscriber growth. Services are making more money from the same users, not adding enough new ones to explain the increase. ❏ Engagement softened before revenue did. Usage dropped first, and monetization tightened in response through higher prices, ad tiers, and stricter account controls. ❏ Control determines who wins. Distribution constraints, ad execution, and product complexity now decide which services can grow revenue without losing users. WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT: ❏ Tighten the system around existing users. Pricing, ad tiers, and account controls are being calibrated continuously, with changes showing up in churn and revenue within weeks. ❏ Reduce product and content sprawl. Operators are cutting underperforming titles, simplifying interfaces, and prioritizing faster paths to playback to stabilize usage. ❏ Treat advertising as part of the experience. Ad performance is coming from placement and flow, not just volume, which is keeping engagement intact while increasing yield. ❏ Be selective on distribution. Services are weighing scale against control, choosing where to give up margin and data access instead of defaulting to every aggregator.
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Kirby Grines shared thisA jury may have just set a precedent for how engagement products get judged. Meta and YouTube were found liable because their products are designed to drive frequency, extend sessions, and turn usage into habit, and the jury decided that design contributed to real harm. This isn’t some fringe tactic, it’s exactly how good product teams build. It’s how I would advise teams to build in a previous life. Reduce friction, increase opens, pull users back in, make the product a default. The same mechanics every team chases, infinite feeds, autoplay, notifications, are now being evaluated in court. That flips the model. Growth isn’t just a scoreboard anymore. It’s something you have to explain, defend, and justify. 𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝐈𝐓 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒: ❏ Everything that drives retention also creates risk, and now those two things might become inseparable. ❏ Categories don’t matter anymore. Social, streaming, YouTube, same system underneath, and that’s what gets judged. ❏ Every growth lever is now evidence. 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐓 𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐌𝐒 𝐍𝐄𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐃𝐎 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐈𝐓: Honestly, probably nothing…at least not right away. Product teams are wired to improve retention, increase frequency, and remove friction. That doesn’t change because of one verdict. What does change is awareness. Mental health is REAL. It's super important. And the same systems that drive growth also shape behavior in ways that aren’t always neutral. That’s been obvious inside product teams for years, even if it wasn’t said out loud. But I only see things shifting with guardrails, regulation, legal pressure. Things that force tradeoffs between growth and control. Until then, the incentives stay the same. --- We analyze this type of stuff at The Streaming Wars. Please checking out work if you haven't already. 🙏
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Kirby Grines shared thisFortnite’s still crushing it...just not enough. Players are still there, scale's still massive, but they’re showing up less often and staying for less time. That’s all it takes. The system runs on frequency, not just size( something we talk a lot about at The Streaming Wars). Once that slips, spending drops, creators slow down, and the whole thing tightens. That’s when the cuts come. This isn’t just Epic. It’s the same pattern running through media, streaming, and tech right now. TSW recently put out the Future of Media Jobs. Comment JOBS and I’ll send it to you. Why This Matters: ❏ Companies don’t have your back. They protect margins. Some are better than others, but none are built to carry excess cost when pressure hits ❏ Thinking like an entrepreneur doesn’t mean quitting your job. It means owning outcomes, tying your work to revenue or differentiation, and building leverage wherever you are ❏ AI is already separating people. The ones using it to move faster and produce more are pulling ahead. Everyone else is competing against them
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Kirby Grines shared thisOpenAI just pulled the plug on Sora, shutting down the first serious attempt to build a licensed, studio-backed generative content ecosystem before it ever reached scale. This wasn’t about demand, usage was there and cultural momentum was building fast. The constraint is structural. Every generated video carries a compute cost that doesn’t map to a scalable consumer revenue model. Disney didn’t misplay this. They built the blueprint, locked down IP control, and designed a system where fan creation could have flowed into Disney+ as a new layer of participatory programming. That thesis still holds. What broke is the environment required to execute it. Without a persistent, scaled creation layer, the model never gets off the ground. The framework exists. The infrastructure doesn’t. Why it Matters: ❏ The limiting factor in AI entertainment is economic infrastructure, not creative demand or licensing frameworks ❏ The “AI as a distribution layer” thesis remains directionally correct, but requires persistent scale to function ❏ The company that aligns cost, scale, and monetization becomes the upstream layer shaping how audiences engage with IP across every streaming service
Kirby Grines commented on a post
1d
If you want the full breakdown, it’s here: https://www.thestreamingwars.tv/the-take/openai-killed-sora-buys-tbpn-and-reallocates-its-entire-consumer-strategy-in-one-week/
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Kirby Grines liked thisKirby Grines liked thisNetflix has opened its Warsaw office as a fully integrated hub combining content, engineering, and business operations, embedding the region directly into its global product and production ecosystem. The move reflects a strategic shift toward fewer, more centralized international hubs that can drive both creative output and platform development. It matters because this model increases speed, improves cost efficiency, and better aligns content creation with technology as Netflix scales advertising, gaming, and production capabilities. --- Follow The Streaming Wars for breaking news, expert insights, and curated analysis from industry pros. Hit the 🔔 Subscribe bell to get notified when we post. ----- #streamingmedia #tv #entertainment #streaming #media #news #ott #video #streamingwarsNetflix’s Warsaw Office Turns Regional Expansion Into an Integrated Operating ModelNetflix’s Warsaw Office Turns Regional Expansion Into an Integrated Operating Model
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Kirby Grines liked thisKirby Grines liked thisMain Street Sports Group’s shutdown leaves 20 NBA and NHL teams without local broadcast partners, marking the effective collapse of the RSN model after failed payments and an unsuccessful sale attempt. The NBA is using this disruption to consolidate local rights into short-term deals ahead of a centralized, streaming-first package targeted for 2027–28, while streamers signal they only want scaled, aggregated inventory. --- Follow The Streaming Wars for breaking news, expert insights, and curated analysis from industry pros. Hit the 🔔 Subscribe bell to get notified when we post. ----- #streamingmedia #tv #entertainment #streaming #media #news #ott #video #streamingwarsMain Street’s Shutdown Forces the NBA to Finally Rebuild Local Media From ScratchMain Street’s Shutdown Forces the NBA to Finally Rebuild Local Media From Scratch
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Kirby Grines liked thisOpenAI and Sora exposed something most people don’t want to admit. AI products don’t scale just because people use them. Sora had demand. It had attention. It even had a path into Hollywood. Still got shut down. Why? Because every use made it more expensive. No compounding surface. No durable distribution. No leverage. So they flipped the model. Killed the product. Bought the room. TBPN doesn’t need millions of users. It needs the right ones showing up every day. Founders, investors, operators. The people who decide what gets adopted. Most companies are still trying to generate more. More content. More features. More usage. OpenAI just moved upstream. Control the conversation��� and you don’t have to fight for attention later. If that’s true, most AI product strategies are already broken.
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Kirby Grines liked thisKirby Grines liked thisKirby argues that calling yourself an AI company has become meaningless shorthand that obscures what your company actually does, forcing buyers to work harder to understand real value and differentiation. AI isn’t the story. Companies that clearly explain how they improve efficiency, increase output, or drive monetization will outperform those relying on vague positioning. Ultimately, AI’s becoming table stakes, and differentiation will come from operational clarity and measurable outcomes, not labels or lazy product marketing. --- Follow The Streaming Wars for breaking news, expert insights, and curated analysis from industry pros. Hit the 🔔 Subscribe bell to get notified when we post. ----- #streamingmedia #tv #entertainment #streaming #media #news #ott #video #streamingwars
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Kirby Grines liked thisKirby Grines liked thisOpenAI is shutting down Sora, exiting consumer AI video after failing to align its high compute costs with a scalable revenue model, despite strong demand and cultural traction. The move reflects a strategic pivot toward robotics, simulation, and enterprise use cases with clearer long-term monetization, effectively removing the distribution layer that underpinned Disney’s AI-native licensing experiment. --- Follow The Streaming Wars for breaking news, expert insights, and curated analysis from industry pros. Hit the 🔔 Subscribe bell to get notified when we post. ----- #streamingmedia #tv #entertainment #streaming #media #news #ott #video #streamingwarsOpenAI’s Sora Shutdown Ends Hollywood’s First Real AI Licensing ExperimentOpenAI’s Sora Shutdown Ends Hollywood’s First Real AI Licensing Experiment
Experience & Education
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43Twenty
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Publications
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The Streaming Wars
The Streaming Wars
See publicationIndustry publication covering the business of streaming, media, and distribution, written by operators for operators.
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Canon Is the New Control Point in an AI Entertainment Economy
The Streaming Wars
See publicationAn analysis of how generative AI shifts power from content creation to authority, and why canon becomes the control point when output is infinite and interfaces move upstream of streaming.
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The Future of Streaming Is Fewer Hits, Bigger Systems
The Streaming Wars
See publicationAn analysis of how streaming is shifting from volume-driven output to system-driven franchises, and why long-term value now depends on building properties that can scale across formats, markets, and revenue lines.
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What the TV Industry Can Learn From the Fall of Toys “R” Us
Multichannel News
See publicationA 2018 analysis drawing parallels between Toys “R” Us and the TV industry’s shift toward platform aggregation, convenience, and the erosion of direct customer relationships. The thesis has only intensified as media brands navigate Amazon Channels, FAST platforms, and the trade-offs between reach and ownership.
Honors & Awards
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16 Must-Follow Thought Leaders in the OTT Space
FX Digital
With unprecedented growth in recent years, the OTT space has become increasingly important to brands, and there has been a proliferation of quality thought leaders sharing their thoughts and insights into a complex industry. When it comes to learning all about the must-know news and insights from the world of streaming, where do you turn for wisdom and knowledge into one of the fastest-growing industries? Well, fear not as we’ve put together a list of sixteen must-follow thought leaders to help…
With unprecedented growth in recent years, the OTT space has become increasingly important to brands, and there has been a proliferation of quality thought leaders sharing their thoughts and insights into a complex industry. When it comes to learning all about the must-know news and insights from the world of streaming, where do you turn for wisdom and knowledge into one of the fastest-growing industries? Well, fear not as we’ve put together a list of sixteen must-follow thought leaders to help you stay abreast of an industry that’s showing no signs of slowing.
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50 VOD Professionals North America 2016
VOD Professional
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Streaming Media 100
Streaming Media Magazine
Streaming Media magazine's editors' picks for the 100 companies that have the greatest impact on the streaming media industry.
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Interactive Media Award
Interactive Media Awards, Inc
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Summit International Award
Summit Awards
Languages
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English
Native or bilingual proficiency
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Swedish
Elementary proficiency
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Spanish
Elementary proficiency
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