Disruption revisited: Netflix, Apple TV, Google TV, Facebook TV

Historically, television and media content have generally been tied to specific distribution platforms or outlets. However, multiple new players and new forces are at work now driving significant changes. Four business models have been constructed in this paper, about current initiatives for Internet based television in the USA, which have the potential to challenge the established television industry. First, Netflix with its 'aggregation model' currently runs the largest 'watch instantly' streaming content service in the USA. Second, Apple TV’s ‘walled garden’ model offers an iTunes compatible streaming media device intended to revolutionise how Americans view television. Third, Google TV, with its 'convergence is free' model, now claims that it offers a major in-built innovation that television has lacked for so long — the web. And fourth, Facebook’s 'social media is ubiquitous' model has only recently enabled large movie studios in the USA to use the Facebook site as their first mode of movie release. The paper analyses how these new television services relate to the work of two established theorists on innovation, Joseph A Schumpeter, regarded as a pioneering thinker about 'creative destruction', and Clayton Christensen, who popularised the term 'disruptive technology'. So how transformational might the long term effects of current Internet television innovation become? On a scale from minor disruption to major destruction, what might emerge regarding long term changes to television as a service for its viewers, and to the industry?