entertained, shocked and awed an industry crowd in Madrid this week. The former top executive at the likes of and , as well as producer ( , ), now calls himself a “media universe cartographer” and shares graphics, charts and unconventional thoughts on such platforms as his Substack newsletter “Media War & Peace: Reports from the War for Our Attention.” And he reflected on the current — and future — state of media and the key role of Ibero-American markets during a keynote appearance at , following a keynote appearance from Spanish ctress and director .
Among the themes he touched on was the financial and market power of the six technology “Death Stars,” as he calls them, that are each worth more than $1 trillion in market value — namely Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Meta, Microsoft and Nvidia — and why streaming has remained a difficult business. When Disney decided to push into streaming, “in pursuit of Netflix and its flawed ad-free business model, we left behind the era where media was in control and moved into the user-centric era,” he told . The rest of Hollywood giants chased behind.
“All the horsemen of the streaming apocalypse followed without really analyzing what would happen by pursuing the direct-to-consumer model,” Shapiro argued. His conclusion for this new age? “Content is still king. But data is the bloodline,” according to Shapiro, who urged media and entertainment executives to challenge business models and come up with new solutio.