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 \u27aggregation model\u27 currently runs the largest \u27watch instantly\u27 streaming content service in the USA. Second, Apple TV\u27s \u27walled garden\u27 model offers an iTunes compatible streaming media device intended to revolutionise how Americans view television. Third, Google TV, with its \u27convergence is free\u27 model, now claims that it offers a major in-built innovation that television has lacked for so long, the web. And fourth, Facebook\u27s \u27social media is ubiquitous\u27 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 \u27creative destruction\u27, and Clayton Christensen, who popularised the term \u27disruptive technology\u27. 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