Blindside threats whose effects are already measurable in the data.
Podcasting & Audio
SiriusXM has lost paying subscribers three years running. Older listeners are leaving, younger drivers stream from their phones, and the cheap $8 plan meant to defend volume quietly cuts the average payment. The decline looks built-in, not temporary.
Podcasting & Audio
Machine-made shows are already about 35% of new podcast feeds, at $1 each, with no rule forcing anyone to say so. We see $196 million of yearly ad value at risk across a $3 billion market.
Podcasting & Audio
Congress pulled about $1.1bn from public broadcasting, and the fund that cushioned shortfalls is closing. The deeper threat: a listener base averaging 65.5 years old, with just 1% under 25, that is not being replaced.
Podcasting & Audio
Keyword filters meant for web ads are wrongly blocking news podcasts — $114 million a year is at risk. The same blunt tools that over-blocked news online now starve audio.
Podcasting & Audio
The slow decline of US radio is becoming a cull. About $1.1bn a year in AM/FM ad revenue is exposed as debt-loaded owners start shutting stations — and all three big owners have already restructured or gone bankrupt.
Creator Economy
Brands now run three-quarters of creator campaigns themselves, up 16 points in a year. That leaves about $159m of yearly agency income at risk — and the weaker networks are already being sold or folded.
Creator Economy
About 25 states passed age-check laws since 2023, and Australia is already locking half a million teen accounts per platform. The likely hit is $267m a year off an $11bn teen ad base — and it rarely comes back.
Creator Economy
TikTok is rebuilding its US recommendation engine on US-only data through mid-2026, while ByteDance keeps the original. The gap can erase 70-90% of a creator's views and puts $3.7bn in yearly US creator value at risk. The market hasn't priced it.
Creator Economy
Brands now pay creators only when posts drive sales. Results-based deals doubled in two years, quietly stripping out the premium creator pay was built on — even as total spending keeps climbing.
Creator Economy
AI answer boxes settle the question before anyone clicks through. Our model puts the loss at $2.4 billion a year on a $12 billion affiliate base — and the click is disappearing, not migrating.
Gaming
Big publishers are destroying an estimated $4.7 billion a year launching online games that mostly flop — a money pit the market still mistakes for a run of bad luck.
Gaming
AI buyers outbid gamers for every chip. NVIDIA cut gaming card output 40%, memory is up 172%, the PlayStation 5 jumped $100 — a $9.4bn yearly hit to gaming hardware that won't fix itself.