4 (Continued on Page 6) Malone went on to say that Netflix transformed, and, in the process, created a new business by destroying the old one and surprising the old guard. “Somehow,” wrote Malone “[Hastings] had reinvented the wheel.” In February 1999, this writer wrote in the book TV via Internet (published by Lupetti Editori in Milan, Italy, in association with the Italian advertising trade publication, Pubblicitá Italia): “Webcasting is what will allow John Malone of the cable-TV company TCI to fulfill his dream of a universe of 500 digital TV channels. “However, Malone shouldn’t be mortified if the Web, and not his beloved cable, will allow the vision that he expressed in the early 1990s to be realized. The problem, though, is not the 500 channels, but the two million-plus Web TV channels we will soon have to contend with. And these Web stations need neither transmitters nor licenses. In my view, radio and television as we know them today will disappear within 10 years. “Internet technology will change everything: the way we receive content and the way we manage it. Webcasting will force us to follow the audience, not geographical boundaries. “Webcasting, defined as full-motion video and audio transmitted using Internet technology, is just around the corner. More than 200,000 hours of color streaming video content per week are now broadcast over the Internet. It won’t be long before we’ll be able to tune into any television station in the world via the Internet. “For now, the race is on to improve the technologies needed to transmit full-motion video over the Internet. “Real Network first advertised streaming audio in April 1995, and in 1996 for video transmitted over the Internet in ‘near’ real time. By 1998, The problem when captains of industry don’t check out little known books, like TV via Internet (published in Italy in 1999, pictured above), can be ascertained from the recent book Born to be Wired by Liberty Media’s John Malone, who wrote that “it was easy to underestimate the Netflix threat. The company started in 1997 as a small-order shipper of DVD copies of movies and TV reruns to people’s homes, which by 1999 you could order on a website and receive via the U.S. Postal Service. “The early Netflix [...] looked like a disruptor of Blockbuster and the video rental store. In early 2000 [...] Netflix had just 300,000 subscribers and $57 million in losses. In 2007 [Netflix launched its] first Internet streaming service. By 2009 [Netflix’s Reed Hastings] began betting the entire company on that new Internet-based business, sidelining the DVD business.” The Realized Vision That Was Not Envisioned VIDEOAGE November 2025 World
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