My apologies to Henry David Thoreau, but this seems appropriate as more of us are fishing in streams of content, spending time trying to find a good show or Movie to watch. And you thought skimming through 250 cable channels was a time-waster.

Recently ViacomCBS rebranded CBS All Access to the subscription service Paramount+.  Quite frankly, I would have stayed CBS in the name. It has more brand power in sports, news and programming and is much easier to remember and enter into URL searches.

Take a look at this chart of the start of streaming services: Amazon, Apple, Disney, HBO, Hulu, Netflix, etc. More than you could ever want and certainly more than you would ever want to pay for.

One thing we all know is that hit TV shows or movies drive subscriptions. The fans will follow football. The money will follow the fans. However, this is turning into an interesting conundrum for those who want to save money by cutting the cord on cable. You can go broke covering all the streaming services, but who can have only one or two? If you have kids you have to have Disney. HGTV shows are moving to Discovery+ and NFL will be on Paramount, Fox, NFL.com and other outlets. And if you want the latest movie release, that will be a premium cost for the first run since the movie is not going to theaters as readily.

We have not even started on the local broadcasting that will eventually move to some kind of streaming service. And don’t count out the cable companies. They have the magic bullet — they own the access point to most homes in America to pipe in the internet that provides most of the bandwidth needed for crystal-clear movies and programming. 5G, 10G or 100G will provide more capabilities over the air, but then we are just going back to broadcasting days of over-the-air TV with all of its issues, regulations and weather technicalities.

The clear winners are addressable TV commercials and OTT commercials. More on the difference and availability in future blogs.

Mark Mathis III is chief creative & strategy officer, partner and cofounder of AMPERAGE Marketing & Fundraising.