Reading this piece in the LA Times — “Why Hollywood is not alarmed enough about Gen Z” — gave me déjà vu.

Reading this piece in the LA Times — “Why Hollywood is not alarmed enough about Gen Z” — gave me déjà vu.

About 15 years ago, I found myself in a room full of senior media executives. It might’ve been at the BBC, where I ran digital platforms and helped launch iPlayer, the world’s first true on-demand streaming service. Or maybe it was at the Daily Mail, where I was CEO of digital and helped scale Mail Online from 10 million to 100 million unique visitors, turning it into the world’s largest digital newspaper.

I can’t recall which company it was — those years had a repetitive rhythm of executive meetings, strategy summits, and industry panic. Social media was nascent, streaming brand new. But even then, it was obvious: the way people consumed media was changing fast, and the industry still viewed digital, streaming, and social as parallel behaviors, not as the future.

In that meeting, one of the company’s top leaders — the CEO or Chairman at DMGT, or possibly the Director General at the BBC (who, incidentally, would go on to become CEO of the New York Times) — turned to me and asked:

“Titus, who do you think should scare us more? NewsCorp? The New York Times? CNN?”

Without missing a beat, I said:

“YouTube. Facebook. And two kids in a garage in Palo Alto.”

The room went silent. Then it exploded.

We debated how to get young people to watch the news on TV, listen on the radio, maybe even pick up a newspaper. I argued — the lone voice in the room — that it wasn’t going to happen. The next generation would consume media entirely digitally, on their own terms, and mostly on-demand.

To test it, we commissioned a large research study to understand how young people — like my two daughters now in college — actually consumed news. I figured 5 — 10% might still read a newspaper once a week.

The result?

Zero.

Zero percent of respondents under 25 read a newspaper or watched traditional news daily.

Zero.

That result stunned even me.

It confirmed what I’d suspected: media isn’t about form — it’s about attention, loyalty, and habits. And the habits of younger generations don’t just evolve — they often form in opposition to the expectations and preferences of the generation before.

Too many legacy media executives drive with their eyes glued to the rearview mirror. They worship formats instead of audience behaviors. And they ignore the signals, even when the future is banging on the door.

This is why I spent my career helping media companies adapt rather than resist:

• At the BBC, we launched iPlayer, making streaming a mainstream behavior across devices.

• At the Mail, we built a digital content engine that redefined the tabloid for the internet.

• Earlier, at Razorfish (which I co-founded) and later Schematic (which I founded), we laid the foundation for systems that now power podcasting, mobile streaming, and the content infrastructure we all take for granted across platforms networks and devices.

So when I read that Hollywood still hasn’t figured out how to connect with Gen Z — I believe it. But it’s not just a Hollywood problem. It’s a pattern.

And if history is any guide, the next wave of disruption won’t come from a studio or network.

It’ll come from two kids in a garage.